2021 G5 Preview: Georgia State Has One Of The Sun Belt's Best Offenses
Led by young quarterback Cornelious Brown IV, I'm really liking what I've seen from the Panthers.
ICYMI: This is a part of The Outside Zone’s full 2021 G5 preview series, which last looked at Central Michigan. You can find a master list for all of the previews here.
Quick note: I’m taking a weekend trip to Boone and leaving Friday morning. I’m going to try to prewrite a newsletter for that day, but given the time constraints of having a full-time job, I can’t make any promises. If there’s no newsletter on Friday, expect to see the Outside Zone bright and early on Monday morning with a Wyoming preview.
Folks, you’re never going to believe this – there was an interesting and fun offense in the Sun Belt last season, and it returns every single member of the two-deep that contributed to it.
No, I’m not talking about Coastal Carolina, Louisiana, Appalachian State, Georgia Southern, Arkansas State or Texas State, I’m talking about Georgia State, a program that’s frequently flown under the radar in discussions about this league. It’s easy to understand why.
The Panthers have been consistently middling (not terrible, just middling) under head coach Shawn Elliott, weren’t doing anything especially unique prior to 2020, and sit in the East division, the much better of the two, where they have to compete with Coastal Carolina and Appalachian State every year (and not to mention Troy and Georgia Southern, both of which have high floors). It’s a little easy to get lost in this league without an identity.
In 2020, GSU found one in the form of quarterback Cornelious Brown IV, a stellar room of receivers and the offensive system of coordinator Brad Glenn, a longtime Elliott assistant. That’s not to say that this offense wasn’t good before – hell, it was awesome with Dan Ellington in 2019 too – but for the first time in the Elliott era, this offense was both productive and entertaining.
Unlike in 2019, it came from the passing attack in 2020, while the running game took a pretty serious step in the wrong direction. That’s didn’t matter though. Brown was good enough to lead the offense to nearly 34 points per game, and while he threw a few too many risky passes for my taste (17 TDs to 10 INTs), he looks every bit like the next great Sun Belt quarterback, and as mentioned, his entire offense is coming back.
Rather than beat around the bush anymore, let’s talk about that offense, and specifically…
The Passing Game
Georgia State isn’t doing anything terribly new in the passing game, but the flashes of excellence from Brown were so good and his receivers were absolutely unstoppable at times.
Sam Pinckney was the best of the bunch and seems to be straight out of central casting for big-bodied Sun Belt deep threat receivers. He’s 6-4, 210, has what appears to be an eight-foot wingspan, and can do this.
That’s… pretty good. And it was a lot of the Georgia State passing attack last season, partially because Brown was very confident in his own abilities and partially because for the most part, it worked. Pinckney turns these 50/50 balls into 70/30 balls, and Georgia State leaned into it with a ton of limited read plays like this one. For the sake of this offense, that usually meant one underneath option and two viable deep ones (always with Pinckney as one) and an increased blocker count to give Brown more time.
It was obvious that GSU was working around a young, still learning quarterback, but this was also just a solid approach for the talent they had. The line was good enough to keep Brown upright while these plays developed and very few Sun Belt corners are keeping up with this room.
Here’s another Pinckney special, this time showing off his ability as a deep ball tracker. Georgia States leaves the halfback in to block, provides two underneath options and a shot to the opposite corner, but the intended target is clear and Brown is eyeing him the entire play. He puts the ball on the money, Pinckney does as he does, and Georgia State has six points.
A bit more complexed here in the route department, but a similar idea. Pinckney is looking to get one on one down the field and wants to create separation by being severely better than his opponent in all facets of the game, which he is. The play is still simple for Brown, who just has to read that nickel and dump the ball off to his halfback if he drops, and then read the deep safety and throw to whichever receiver he doesn’t cover. This is a well-designed offense that looks that much better because of how it treated its young quarterback.
That’s not to say that Brown can’t read a defense. He has quick eyes and doesn’t hold onto the football too long, which is a big deal for a young signal caller. When he reads man on the slant here, he switches quickly to the halfback out of the backfield - a strong decision that a panicking quarterback doesn’t make. Brown certainly has room to grow, but he was so impressive last season that I have absolutely no questions about what he (and by extension the Georgia State offense) will be able to do this season.
The Running Game
The rushing attack was not good in 2020, but Georgia State went to it frequently, which put Brown in some tough spots.
The good news: It wasn’t really a line issue.
The bad news: It was a ball carrier issue. Georgia State was without one that it could trust until the very end of the season, and you can count me as skeptical about former South Carolina defensive back Jamyest Williams being the long-term solution, even if he was the best option that came into view late in the season.
If he is, however, that solves a lot of problems. He was much better at reading his blocks than Destin Coates or Tucker Gregg, and he works better with the QB run-infused attack that Georgia State wants its running game to be. He’s not very big, but I’d enjoy it a whole lot if he’s capable of being the guy, I just don’t yet trust it.
This attack does a couple things, but the cornerstone is the QB run, as I implied. Brown is… fine at it. He can make his reads adeptly and is a good athlete, though he fucks around way too much in the backfield and will get himself into trouble by doing too much dancing. He can do some damage when he just goes, but that wasn’t always his MO in 2020.
Georgia State showed some pretty cool speed option stuff in 2020 as well, though Brown rarely pitched the ball, opting instead for a lot of looks like this one. I love the design here with the pair of pulling linemen from backside guard and center, and am strongly in favor of a pin and pull speed option, I just need to see it run more efficiently from GSU in 2021.
The standard rushing game is a mixture of zone and gap stuff at pretty much 50/50, though I would look to lean more to the latter if Williams is going to be the guy this year, because he’s quite a bit better at following his blocks and can makes plays like this work. For Coates, you probably need to stick to zone.
The Defense
I’m in a wait and see mode with the defense and have no real strong thoughts on it yet. it was absolutely terrible to open the year but very strong late, and I just don’t know what to believe. Most of it returns and the run defense should be one of the conference’s best, but the secondary needs to carry over its late season momentum, and the pass rush needs to improve.
If it does, Georgia State should be in a bowl pretty easily, and could be the clear No. 4 in the Sun Belt. Unfortunately for the Panthers, with the top three returning all of their players as well, I don’t see a real jump into contention this season. Look for an upset or two and an 8-4 or 9-3 season, but the talent isn’t quite there yet to topple the best of the league. If Brown keeps improving, however? Watch out in 2022 and potentially 2023, when he and Grayson McCall will be two of the best quarterbacks in the whole damn country.