Charlotte 49ers’ Poggi ‘on a warpath’ after 41-25 loss to Georgia State
In what was a “must-win game,” according to first-year head coach Biff Poggi, the Charlotte 49ers were beaten by double digits for the second game in a row, this time falling 41-25 to Sun Belt foe Georgia State at home.
Georgia State quarterback Darren Grainger was nearly unstoppable in the win, dominating the 49ers’ defense and scoring four times to lift the Panthers to 3-0 for the first time.
Poggi was beside himself following the loss, stating that he would mull staff changes and find a way to play his brand of football moving forward.
“This falls on me. I’m telling you right now, I’m on a warpath,” Poggi said. “I just met with our coaches, and we’re going to get it done the way I want it done — or either I’m not going to be here, or they’re not going to be here. I am not doing this for the rest of the season.
“I’m the head coach. I’m the guy that hired these guys. I’m the guy that set the vision. I’m the guy that brought the players in. I’m going to change my approach going forward. Coaches are going to be graded much more strictly. They’re going to be on a much tighter leash. If you don’t like that, we’ll get you another home. But I’m not doing this anymore.”
Charlotte’s defense has allowed 1,093 total yards and 79 points in the past two games, and the offense is yet to break the 20-point threshold against an FBS program.
The 49ers have scored on defense and on special teams in both losses, including Henry Rutledge’s 46-yard punt return for a touchdown — the program’s first punt-return touchdown — but Poggi’s displeasure with the offense boiled over following the game.
“I’m going to go into our playbooks and start simplifying terminology and scheme. I’m going to go through our installs and start taking stuff out, find out what we do best, and do it. For me, football is a very simple thing,” the 49ers’ coach said. “It isn’t really about the coaches; nobody cares about how smart you are. It’s about what do your players do well and how you put them in a position to do that. These are very simple things. We tend to make the game way too complicated. I think everybody wants to be the next whiz kid that’s the next 32-year-old head coach of the Rams one day. I’m not interested in that.”
Charlotte played two quarterbacks in the loss, starting with Jalon Jones and switching to Trexler Ivey on the game’s second possession. Ivey’s arm gave the 49ers life through the middle of the second quarter, and Jones’ legs kept the 49ers competitive into the fourth quarter.
But every time Charlotte would battle back, Georgia State would answer — routinely with a deep ball from Grainger. Despite trailing by 24 in the third quarter, Charlotte’s rally appeared to trim the Panthers’ lead to just eight points following Rutledge’s punt return, but an overturned two-point attempt kept the 49ers down two possessions.
And then Georgia State slammed the door on Charlotte’s comeback attempt.
On third-and-12 early in the fourth quarter, Grainger tossed a picture-perfect pass to Robert Lewis, who bobbled and eventually grabbed the game-sealing 38-yard score in front of Charlotte’s bench, his second of the day.
For the first time this season, Charlotte appeared to revert to the issues that plagued this team the past three years: troublesome defense and a lack of second-half adjustments.
Here are three takeaways from Charlotte’s (1-2) second loss of the season.
Who is the QB? Poggi’s unsure
After not listing a single starter on the offensive depth chart, Poggi elected to make the switch to quarterback Ivey after just one drive, with Jones not attempting a single pass in the first quarter.
Despite a slow start from Ivey, including an interception and a turnover on downs inside the Panthers’ 5-yard line, Charlotte’s offense had a new feel with the redshirt sophomore at quarterback.
But it didn’t last.
Offensive coordinator Mike Miller flipped between Ivey and Jones the entire second half, which was seemingly ineffective, despite Jones’ 58-yard scamper down Charlotte’s sideline for a score to keep Charlotte’s comeback hopes alive.
It is clear that Charlotte’s passing offense is more fluid with Ivey at the helm. Ivey finished the night completing 20 of his 28 passes for 257 yards, a touchdown and an interception. Jones has 253 passing yards, three total touchdowns and five turnovers total on the season, but he was also Charlotte’s leading rusher, with six carries for 80 yards and a score.
