Elon Phoenix Football to Open 2015 Season at Wake Forest on Thursday Night

ELON, N.C. – The start of the 2015 Elon football season is almost here. Elon will begin its second season as a member of CAA Football with a 7 p.m. game on Thursday, Sept. 3 at Wake Forest.

The game will be broadcast live on ESPN3 with Roy Philpott handling play-by-play duties and Stan Lewter serving as the analyst.

Fans unable to attend the game can also listen to the game on WSML 104.5 FM and 1200 AM or at elonphoenix.com. The radio broadcast will start at 6 p.m. Fans can also listen to all Elon football games via the TuneIn Radio app. This app is free to download to your smartphone.

ELON VS. WAKE FOREST:
Elon and Wake Forest will be playing for the 11th time. The Demon Deacons lead the series 9-0-1. The last time the two met was on Sept. 19, 2009 with Wake Forest claiming a 35-7 victory in Winston-Salem.

PERSONNEL CHANGES
Elon returns seven starters on both sides of the ball, but will have to replace two departed starters on the offensive line as well as its quarterback. Elon will be starting either a red-shirt (Connor Christiansen) or true freshman (Daniel Thompson) at quarterback. The last freshman to start at quarterback for the Phoenix was Scott Riddle in 2007. On defense, the maroon and gold brings back preseason all-league selection Chris Blair at defensive back.

OH CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN
The Phoenix football squad elected two captains for the 2015 season. Serving as captain for the second year in a row is senior defensive back Miles Williams. He will be joined by first-year captain, junior linebacker John Silas.

Each week the Phoenix will also name a game-week captain. The captain for the opener at Wake Forest will be junior running back B.J. Bennett.

PRESEASON HONOR
Sophomore defensive back Chris Blair was Elon’s lone selection to the preseason all-conference team. Blair was one of the two safeties named to the squad. In his first season with the Phoenix, Blair earned third-team All-CAA Football honors and was honored with the team’s Most Outstanding Defensive Back Award. In 2014, Blair started the final nine games of the year and was third on the team, and 12th in the league, with 98 total tackles. He broke up three passes and posted one interception.

THE YOUNG ONES
The 2015 Phoenix roster includes a total of 33 true freshmen. That amounts to 34.7 percent of this season’s roster. There are another 13 red-shirt freshmen on the squad, bringing the percentage of those who could see their first collegiate action in 2015 to 48.4 percent of the roster.

WE HAIL FROM…
Elon’s 2015 roster sports 42 players from the state of North Carolina. The Phoenix roster also has players from 15 other states – Alabama (1), Arizona (1), Delaware (1), Florida (7), Georgia (7), Indiana (2), Massachusetts (4), Maryland (2), New Jersey (9), New York (3), Ohio (2), Pennsylvania (1), South Carolina (5), Virginia (7) and Washington (1).

ELON VS. FBS OPPONENTS
Elon’s 2015 opener at Wake Forest will mark the program’s eighth against an FBS opponent. It will be the second time that the Phoenix has faced off with the Demon Deacons since Elon moved to NCAA Division I play for the 1999 season. The first FBS meeting for Elon came in 2007 when the Phoenix dropped a 28-13 contest at South Florida. The Phoenix’s other FBS games have come at Wake Forest (2009, 2015), at Duke (2010, 2014), at Vanderbilt (2011), at North Carolina (2012) and at Georgia Tech (2013).