East Tennessee State Pulls Away from The Citadel 34-16
TJ Peyton ran nine times for 110 yards, and 85 of them came on one carry. It put East Tennessee State up 27-10 with 3:05 left in the third quarter and settled a game that The Citadel had started well.
The Bulldogs of Charleston got there first. Quentin Hayes scored from 17 yards out midway through the first quarter, Evan Kiely added a 29-yard field goal, and The Citadel led 10-0 with 55 seconds left in the quarter. That was the end of the good news until the very end. East Tennessee State answered with a 4-yard fumble return by CJ Gilmore early in the second quarter (10-7) and a 25-yard Ewan Johnson field goal to tie it 10-10 with 3:11 left in the half. Johnson kicked another from 26 yards in the third quarter, a 9-yard punt return by Josh Buckhalter made it 20-10, and then Peyton's run. Vashawn Nalls caught a 1-yard touchdown from Mason Mims with 8:32 to go, and Isaiah Johnson's 15-yard touchdown catch from Xavier Hill with 3:55 left (the two-point try failed) was all The Citadel got in return.
Two of East Tennessee State's touchdowns, the fumble return and the punt return, came without the offense. The Buccaneers' offense gained 314 yards to The Citadel's 259, with just 141 through the air, so nobody will confuse this with a shootout. The Citadel ran the ball 48 times for 126 yards, a little over two and a half yards a carry. Each team lost two fumbles and neither threw an interception.
East Tennessee State is 4-1, The Citadel 1-4. Fantasy-wise, Peyton led everyone with 17.0 points, which tells you it was a low-scoring kind of Saturday.