Twitter/GWUFootball Gardner Webb faces Charlotte in their 2019 season opener Thursday.
One of the nation’s newest FBS programs, the Charlotte 49ers, take on Gardner-Webb in each team’s 2019 season opener Thursday night at McColl-Richardson Field.
The game (7:30 p.m. ET start time) won’t be on regular TV anywhere, but you can watch it right here via ESPN+, the digital streaming service from ESPN that includes most Charlotte and C-USA football games this season, other college football and live sports, all the 30-for-30 documentaries and additional original content (both video and written) all for $4.99 per month.
You can sign up for ESPN+ right here, and you can then watch Gardner-Webb vs Charlotte live on your computer via ESPN.com, or on your phone (Android and iPhone compatible), tablet, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, or other streaming device via the ESPN app.
Gardner-Webb vs Charlotte Preview
Charlotte’s football team was brought back to life in 2013 where they initially started play at the FCS level as an independent. The 49ers spent two seasons fulfilling the NCAA requirement for startup programs before moving up to the FBS where the football team joined the rest of their sports programs as members of Conference USA. Charlotte is also coming off the best season in program history finishing 5-7 in 2018 and added new head coach Will Healy to help the program take the next step.
Arguably more important than any one player, the arrival of Healy – who turned around a far more dismal Austin Peay team – marks a big moment in the program’s development. Healy should have some help as the 49ers are loaded with returning players and are extremely senior-heavy. While they aren’t the players that Healy recruited, they should play a big role in helping to establish his culture and give Charlotte the chance to potentially improve immediately despite a regime change.
Meanwhile, Gardner-Webb has had a streak of tough years as members of the FCS’ Big South Conference. Without a winning season since 2013 when they finished 7-5, Gardner-Webb is looking to rely on a number of young – but somewhat experienced – contributors to help turn things around. Plenty of freshman and sophomores saw action on defense towards the end of last season and that initial experience should go a long ways towards helping to ready the team for this year’s campaign.
Despite some of their players seeing a bit of action last season, the fact remains that this Gardner-Webb unit is extremely young. With 17 underclassmen expected to start, it seems most likely that GWU is on a two-year rebuild plan with this year being used to help lay the foundation for a strong 2020.
Sophomore GWU quarterback Jordan Smith should be worth keeping an eye on. As a freshman, Smith posted a surprisingly solid season despite stepping onto a less than stellar team. With a year under his belt now, Smith should be entrusted to open up the offense a bit more and it will be interesting to see what the young signal-caller is capable of.
While Charlotte is an extremely young program, last year they proved they have genuine FBS-level talent and moved out of the FBS cellar. Meanwhile, Gardner-Webb is filled with youthful question marks on both sides of the football. Don’t count out Gardner-Webb to possibly come out and surpass all expectations but the most likely result is that this ends up being a tune-up game that Charlotte is able to control from the jump.