Ivey’s lack of awareness in the pocket and inability to scramble to extend plays cost the 49ers down the stretch. Leading to the question, how will Poggi handle the quarterback position moving forward?
“I don’t know really, right now. I don’t like the fact that No. 11 (Ivey) took four sacks in critical positions. He should know better than that, and that was a huge amount of negative yards. Right now, he makes better reads than No. 4 (Jones), but I think we’re more dynamic with No. 4 in the game,” Poggi said.
Charlotte’s next matchup is at the Swamp against Florida, where Jones started his collegiate career in 2018. Jones spoke about following the game plan and carrying over their practice habits to Saturdays, but Poggi disagreed.
“As players, we’ve got to look within and dig deeper. Our coaches put us in a position during the week to execute a good game plan, and we’ve got to come out with the same intensity that we have in practice and carry that over from what we do Monday through Friday,” Jones said. “We’ve just got to continue to work and push the envelope and be better as players.”
Poggi added: “I disagree with that, but I wasn’t asked.”
There’s a clear disconnect between players and staff, and it’s boiling over on both sides of the ball.
Defensive hangover
After holding South Carolina State to just a field goal and holding Maryland out of the end zone for the entire first half last Saturday, Charlotte’s defense saw a hangover from the final 30 minutes of the loss in College Park, where the unit surrendered 530 yards and 38 points to the Terrapins.
Saturday night at Richardson Stadium was more of the same.
Georgia State built an early 17-0 lead with Grainger dominating with both his arm and legs. Following Ivey’s lone interception of the game, Georgia State’s offense was pinned at its own 3-yard line. On the first play of the drive, Grainger lofted the best throw of the night, finding Lewis on a 97-yard deep ball touchdown to notch Georgia State’s longest play in program history.
Reminiscent of Charlotte defenses of old, the 49ers surrendered 566 total yards and 41 points, including 461 yards through the air on 14.4 yards per attempt. 243 of those yards came after the catch, with an abundance of missed tackles in the secondary.
Linebacker Prince Bemah elaborated on the defense’s struggles following the game.
“It did give me a flashback to the past couple of years,” Bemah said. “If you watch our first two games, our defense was clicking great. Tonight, everybody wasn’t on the same page, especially on the back end. Communication was all over the place, and execution wasn’t it. We’ve got to get better this week. We won’t ever have that performance ever again.”
Georgia State runs 2.53 plays per minute, which is the 20th fastest in the nation entering Week 3. It was clear that Charlotte’s defense struggled with the tempo, busting coverages across the field and allowing repeated quarterback draws through A-gap.
Lacking identity
Outside of Rutledge’s punt return for a touchdown late in the third quarter, Charlotte was the complete opposite of what it claimed to be entering the season.
Poggi has advertised this team as a Big Ten program since he stepped foot on campus in November, meaning dominating the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball and being a run-first offense.
Charlotte rushed for just 88 yards in the loss and is converting just 24.3% of its third-down attempts, ranking 128th out of 131 FBS programs.
“I don’t like what we’re doing. We’ve moved away from what I said we were going to be, which is a downhill running, gap-scheme play-action pass team. I don’t think we are that. What I had wanted has gotten eroded over time,” Poggi said. “Part of that is because as a head coach, you’re doing so many things. I spend so much time with the players that I can’t be in every meeting. But I’m going to have to be in them, it looks like. I will tell you, if I have to go in the booth and call them myself, I will.”
Despite the loss, Charlotte did see production from Colorado transfer Jack Hestera, who caught seven of his 10 targets for 109 yards and a score. Another wideout, Pittsburgh transfer Jaden Bradley, who was presumed to be Charlotte’s No. 1 receiver going into the season, didn’t play on Saturday night and has only played four snaps this season. Poggi said that Bradley “has some personal issues he’s working on, but I’m not at liberty to talk about it.”
This story was originally published September 17, 2023 at 1:26 AM.