Concord Travels to UVa.-Wise for Thursday Night Game

Concord Stats - UVa.-Wise Stats - Live Audio - Live Stats - Live Video - Complete Game Notes - UVa.-Wise Game Notes

ATHENS, W.Va. - After falling at home 36-23 to the University of Charleston, the Concord University football team will have a quick turnaround when it travels to UVa.-Wise 7:00 p.m. Thursday.

LIVE COVERAGE
Radio: Jason "Moose" Reed and Steve Cox will have live radio coverage of the game on 97.3 FM "Willie" in the Mercer County area and online at www.mywillie.com.
Stats: The UVa.-Wise Sports Information Department will provide live in-game statistics of Thursday's contest.
Video: Thursday's game is the Mountain East Conference Game of the Week.

All live coverage options can be access above or at the top of the page.

ADMISSION
Thursday's game will be community appreciation night in Wise, Virginia. All fans will be admitted free.

MOUNTAIN LION NOTES
Thursday's contest will be the Mountain East Conference Game of the Week as Concord enters Week 6 with a 2-3 mark both overall and in the MEC. Meanwhile, the Cavaliers are winners of two in a row and sport a 3-2 overall record and are 2-2 in the league.

Against Charleston, the Mountain Lions had a late fourth-quarter rally halted by the Golden Eagles.

After CU cut the deficit to 23-20, Concord was unable to prevent Charleston from scoring twice more in the final minutes of the game.

Saturday was a career game for sophomore linebacker Zach Malone who tallied 17 tackles and one tackle for loss.

To put Malone's performance into perspective a little further, the Charleston, West Virginia native had just 23 tackles through four games this season and recorded only 18 tackles during the 2015 season.

Malone's 17 tackles were the second most by an MEC player this season and the most by a CU defender since Jake Lilly racked up 18 tackles against Liberty in 2012.

Junior defensive back Jeremiah Johnson recorded the first multi-interception  game of his career by picking off UC's Brant Grisel in each half.

For Johnson, it was his first two interceptions of the season and his sixth and seventh picks in the Maroon and Gray.

Johnson stands one interception shy of entering the top 10 at Concord for career picks.

With seven interceptions, the Mountain Lions are tied for third in the conference interceptions.

Furthermore, Johnson and senior Akil Bordelon, who is tied for the MEC lead in interceptions with four, are just one of two pair of teammates in the league that have two or more interceptions.

Johnson and Bordelon are joined by West Liberty's Logan Deri and Solomon Dixon in teammates with multiple interceptions.

The contest against Charleston saw the emergence of freshman running back JaVaughan Burrus.

The Woodbridge, Virginia native, playing in just his second career game, finishsed with 81 rushing yards on 15 carries.

Burrus was the lone CU rusher to get more than five carries in the game.

Senior wide receivers Jermeil Douse and Davon McGill also ran the ball for Concord out of the wildcat formation as McGill found the end zone on an eight-yard run in the fourth quarter for his first career rushing touchdown.

It was the first touchdown for the Bladensburg, Maryland native since the final week of the regular season in 2014 against Shepherd.

Speaking of Douse, he went over the century mark receiving for the second time this season and the sixth time in his career.

Douse finished the game with nine receptions for 102 yards.

The nine catches move him to within one reception away from tying Dustin Greenwood for fifth all-time at CU in catches.

Douse needs 50 yards to amass 2,000 receiving yards in his career.

Once achieving the milestone, Douse would become the fifth player in program history to total 2,000 yards receiving.

Since the formation of the MEC, the Mountain Lions have won all three meetings against UVa.-Wise including a 63-21 triumph in Athens on Homecoming last season.

Senior quarterback Brian Novak completed 15-of-23 passes for 221 yards and two touchdowns in the win.

One of the two scores from Novak went to Douse who finished the contest with two catches for 57 yards and one of his four touchdowns last season.

Concord was stingy on defense as it limited UVa.-Wise to negative-nine yards rushing and forced two safeties in the game.

Senior defensive lineman Brandon Hazzard recorded a sack.

Johnson had two pass break-ups while junior defensive back Chaudlier Shepherd ran an interception back for a touchdown.

Junior punter Garrett Lee had a stellar afternoon versus the Cavaliers in 2015 Lee boomed six punts for an average of 41.5 yards, got off a long of 56 yards and downed two inside the 20-yard line.

Lee enters the 2016 matchup with UVa.-Wise in a three-way tie for the top spot in punting average across Division II.

The Pearisburg, Virginia native is tied with Charlesotn's Brett Benes and Humboldt State's Alex Elterman as all the trio is averaging 46.0 yards per punt.

SCOUTING UVA.-WISE
UVa.-Wise is fresh off a dramatic 39-37 road victory against West Virginia State.

Kicker Trent Martin, the reigning MEC Special Teams Player of the Week, kicked the game-winning field goal in the dying seconds to lift UVa.-Wise to the win.

Martin made six field goals in the game, the most for a player in Division II in a single game in 2016.

Martin is 10-for-12 on field goal tries in 2016 and is 10-for-11 inside tries from 40 yards.

The Cavaliers have already matched the last two seasons' win total in former Eastern Kentucky offensive coordinator Dane Damron's first year at UVa.-Wise as the head coach.

Quarterback Brycen Lee, an EKU transfer, is averaging 261 yards through the air with eight touchdowns and three interceptions.

UVa.-Wise is led by Zachary Blair on defense.

Blair has 49 tackles, second in the MEC, and also returned an interception for a touchdown in last week's win against WVSU.

A CONCORD WIN WOULD...
A Concord win would be the second victory on the road for the Mountain Lions in 2016. CU only won one game away from Athens last season.

A Concord win would give CU four straight wins over UVa.-Wise.

INSIDE THE NUMBERS
32.3-  Average margin of victory for Concord in MEC games against UVa.-Wise.

102-  Number of plays run by UVa.-Wise last week against W.Va. State, sixth most in Division II this season.

104- Average number of rushing yards given up by UVa.-Wise per game, third-best in the league.