A preseason preview of the Catamount's eighth opponent of the 2011 football season, the Samford Bulldogs.
For the eighth game of the season, the Catamounts travel to Birmingham, Alabama to play Bulldogs for the second week. Western trails the Samford Bulldogs 1-7-0 overall, and is 1-3 in games played in Birmingham. Last season, the Bulldogw won in Cullowhee by a final score of 38-7.
Head Coach Pat Sullivan enters his 5th season with the Bulldogs and is one of two head coaches that must inprove their record for job security. Sullivan's problem is he must replace 25 seniors from a team that won just two conference games (WCU & GSU), finishing 7th place in the SoCon. The Bulldogs ended the season with a 4-7 overall record.
Samford does return seven starters on offense, however, their defensive unit lost 7 starters, returning only four from last year’s defense that gave up 278 points or 25 points per game. "We are a young team, but I think we have some talent. We lost an awful lot of good football players from a year ago" said Sullivan. "Last year was a disappointing year for us in that I thought we had a chance to do a little more than we did."
The Bulldogs will be without the services of Samford's all time leading rusher Chris Evans, however the Bulldogs will return senior quarterback Dustin Taliaferro. Given the amount of starters lost, 4 on offense and 7 on the defensive side of the ball, I expect the Bulldogs will remain in the lower third of the conference standing at the end of the season. I expect the Catamount to pick up their first win over Samford since the Bulldogs joined the SoCon.
Prediction: WCU - 28 Samford - 10
WCU Record: 6 - 2
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