Eagles on a roll entering playoffs

FLORENCE - A lot has changed for both teams in the 11 weeks since North Alabama defeated Carson-Newman 31-14 on Sept. 5.

In that time the Lions (11-1) have won the Gulf South Conference championship, moved up to No. 1 in the Division II rankings and have fallen back after a shocking loss to West Alabama in the regular-season finale.

Carson-Newman (10-2), meanwhile, has regrouped from an 0-2 start to win the South Atlantic Conference championship and reel off 10 consecutive wins, including last week's 59-41 victory over West Alabama in the second round of the Division II playoffs.

The two teams will meet again Saturday in the playoff quarterfinals. Kickoff is at noon at Braly Stadium.

Coach Terry Bowden said he is not at all surprised that Carson-Newman has not lost since falling to UNA in the second week of the season.

"I said after that game that I expected them to run the table, and they did," Bowden said. "The thing I admire most about Carson-Newman is that they schedule high. They have to win their conference to make the playoffs, but then they go out and schedule tough teams from other conferences.

"When they started off 0-2 they never wavered. They just kept going and now they come in here on a roll and playing with a lot of confidence."

UNA took advantage of four Carson-Newman turnovers in the first meeting. The Lions were held to 332 yards of total offense by the Eagles - the Lions' lowest output of the season.

Wide receiver Mico McSwain said the offense the Eagles face this week will be much different than the one they saw in Week 2.

"We were not really gelling together at first," McSwain said. "We're like 100 times better now than we were those first two weeks. It's only going to get better from here on out."

Both teams have plenty of veteran players. UNA has 16 seniors among its 22 starters, while Carson-Newman has 11. The difference is that 10 of the 16 UNA senior starters are Division I transfers that did not join the team until August.

"We really had just known each other for five weeks when we played them the first time," Bowden said. "We were very elementary on offense because of that. Our two biggest linemen were hurt and had not practiced much, so they were still learning what to do. We are a better offensive team than we were then and hopefully we can give them more problems than we did the first time."

Jeff McIntyre can be reached at 740-5737 or jeff.mcintyre@TimesDaily.com.