Everything you need to know for Campbell at Coastal Carolina football on Friday night

Friday’s game

Who: Campbell (0-1) at Coastal Carolina (1-0)

When: 7:30 p.m.

Where: Brooks Stadium, Conway

Occasion: Home opener

TV: ESPN

Radio: WRNN 99.5 FM

Online audio: http://portal.stretchinternet.com/coastal/

Live stats: Through www.Coastal.statbroadcast.com and GameTracker

Last meeting

CCU 58-21 on Sept. 12, 2018 in Buies Creek, N.C.

Coastal Carolina

Strength: Defensive front seven

Weakness: Receiver depth

Campbell

Strength: QB, wide receiver

Weakness: Youth at safety

Key matchup

Coastal Carolina’s defensive line vs. Campbell quarterback Hajj-Malik Williams: The defensive line had a big game against Kansas last week with four sacks and six tackles for loss between C.J. Brewer, Jeffrey Gunter and Tarron Jackson, as well as four tackles by defensive tackle Jerrod Clark. But the Chants are going against a different kind of quarterback this week. Campbell sophomore Hajj-Malik Williams (6-0, 205) is the Big South Conference Preseason Offensive Player of the Year and is a dual threat. He threw for 237 yards and rushed for 73 last week in the Camels’ 27-26 loss at Georgia Southern. The defensive front will try to contain him.

“We’ll do some different things that we’ll have to do because he can run and is a good thrower,” CCU coach Jamey Chadwell said. “He got Georgia Southern running there quite a bit. We’ll have a couple different ways hopefully to try to contain him. The main thing you have to do when you have a true dual threat like that is you have to make sure you’re rushing in your lanes. If you rush your lanes and push the pocket back it doesn’t allow dual threat guys to get out.”

Players to watch

Coastal Carolina

Redshirt freshman quarterback Grayson McCall (6-3, 200): In his first start last week he was 11 of 18 for 133 yards and three TDs while connecting with six different receivers, and also rushed 11 times for 73 yards and two scores.

Senior running back C.J. Marable (5-10, 200): He is just 83 yards shy of 3,000 rushing yards in his collegiate career, including two previous years at Coastal and his Big South-leading 1,038 rushing yards as a freshman at Presbyterian College in 2017..

Senior linebacker Teddy Gallagher (6-1, 230): After leading the team and ranking 10th in the Sun Belt with 88 total tackles last season in 11 games, he led the Chants with nine tackles last week.

Campbell

Sophomore quarterback Hajj-Malik Williams (6-0, 205): Last week at Georgia Southern he completed 17 of 27 passes for 237 yards and two touchdowns and ran for 73 yards and a score on 11 carries.

Sophomore receiver Jalen Kelsey (6-2, 180): Recorded six receptions for 66 yards last week including a potential game-tying touchdown with 15 seconds to play.

Sophomore safety Jonathan Jones (6-1, 190): Led the Camels with eight tackles last week and recorded one of the team’s tackles for a loss.

He said it

“What we did [Saturday] was great for this university, but we can wipe it away Friday night by laying an egg. We can wipe it right away and everybody will go back to saying, ‘the same old Coastal.’ We’ve worked hard not to be that. We’ve worked hard to put ourselves where we can be a contender in this league, and how you do that is you have to win games you’re capable of winning and you should win, and not overlooking anybody. So that has been our message.” – Chadwell

“Last year it was always up and down. We couldn’t answer when we needed to or [the defense] couldn’t get a stop when we needed to. It’s one game, but that’s something we preached all spring and summer was trying to finish. So that’s a good sign for us and hopefully that will continue.” – Chadwell

“It’s an opportunity. Any time it’s an opportunity in life you’d better get excited about it. You have to celebrate your opportunities and then take advantage of them. First of all we’re excited about playing Coastal, and second of all it being on a national stage, it just helps us with recruiting and our branding and everything else. We get to continue to introduce what a Camel is.” – Campbell coach Mike Minter

Scouting report

With the FCS playoffs canceled in the fall and the Big South choosing to postpone fall sports to the spring due to COVID-19, Campbell opted to play four non-conference games this semester including three against Sun Belt opponents – Georgia Southern last week, Coastal on Friday and Appalachian State on Sept. 26. The Camels will also face ACC foe Wake Forest on Oct. 9.

Transitional member North Alabama is the only other Big South team playing this fall.

“The opportunity was the Big South said we could play four non-conference games,” said Minter, Campbell’s eighth-year coach who was a starting safety for the NFL’s Carolina Panthers for 10 years from 1997-2006. “So that’s the opportunity, now how do I take advantage of the opportunity? . . . The best way to do that is to play four FBS opponents. To play four FBS opponents, to me that’s the blessing of the year. This is a special year so you do something special.”

The Camels put a scare into Georgia Southern, which stopped a two-point conversion with 15 seconds to play to hold on for a 27-26 win. Campbell held a 14-point lead (20-6) in the third quarter before a special teams mistake helped the Eagles grab momentum.

Williams hit Kelsey on a 20-yard TD pass with 15 seconds remaining and Minter opted for a two-point conversion pass that fell incomplete. Campbell outgained Georgia Southern 369-346 in the game.

Georgia Southern coach Chad Lunsford said the Eagles were without eight starters, 15 players who would normally contribute and 33 total players because of injuries, suspensions, the coronavirus, contact tracing and coach’s discretion. Minter said he didn’t see too many players missing.

“What I know is the people I saw on film that could make plays, they were playing on Saturday,” Minter said.

Campbell has gone 6-5 in each of the past three seasons, but that static record belies the progress that has been made. In 2017 the team was in the non-scholarship Pioneer League, moved to the scholarship league the Big South Conference for the 2018 season, and improved its conference record from 1-4 to 3-3 last season.

Coastal should only be mildly impacted by losses to coronavirus testing protocols this week, as Chadwell said Wednesday he expected to get a couple players out of quarantine that weren’t available last week and didn’t believe he was losing any additional players. Minter said Campbell has also done a good job with the coronavirus and expects to have all of his key players available.

Notes

▪The only other meeting between the teams also came on an unscheduled date. The 2018 game was moved up from Saturday, Sept. 15, to Wednesday, Sept. 12 and relocated to Buies Creek, N.C., due to Hurricane Florence.

▪In the teams’ previous meeting, the Chants trailed 21-10 before scoring the game’s final 48 points.

▪Coastal is 13-4 in home openers and 8-1 in the past nine, with the loss coming last year to Eastern Michigan, 30-23.

▪Two of Campbell’s better players – receiver Caleb Snead and linebacker Justice Galloway-Velazquez – are being held out of the team’s four fall games due to injury.

Line

N/A

Prediction

Coastal Carolina 38, Campbell 20: Coastal should be able to continue the momentum it created with last week’s win at Kansas, but Campbell showed last week that it has some talent.

This story was originally published September 17, 2020 at 3:42 PM with the headline "Everything you need to know for Campbell at Coastal Carolina football on Friday night."