BIRMINGHAM,Ala.--The Georgia Southern football team lived up to its preseason expectations on Saturday night, defeating the Samford University Bulldogs 31-17 in front of an announced crowd of 8714.

The Eagles defeated the Bulldogs for the first time as conference opponents, as both teams opened the season for the first time with a conference foe.  Laron Scott continued his career-long dominance of the Samford special teams, returning a kick 99 yards for a touchdown.  Defensively, redshirt freshman Deion Stanley recorded 10 tackles in his first game, while Derek Heyden matched that total as well as recording an interception to seal the game.  On offense, Robert Brown had 20 carries for a career-high 140 yards and one score to pace the offense, which rolled up 263 rushing yards on the night.

“I’m just another part of the team,” said Brown, “It feels great to go out with my teammates and accompany them to victory.”

The offense started off slow in Birmingham, with no points on the board until early in the second quarter when McKinnon took the direct snap from the wildcat formation and scored up the middle.  Even though the Eagles scored, they only put up 179 yards of offense, and lost two fumbles in the first half.

“Samford’s a very good football team.  We were trying to make some drives, and stalled out,” said quarterback Jaybo Shaw.

GSU’s defense also had its fair share of problems in the first half against the Bulldog no-huddle offense.  Samford had two red-zone opportunities in the first half, resulting in a missed field goal and a rushing touchdown.  Samford lined up to kick a field goal three times in the first half, but got no points out of any of them.  Samford faked the kick and punted the first time, and proceeded to miss the next two.

However, the Eagles’ defense came out and set the tone for the second half, stifling the Bulldog offense to -5 yards in their first two possessions and recording two sacks.

The offense seemed to feed off of the defense’s energy and recorded a 57-yard touchdown drive, capped off by a Brown touchdown halfway through the third quarter.

Samford responded with a field goal to cut the lead down to 14-10 on their next possession.  The game looked to continue to be a close one, until Samford kicked off to Laron Scott.

Scott took the ball at the one, made a cut to his right, followed some excellent downfield blocking and stiff-armed his way past the final defender for the score.

From that point on, GSU dominated the ball, scoring a touchdown and a field goal to put the game out of reach, 31-10, with six minutes left.  Samford would score on a long pass play with 45 seconds left, but it was too little too late.

Georgia Southern improved to 10-1 under head coach Jeff Monken when holding the ball for over thirty minutes.

“We’re a dominating run football team, so that’s our job to hold on to the football and run the football and keep our defense fresh,” Shaw said.

GSU’s win put it in a good position to have another successful conference season.

“When they put out the conference standings GSU is going to be in first place and that’s a good place to be,” Monken said.

The Eagles play their home opener on September 10th versus Tusculum at 6 p.m. ET.