2024 Preview: Georgia State

Georgia State took advantage of the games they needed too at the beginning of the year to barely qualify for a bowl game. They finished 6-6 but it took 2 one score wins, and then there was a bunch of non-competitive games. They didn't improve year over year on either side of the ball and their head coach decided to leave and go and be a position coach at a P5 school. There were personal reasons involved, but that's never an ideal scenario to have transpire. The staff turns over completely here.

Offense

They bring in Jim Chaney to call the offense and it's likely that HC McGee will have a say in the offense as well. Chaney has been a journeyman offensive coach, more recently an analyst at the saints, GT, and A&M. He hasn't been an OC since Tennessee in the 2019-2020 year. It was the worst year for the Tennessee offense of the last decade.

Appears there is going to be a QB battle into fall camp. GSU has Zach Gibson, formerly Akron and Georgia Tech QB in for spring and the presumed starter but they added Christian Veilleux from Pitt in the May portal. Both have experience and both have rather limited upside. The offense will be more pro-style, so not sure there is a +/- yet based on who wins the job. Gibson has more experience, so he's probably the better of the two.

The top 3 WR from the team last year all hit the portal so this room is going to be in total rebuild mode. Thompson is the leading WR back and he had 266 yards a season ago. They are going to need some unproven players to step in and step up and the positive is they have recruited the position pretty well on a relative basis. Some high 3* guys here, and Ja'Cyais Credle has started 24x in his career so even though he wasn't a contributor a season ago, the lights won't be took big. Hard to see this passing attack getting better with this WR room and a new QB.

Nearly a full rebuild here as well with 6 of the top 7 in snaps departing from a season ago. Timmons is the only returner who played on the right side of the line and there isn't much here to step in and immediately feel comfortable about their contribution. They went to the portal to try and find some answers but didn't really bring in all that much notable, but did strongly improve the depth here. Hard to see this offensive line being any good at all.

Top RB Carroll had 1300 yards and 13 TD and hit the portal so that leaves them with some incoming transfers in Jordan Ford and CJ Beasley who were lower depth chart guys at their previous stops and Freddie Brock. Question marks here too.

This is going to be a mess. OL, WR and RB rooms are in full rebuild mode with a ton of talent departing the program. There are two older, experienced QB on the roster but they haven't been very good in their previous stops so challenging to see how this offense does anything but fall off, and maybe drastically.

Defense

They had a pretty rotational 2 deep last season on the line and they return 2 players with over 200 snaps in Blume and Bryant but lose their most disruptive player in Denis to the portal. Outside of Blume and Bryant, the 2 deep will be really green. There are no other starts to go around. It's going to be a pretty tough for this defensive line to really attack opposing offenses based on how it looks now.

At LB, There are two returning starters here on paper, but they don't really have all that much by way of upside. Tema leading tackler Hunter graduates at the LB spot and his running mate Veneziale also is out. They return Robinson who played one of the OLB spots but there isn't much more they can rely on here. Kevin Swint was a former 4* in the 2020 class who should play that hybrid edge role and has been around for awhile so he is a decent piece. Justin Abraham is back in one of the ILB spots after being a starter for most of the last season. They brought in Martez Thrower from Kentucky and KD McDaniel from UCF and both could find a role too.They have bodies here but it's still a question mark.

They lose 2 starters in the secondary but this position group is the easiest one to feel okay about. They have back 4 guys with over 300 snaps and return their best player at both corner and safety. They return 2 starters at CB in Pringle and Cooper and Johnson at the safety spot. Jyron Gilmore transfers in after 2 seasons starting at Tennessee Tech and probably completes immediately. They will need to fill in some gaps, and do lose a lot of depth talent to the portal, but they should have quite a few players competing for the job, including former high 4* Kenyatta Watson transfering in from GT.

There is tons of turnover here due to graduation and the portal and it's hard to feel comfortable with any unit of this defense besides the secondary. They brought in alot of bodies but not alot of expeerince so it will be a quesiton mark as to who fits into the roles. It will likely take time for this to be a reliable unit and it probably won't be a very good one.

Summary

The offense is starting over in almost every position group and while the defense isn't in as bad of a position, it's not in a great one either. They lose a lot of contributors too and this is going to be a pure fade team.