The movement on Georgia Southern’s football two-deep has continued into the offseason, as the loss of a running back has appeared to cause a chain reaction on offense.
Junior-college transfer Ken Thomas, one of the program’s top performers this spring, is off the team after having been ruled academically ineligible.
Quarterback Alfred “LA” Ramsby, a redshirt freshman, has moved to running back, while wide receiver Ezayi Youyoute now is at quarterback, a position he played under former coach Jeff Monken in 2011 and 2012.
Quarterback Vegas Harley has moved to the defensive side of the ball, where he will play safety.
Kevin Ellison, a sophomore who played in every game and rushed for over 100 yards four times in 2013, including a season-ending victory against Florida, looks to remain at the top of the quarterback two-deep.
“He throws the ball better than I anticipated, and he’s really got a tremendous amount of explosion,” first-year GSU coach Willie Fritz said about Ellison. “I always talk about a guy putting his foot in the ground and getting vertical, going north-south up the field. He does a great job of that.”
Favian Upshaw, a sophomore who transferred to GSU from Florida International in 2013, remains a contender at quarterback. He “may be the fastest guy on the team,” Fritz said.
The running-back situation remains up in the air. Fritz expects Ramsby to contribute, along with returning players Ean Days and Matt Brieda, both of whom are recovering from injuries.
“Early in the season, I think we’re going to do running back by committee and see what those guys can do well,” Fritz said. “Then we’ll go ahead and start rationing out those repetitions based on productivity.”
Part of the motivation for Ramsby’s and Harley’s new positions is finding a way to get both on the field.
“We didn’t want to have these great athletes standing over on the sidelines,” Fritz said.
The movement on the depth chart likely will continue throughout July and August, when the freshmen from the 2014 signing class will report for the first time.
“Every freshman that we recruited, we’re going to look into having those guys playing for us this season,” Fritz said. “We’re not into the redshirting business, especially going in to play (Football Bowl Subdivision) football.”
Herald videographer Josh Aubrey contributed to this report.


Times set for Eagles’ games on ESPNU
STATESBORO — Kickoff times for Georgia Southern’s two Thursday games on ESPNU have been announced, with both games set for
7:30 p.m. starts.
Games that will be televised are the Eagles’ Sun Belt Conference home opener vs. Appalachian State on Sept. 25 and home game against Troy on Oct. 30.
The network also has opted to exclusively distribute Georgia Southern’s Sept. 6 home opener digitally on ESPN3, accessible online at WatchESPN.com and on smartphones and tablets via the WatchESPN app, and streamed on televisions through Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast (via the WatchESPN app), Roku, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. Kickoff will remain at its originally scheduled 6 p.m. time.
Additional broadcast information and channels will be provided closer to the individual game days.