The Gamecocks rallied from a 14-point halftime deficit with a 21-point second half, securing their first all-time victory in six meetings with the Eagles.<\/p>\n
Sep 19, 2026<\/p>\n
at<\/p>\n
10:37 pm ET<\/p>\n
\u2022<\/p>\n
1 min read<\/p>\n
JACKSONVILLE, Ala. (AP) Caleb Nix returned a punt 75 yards for the go-ahead score, Tristan Lyles had a game-saving interception in the red zone, and Jacksonville State<\/a> erased a 14-point halftime deficit en route to a 31-27 victory over Georgia Southern<\/a> on Saturday night.<\/p>\n Weston Bryan’s three rushing touchdowns in the second quarter gave Georgia Southern a 24-10 halftime lead but Jacksonville State rallied with 21 points in the second half. Caden Creel hit Deondre Johnson with an 18-yard touchdown pass and Lucas Farrington ran 26 yards for a score prior to Nix’s electric punt return.<\/p>\n Trailing 31-27, the Eagles drove 62 yards in 12 plays but Lyles put an end to the threat when he picked off a Max Johnson pass at the 15-yard line with 1:52 showing on the clock.<\/p>\n Creel threw for 194 yards with two touchdowns on 17-of-24 passing for the Gamecocks (2-2).<\/p>\n Johnson was 23-for-33 passing for 187 yards and David Mbadinga had 103 yards rushing for the Eagles (1-2).<\/p>\n It was Jacksonville State’s first win against Georgia Southern, which had won the first five games in the series.<\/p>\n Georgia Southern: vs. No. 22 Houston next Saturday.<\/p>\n Jacksonville State: vs. Middle Tennessee next Saturday. —<\/p>\n Sign up for Top 25 poll alerts here, visit the Top 25 here and see AP\u2019s full college football coverage here<\/p>\n \n Copyright 2026 STATS LLC and Associated Press. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Associated Press is strictly prohibited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Gamecocks rallied from a 14-point halftime deficit with a 21-point second half, securing their first all-time victory…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405108,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[143,24168,116,118,117,4642],"class_list":["post-405107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-college-football","tag-georgia-southern-eagles","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jacksonville-state-gamecocks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}