VIDEO: Ashley Ingram Presser
VIDEO: 2024 C-N at WVSU Highlights
VIDEO: 2024 C-N at WVSU Full Broadcast Replay
JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – For the first time in a decade and a half, Carson-Newman will open the season on a Saturday. C-N welcomes West Virginia State to Burke-Tarr Stadium for a noon kick Saturday.
The Eagles were 9-3 last year and made it to the NCAA playoffs. State started the year 5-1 with the lone blemish being a 56-25 loss to C-N in institute before ending the season 6-5.
“Guys have worked hard, obviously, all spring and throughout the summer, and I think they’re probably tired of hitting each other,” Carson-Newman’s second-year head coach Ashley Ingram said. “They want to hit somebody else. We’ve got a good opponent coming in. Coach (John) Pennington’s done a great job there. Had a winning season last year, I think won seven the year before that. They are always very athletic, and they have a few transfers that have come in, you know, from Colorado to a starting quarterback from Charleston Southern. So, again, we’ll have to play well and know that they’re very talented. They scored a lot of points on us last year.”
Carson-Newman is 34-10-1 in season-opening games since 1980. The Eagles have won their last two season openers in resounding fashion, 35-3 over Virginia-Lynchburg two years ago and 50-7 last season over Reinhardt.
Carson-Newman sees a 14-year streak of opening the season on a Thursday come to a close. Carson-Newman starts the season on a Saturday for the first time since 2010. Carson-Newman fell 24-21 to Winona State on CSS the last time it opened the season on a Saturday.
“We’ve worked very hard and we want to put a good product on the field and we want to represent Carson-Newman,” Ingram said. “Which means we want to represent the student body and the alums. But having a big turnout from our student body would be huge.”
The Eagles are 8-2 and averaging 45.2 points and 557 yards of total offense when starting the season at home over the last 15 years. The lone losses at home in that stretch have come at the hands of Humboldt State, 52-45 in 2016, and West Georgia, 45-7 in 2021. Carson-Newman has scored 45 in its home opener seven times in the last 15 years and 50 on four occasions.
Carson-Newman is starting the season with a Division II opponent for the first time since 2022. The Eagles are 1-4 in their last five season openers against NCAA Division II competition, with the one victory coming in 2019 over eventual national champion West Florida.
While Carson-Newman is 1-0 all-time against the Mountain East, C-N is 13-4 against former members fo the conference’s forebearer, the WVIAC, with three of those losses coming prior to World War II to Marshall (1938), Morris Harvey, now University of Charleston (1944) and Concord (1925). Shepherd ist the only school from the league to beat C-N in the modern era, a 6-3 win in the 1992 NAIA playoffs. Carson-Newman’s last meeting with a WVIAC school in Jefferson City was legendary head coach Ken Sparks’ 300th career win – a 56-46 win over Glenville State to start the 2012 season.
West Virginia State has enjoyed success under ninth-year head coach John Pennington. He coached the Yellowjackets to their first winning season in a decade in his first year on the job and has six such campaigns in his eight years. He has two seven win campaigns, State had two such years in the 47 seasons prior to his arrival.
Carson-Newman has kept the defensive pressure dialed up. With a sack in every week of the 2023 and 2024 seasons, the last two years’s teams are the fourth and fifth this century to tally a sack in every week of the season. C-N has registered a sack in 23 straight weeks and 31 of the last 32. Carson-Newman was second in the SAC in sacks last year.
C-N has won five consecutive home games. The Eagles look for their first six-game home win streak since going 6-0 at home during the 2019 season. Carson-Newmn is unbeaten at home under second-year head coach Ashley Ingram.
West Virginia State is the fourth West Virginia school to visit the Eagles in Tennessee. Aside from the aforementioned win over Glenville State, the Eagles triumphed over West Virginia Tech 71-9 in 2005 in Sevierville at the Smoky Mountain Classic. C-N is 2-1 when Shepherd visits. Picking up playoff wins over the Rams in 1983 and 1986 before falling in 1992.
Since 2009, Carson-Newman’s offense topped 350 yards rushing on 59 occasions, or 5.09 times per season. The Eagles were fourth nationally in rushing yardage last year. C-N topped 350 yards rushing last year against Reinhardt, Barton and UVA Wise.
Carson-Newman opens the season Saturday at noon against West Virginia State. Coverage on the Eagle Sports Network begins at 11 a.m. with the AEC Countdown to Kickoff on Joy 620 (WRJZ-AM, Knoxville), Mix 105.5 (WSEV-FM, Sevierville) and online at cneagles.com/live. A video stream is available with a subscription to FloSports at cneagles.com/FloFB.