CHARLESTON - 19/22 UT Martin defeated Charleston Southern in the Bucs home finale on Saturday afternoon by a final score of 40-14. The game marked senior day for CSU with them recognizing 14 players as well as a student manager prior to kickoff.
Charleston Southern had the first possession of the day and went three and out, while the Skyhawks opened the afternoon by scoring a field goal on their opening drive from 44 yards out to get ahead early at 3-0.
The Buccaneers responded immediately on the offensive end scoring the first touchdown of the day between the two teams to take the lead. After starting at the 34, Rob McCoy found
Noah Jennings for a 12-yard pass and on the next play, gave it to
Jamil Bishop on an end-around play who went down the left sideline for a 54-yard score. Following the made PAT, the Bucs were ahead 7-3 halfway through the first quarter for their only lead of the day.
After this score, it was all Skyhawks the rest of the afternoon as they scored 37 unanswered. On the first play of UT Martin's drive, Kinkead Dent found DeVonte Tanksley deep for a 65-yard connection and put them back ahead immediately, they doinked the PAT off the left upright and put the score at 9-7. They tallied another on a four-yard QB rush and knocked in their second field goal of the day this time from 24 yards out to push their advantage to 19-7 going into the break.
In the third, they were able to link up on another long touchdown pass and had a pick-six while in the fourth Chris Franklin broke loose for a 43-yard touchdown to swell the margin to 40-7.
On the final full possession for Charleston Southern, they got on the board again, this time with
Kaleb Jackson behind center. They scored with Jackson finding
Chris Rhone to the right and him scoring on the pass from 13 yards out.
In McCoy's return to the lineup from injury, he threw for 97 yards. Also, in his return from missed time due to injury,
Autavius Ison went for 42 yards off 14 carries.
Noah Jennings led the team in receptions with six and receiving yards with 52. Steve Zayachowsky led the team in tackles for another week as he finished with nine this Saturday.
Gilbert Brown had seven punts on the day with them going for an average of 40.0 yards per. He had a long of 59 with a pair of them going inside the Skyhawks' 20.
Charleston Southern will be in action next weekend in Charleston, Illinois as they will take on Eastern Illinois in what will be the conference finale for the Buccaneers and mark the first meeting between the two schools in program history. The game will be streamed live on ESPN+ with kickoff scheduled for 1:00 p.m. EST.
