Glenville State University quarterback Anthony Garrett cools off on the sideline during last week’s game against Charleston. (Photo by Jay W. Bennett)

GLENVILLE — The first Mountain East Conference victory of the season is up for grabs when Fairmont State and Glenville State collide 1 p.m. Saturday at Robert C. Byrd Eagle Stadium in what will be the “Battle for the Bit” meeting No. 65.

FSU (2-2, 0-2) led 14-0 last year, but watched the G-men rally for a 17-14 victory to close the deficit in the all-time series to 31-33.

The Pioneers (1-3, 0-1) of head man Mike Kellar couldn’t keep an early lead last week and fell 31-28 to Charleston. UC had the ball for better than 34 minutes and averaged 3.7 yards per carry en route to 230 stripes on 58 attempts.

“Great ballgame. Tough ballgame,” admitted coach Kellar on his weekly show. “You’re up 21-7 and maybe it’s just because I’m older or maybe it’s like I’m a coach, but 21-7 did not feel like this game was anywhere close to being over. I knew there was a lot of football left.

“You’re sitting there at the half, 21-17 ballgame, getting the ball coming out of the half, feeling pretty good about where you are at and the ball didn’t really bounce our way in the second half the way it needed to.”

The Fighting Falcons of second-year head coach Luke Barker gave up five rushing scores and 327 yards in a 60-39 setback to West Virginia State last week.

However, Leonard Farrow (71-497-5) and LeJay Hatcher (61-390-4) provide a one-two punch that’s helped FSU average 5.5 ypc and 231 ground yards a contest.

“Penalties (9-85). Just some weird things happened,” Kellar said of the second half. “We had a third-and-8 play that we completed an 18-yard comeback and they threw a personal foul on us for illegal participation when the kid caught the ball with his helmet off.

“It was a miracle to me that he could be running and his helmet just popped off his head without anyone grabbing it, but that’s a different discussion. You had that and the next drive we had a holding penalty when we were rolling right and had an 8-yard gain.”

Pioneer safety Brandon Penn comes into the contest ranked second in Division II with an average of 7.5 solo tackles a game. Tank Gant paces the D-line with three tackles for loss.

“I thought we played pretty well,” the coach added of the defense. “They had the one 57-yard pass on the blown coverage, but other than that they didn’t really have any big plays. I thought our secondary played really well and our linebackers fit the line well. The D-line held up for us.

“We’re still not getting the pass rush that we need on those obvious third-down plays. That’s something that we need to work upon, but as a group I thought we did a pretty good job just not giving up the big play defensively.”

The GSU defense also will have to contend with last year’s MEC Freshman Offensive Player of the Year in signal-caller Nino Marzullo, who has completed nearly 60% of his 146 attempts for 889 yards with seven touchdowns and two interceptions. Five receivers have 10 or more grabs led by Winston Page (15-208-2).

“I think he’s a good player. He runs their offense really well,” coach Kellar said of Marzullo. “They got skill around him like you wouldn’t believe. I mean an extremely skilled football team. Two backs that are excellent. Two tight ends that are very good and their receiving core is top notch.

“He’s got skill and they block well. I mean their head coach is a former O-line coach and they are very good upfront. He’s kind of the point guard. He’s a very confident player and he’s got a lot of skill around him.”

Robert C. Byrd graduate Jeremiah King (82-285-3) leads the GSU rushing attack. He’s added seven receptions for 98 yards and two TDs out of the backfield.

Anthony Garrett has thrown for 1,091 yards with seven TDs and four picks. He’s completing right at 60% of his aerials with top targets going to Naseem Pacheco (18-252-1), Arnav Thornhill (7-208-1) and Tariq Meredith (10-125-0).

“They’re big,” Kellar said of the FSU D-line, which has six players with multiple tackles for loss led by Montel Sims’ five and also includes St. Marys graduate and redshirt freshman linebacker Josiah DeMoss. “The difference between this year and last year, I think their D-line is a little bit bigger.

“Even the kids that are returning are a little bit heavier than they were last year. They are big upfront. Their linebacker play is very good. We tried to recruit some of those same kids, obviously, so we know a little bit about them. They got a good front seven, but what enables that front seven to be so good is they do cover so well in the secondary.”

FSU’s Emmanual Richardson earned MEC Special Teams Player of the Week honors for the second time after making all four extra points and kicking a 41-yard field goal last week. He’s converted all 16 PATs this year and hasn’t missed on any of his 106 career attempts.

“They are fast,” Kellar added of the FSU running attack. “They run a lot of gap schemes, the power counters and they wash you down with those big tight ends.

“They pull the guard around, kickout and then they got the back coming through. They are just a good football team. They got the skill outside that can hurt you.”

Fighting Falcon punter Ethan Vargo-Thomas would rank 10th in the country with an average of 43.4 if he qualified, but has averaged just three boots a game.

“I think our kids know,” Kellar said of the rivalry. “I can remember being here when I played with coach (Rich) Rodriguez and the Fairmont game and how he built it up. He built every game up about what it meant. I think our kids know that and I think also our kids know we’re hurting a little bit after the Charleston game.

“The only way in football that you start feeling better is to just go out there and play a game. We got take care of the ball on offense because they are so good on offense. We can’t give them any extra possessions. The best defense we could play is to keep the ball on offense ourselves. We can not give big plays. If you really watch them they feed off them big plays.”

Contact Jay Bennett at jbennett@newsandsentinel.com