CHARLOTTE — On Saturday night, the Charlotte 49ers football team erased an early 17-0 deficit to come out on top 27-26 over FCS opponent Gardner-Webb in Richardson Stadium.
The 49ers (1-2) outscored the Runnin’ Bulldogs (0-3) by a margin of 21-6 in the fourth quarter, and the result was Charlotte’s second-largest comeback in school history and biggest since joining FBS play in 2015.
Gardner-Webb made things interesting with 1:55 to play as running back Carson Gresock scored on a one-yard touchdown run to trail by a single point. However, the Bulldogs failed on a two-point conversion instead of kicking a potential game-tying extra point kick, coming up short on a gamble of a decision.
“I’m so proud of our players, I mean they’re really learning how to fight,” Charlotte head coach Biff Poggi said after the game. “When you’re down 20-3 and not playing well, there’s a lot of teams that would just pack it in, but not these guys. I’m really proud of them and proud of the coaches — they hung in there.”
It was a slow start for the Niners, who engineered a successful comeback effort over the Bulldogs in the fourth quarter thanks in part to the heroics of backup quarterback Trexler Ivey.
When DeShawn Purdie — filling in for starting quarterback Max Brown — went down with a leg injury, Ivey entered the game and almost immediately turned around the momentum for his team with two touchdown drives.
The redshirt junior walk-on finished with 142 yards from 11 of 12 passing in a near-perfect performance where he was asked to step in as a third-stringer behind center.
After the contest, he told reporters that his 2023 season prepared him for being a player who would be asked to step in when the time arrived.
“Thankfully, last year I had a good amount of those moments where it’s time to go,” Ivey said. “So it wasn’t the first time but whoever’s out there, me and the rest of the quarterback room want to support him fully. You see him (Purdie) go down and it’s ‘alright, let’s go, dude.’”
The Niners entered the game as a 10.5 point favorite against their FCS opponent, but found themselves down 17-0 by the second quarter. By halftime, they trailed 17-3 with three turnovers and only 82 yards of offense.
Gardner-Webb got on the scoreboard first as quarterback Tyler Ridell and the Bulldogs offense marched down the field, leading to a 30-yard field goal from kicker Jay Billingsley midway through the first quarter. The Niners were then down 10-0 as Purdie threw an errant interception to Trevor Moffitt, who ran the ball 45 yards to the end zone with eight minutes left in the first half.
With 35 seconds left in the first half, Ridell gave his team a 17-0 lead as he found Anthony Lowe in the end zone.
The Niners managed to score before halftime as kicker Stephen Rusnak hit a career-long 54 yard field goal — tying the program’s all-time longest made kick — to make it a 17-3 game.
Ridell led another strong drive as the Bulldogs put up three more with a 44-yard field goal from Billingsey at the 9:02 mark of the third quarter, putting Gardner-Webb up 20-3.
Purdie injured his leg on a sack early in the fourth quarter, finishing the game completing 16 of 23 passes in the game with 194 passing yards but also a loss of 77 ground yards from his six sacks taken.
Ivey made an impact as soon as he arrived, carrying the Niners down the field and eventually threading the needle with an 11-yard touchdown pass to O’Mega Blake; the score remained at 20-12 with 9:09 left in the matchup as Charlotte failed on its two-point conversion attempt.
Gardner-Webb’s offense — strong early on but stagnant for much of the second half — came up short again as a quick three-and-out led to a Niner possession with seven minutes left.
At the 5:20 mark, Ivey capitalized on Charlotte’s rising momentum as he found Sean Brown with an over-the-shoulder, one-handed 28-yard touchdown catch; the Niners tied the game at 20-20 with a two-point conversion catch from Brown.
“I knew Trexler was going to throw it because we’ve been doing this for a while,” said Brown, who Poggi praised for his “NFL worthy” catches in the game.
With their first win of the season in the bag, the 49ers will now prepare to travel to Indiana for a road matchup against the 3-0 Hoosiers.
