Charlotte football wins! Takeaways from the 49ers’ dramatic victory over Gardner-Webb
Hahsaun Wilson took a handoff from Trexler Ivey and kept running.
The 39-yard touchdown run for the Charlotte 49ers came in a tie game during the middle of the fourth quarter and gave them their first — and only — lead in a wild 27-26 victory.
Charlotte had fallen behind early against Gardner-Webb on Saturday night, and the offense flipped a switch in the game’s late stages.
Ivey, who played in 11 games a season ago for Charlotte, took over for true freshman quarterback Deshawn Purdie early in the fourth. He led three quick touchdown drives, initially finding O’Mega Blake and Sean Brown for receptions in the end zone.
On his touchdown, Wilson sprinted through the end zone and ran all the way up the Niners’ sideline, high-fiving cheering spectators among the soldout crowd of 16,715 along the way.
Gardner-Webb kept pushing, converting on fourth down and driving all the way to the “six-inch line,” as the PA system referred to a spotting inside the one. The Runnin’ Bulldogs punched it in — but failed to successfully convert the two points and remained behind.
The impetus for the Niners’ comeback?
Steve Wilks, the former NFL head coach who’s hanging around Charlotte in a voluntary role, gave a fiery halftime speech, and head coach Biff Poggi followed it up with his own wisdom.
“When I walked in, Coach (Steve) Wilks was in the defensive meeting room with the defensive staff and coaches, and there were lightning bolts coming out of his eyes and fire out of his mouth,” Poggi said. “And then he went in and did it with the offense. Basically, the message was: ‘We’re better than this. We believe in you. This game’s not over.’
“And then as we were going out, I actually stood up on a chair at the doors — which the kids helped me get on, because I could have broken my neck. It had wheels on it. That wasn’t very smart. But I told them, very enthusiastically: ‘If you don’t think we can win this game, don’t go through these doors.’ And they’re a dude who batted an eye.”
Trexler Ivey entered for Deshawn Purdie, and the Charlotte offense rolled
Charlotte’s true freshman quarterback made his first collegiate start, and the 18-year-old Baltimore native threw for 194 yards while completing 16-of-23 passes.
But Purdie didn’t move well under pressure — and was sacked six times before being replaced by Ivey in the fourth quarter.
Ivey completed six of his first seven passes to lead a scoring drive capped by a touchdown from Blake. But Ivey overthrew a shot to Blake on the attempt for the two-point conversion, and the deficit remained eight points.
He connected with Brown for a 28-yard reception to cap a brisk, six-play scoring drive. Brown squeezed in the two-point conversion as well to knot the score at 20-20.
“Deshawn (Purdie) is a very special kid,” Poggi said. “A wonderful kid, wonderful family. Deshawn could have gone a lot of places, and he wanted to come to Charlotte because he wanted to help us build something special here. And he will. He’s a supreme talent.”
Max Brown, the Niners’ starting quarterback who’s out with a thumb injury, roamed the Charlotte sideline with his arm in a sling, sweat pants and a long sleeve shirt underneath his jersey.
Charlotte’s special teams kept it in the game
One of the longest field goals in school history put Charlotte on the board as the first-half clock ticked down.
Redshirt junior Stephen Rusnak hammered a 54-yard field goal right before the sides went to halftime. The blast — from the Niners’ new kicker who previously handled kickoffs and PATs at Michigan State — ties for the fourth-longest in program history with Jonathan Cruz, who also kicked two of the Niners’ three 56-yarders.
Michael O’Shaughnessy launched a 73-yard punt earlier in the first half, and that’s good for the program’s third-longest all-time. Charlotte’s punt team moved up the field in a flash and downed the football inside the one-yard line.
After Gardner-Webb opened the scoring with a field goal, Charlotte kick returner Henry Rutledge found some holes to make one of the Niners’ biggest offensive plays of the evening. Rutledge, a recent top Charlotte Christian running back, hustled toward the sideline in a 48-yard run back.
With leading rusher out, Cartevious Norton and Wilson shine
Terron Kellman, who rushed for 76 yards in the season opener, was out and did not dress on Saturday.
It was the biggest game of the season thus far for Cartevious Norton, who finished with 28 yards on nine carries. Wilson led the way for Charlotte’s backfield, totaling 52 yards, including his game-sealing 39-yard touchdown rush.
CJ Stokes, the Michigan transfer who’s a Columbia, S.C., native, and is known to have explosive speed, only carried the ball once on Saturday.
“At some point in the second quarter there, I was like: ‘I just cannot believe this. We’re so much better than this,’” Poggi said. “But when I looked at their eyes, they had no quit in them. I believe in them. I tell them I love coaching this team, and I do. I love coaching this team, and I love these kids, win, lose or draw.”
And ... a family reunion at Charlotte’s game against Gardner-Webb
A pair of North Carolina born-and-bred cousins lined up against each other on Saturday evening.
Charlotte starting offensive lineman Jonny Hassard, a Salisbury native and West Rowan alum, is a new transfer into the program from the University of Massachusetts. His first cousin who grew up in Greensboro and played at Grimsley, Jack Hassard, started on the line for Gardner-Webb.
Their families reunited in the Queen City — a place of significance long before Jonny decided to come from UMass.
Jonny’s father, Ashley, was the quarterback at Myers Park during the late 1970s and early 1980s before going on to play collegiately at Guilford; while Jack’s father, Sam, played alongside him on the Mustangs’ line and went on to Chowan University.
Ashley had a twin brother, Clay, who died earlier this year. An All-American at Elon University after playing in the 1979 Shrine Bowl as a lineman, Clay went on to spend 36 years working at his alma mater, mostly as Elon’s senior associate athletic director.
Sam, Ashley and Clay had one more brother, Tim: another all-conference football player at Myers Park in 1977. Tim Hassard, who died in 2018, played in college at Western Carolina and Livingston State University, the school now known as the University of West Alabama.
This story was originally published September 14, 2024 at 9:57 PM.
