Jacksonville State coach Charles Kelly is not a betting man but he did make a friendly “pushup wager” with media personnel covering the Gamecocks.

Kelly was addressing the media and discussing the Gamecocks’ 34-24 win over Liberty last Saturday, a game in which the Flames held a 534-390 yards advantage in total offense but yet came up a loser in the Conference-USA opener for both teams.

A major difference in the game, Kelly said, was two turnovers his team created that led to touchdown drives of 53 and 40 yards, while not having turning the ball over themselves.

“We emphasize that every day, taking the football and protecting the football,” Kelly said. “It’s very seldom…you can look at all the statistics you want to but it’s hard to find a team that loses the game when they don’t turn the ball over.

“In fact, I’ll make a bet—I can bet this because it’s not on sports—I would take a little friendly, we’ll do a pushup wager, that if you can find a team that loses a game and doesn’t turn the ball over, I’ll do 100 pushups anytime you ask.”

Kelly, a coaching lifer who after 35 years as an assistant, is in his first year as a head coach and will be bringing Jacksonville State (1-1) to Paulson Stadium to take on Georgia Southern (0-2) at 7 p.m. Saturday. The game will be televised on ESPN+.

This will be the fifth meeting ever between the two schools, the first since 2002. Georgia Southern has won all four decisively. Don’t expect a runaway in this matchup.

Those games were played when the Eagles were a dominant team in FCS and Jax State had just moved up from Division II. Times have changed.

 The Gamecocks won Conference-USA last year and the A-Sun conference two years before. They have won nine games each of the last three years since moving up to FBS while the Eagles have been a sub-par .500 team (23-28) the last four years not including this year’s 0-2 start.

Kelly has paid his dues having worked as an assistant at several schools including Auburn, Georgia Tech, Tennessee, Colorado, Alabama, Florida State and an earlier five-year stint at Jax State. He has worked for five coaches who have won national championships:  Chan Galley, Bill Burgess, Paul Johnson, Jimbo Fisher and Nick Saban.

Two members of Kelly’s staff were at Georgia Southern last year:  offensive coordinator Clint Trickett was the Eagles’ passing game coordinator and tight ends coach Taylor Housewright was a senior analyst.

Last year Kelly was the co-defensive coordinator at Auburn and prior to that he was the defensive coordinator at Colorado in Deion Sanders’ first year. Kelly was a graduate assistant at Auburn when Eagles coach Clay Helton played quarterback for the Tigers.

The Gamecocks rolled up 334 yards rushing against Liberty which was the pre-season favorite to win C-USA. Leading the way was Cam Cook who ran for 195 yards, the most by an FBS back this season. Cook, TCU’s leading rusher last year, had 270 yards after getting 75 in a season-opening 17-10 loss at Central Florida.

Cook teams with Paul Andrew—he was at Georgia for two years before transferring to Jax State last year–to give the Gamecocks a solid one-two punch. Quarterback Gavin Wimsatt, who played at Kentucky last year, is also a run threat. Wimsatt has completed 22 of 42 passes for 209 yards and has 106 on the ground.

“It wasn’t always pretty,” Kelly said of the win over Liberty, “but I thought we got better on not focusing on outcomes, not focusing on other things that don’t matter. Just on getting better at what we did.”

Kelly was hired after Rich Rodriguez, who won the A-Sun Conference championship before the move to C-USA, left for West Virginia and took several players with him. The Gamecocks have 51 new players, 25 out of the portal, and 26 freshmen.

The defense obviously bent in giving up 24 points, but it made plays when necessary. Linebacker Myles Butler had an interception and a fumble recovery to set up two Gamecocks touchdowns and linebacker Isaac Walker had a pair of sacks.

“The two turnovers Miles came up with were huge,” Kelly said. “He’s a tremendous football player, a tremendous teammate and one of the smartest people you’ll ever be around.

“I was proud of Gavin the way he managed the game,” Kelly said. “I thought we might create some more explosive plays in the passing game but we were able to run the football. Even if the yards don’t show up in passing (52 yards against Liberty) Gavin made two big third down plays to keep drives going.”