Kickoff is set for 11 a.m. in Jacksonville.
Published: Sep. 03, 2025, 11:11 a.m.Madison Giltner, Jacksonville State AthleticsOpening with arguably the two toughest opponents on your schedule may have other teams troubled. But, it’s a “challenge” Jacksonville State coach Charles Kelly is excited to see his team take on this week.
“It will never be about the other team. It will always be about what we do, and that’s what we’ve got to work on, is correcting the things,” he said. “There’s going to be four or five plays in the game that affect the outcome of the game: you never know when those plays are going to come.” After falling in a 17-10 heartbreaker against Big 12 foe UCF to open the season, the Gamecocks will host Conference USA foe Liberty on Saturday to open league play. The matchup with an 11 a.m. kickoff will mark Kelly’s home debut.“Jamey Chadwell has done an incredible job at Liberty,” the coach said. “I think most everybody has pretty much put them as the number one team in the conference. They have really good players. They’ve got an experienced quarterback who a lot of the guys that were here last year played against when he was at Coastal Carolina. The guy has shown that he can win.” As Kelly mentioned, this will be a return to Burgess-Snow Field for Flames quarterback Ethan Vasko, who spent last season at Coastal Carolina. He threw for 249 yards and two touchdowns while running for 39 yards and a score against the Gamecocks last season. He is one of many offensive veterans for the Flames, including receiver Reese Smith, running back Julian Gray and returning all-conference offensive linemen Harrison Hayes and Aaron Fenimore. “As we plan Liberty, we want to eliminate explosive plays, eliminate their read option, but most likely eliminate the explosive, don’t let Liberty beat us over the top this week,” defensive back Travis Franklin Jr. said. “Make them march the ball down the field. Give our defense the opportunity, give our line opportunities to make some plays, and we’ll have a good game this week.” Continuing to control the line of scrimmage will be key in this matchup, with Kelly giving an overall positive assessment of the team’s job against UCF in the season opener. “On both sides of the ball, we might not have won the line of scrimmage, but we controlled the line of scrimmage,” he said. “We ran the football effectively, we gave up a couple of pressures, a sack, but I felt like our defensive front matched up with their guys. “I thought we did a good job of protecting the football for most of the game, except on the last drive, except for the blocked kick right before half. I mean, that’s still a ball on the ground.” TCU transfer Cam Cook led the Gamecocks in both rushing and receiving during his Gamecocks debut, running for 75 yards on 17 carries along with four catches for 43 yards. After an encouraging first game, he expressed his confidence in both running the ball and running routes to make plays in the receiving game ahead of Saturday’s matchup. “We played really good up front last game, but I think this game we’re going to come out and dominate up front,” Cook said. “That’ll be one of our main goals, just showing our dominance.” Quarterback Gavin Wimsatt and the offense is hoping to get a boost this week in hopes of making more explosive plays, with wide receiver Michael Pettway looking to return to practice after missing the season opener with an injury. “I think the biggest key in that game, to me, was explosive plays. We were minus three on the explosive plays. There were three plays in the game that resulted in 120 yards. There was a 100-yard difference in yardage on both sides, and it was those three plays. Both of them, well, two of them. It was just basically our discipline.” If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation.
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