Elon Opens CAA Football Play Against Towson on Family Weekend

ELON, N.C. – The CAA Football portion of the Elon Phoenix’s schedule has arrived as the maroon and gold will play host to the Towson Tigers in a Family Weekend game on Saturday, Sept. 26 at 3 p.m.

This weekend’s Phoenix Walk will occur at approximately 12:30 p.m. as the Elon squad will walk down Bank of America Drive, through the tailgate area and into the stadium. Phoenix fans are encouraged to line the street and cheer on the team.

Fans unable to attend the game can also listen to the game on WSML 104.5 FM and 1200 AM or at elonphoenix.com as David Hibbard and Taylor Durham have the call. The radio broadcast will start at 2 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. This week’s game will also be broadcast on SiriusXM channel 157 as part of CAA Football’s package on the Heritage Sports Radio Network.

A free video stream is available through Phoenix All-Access.

Elon will be supporting Coach to Cure MD this weekend. Coach to Cure MD is a project of Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy (PPMD) in partnership with the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA). This event is a one-day, nationwide awareness buliding and fundraising event that seeks to raise awareness of Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

ELON VS. TOWSON:
Elon and Towson will meet for the fifth time ever on Saturday. The Phoenix is looking for its first victory in the series that began in 2003.

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 and are listed below:

• at Wake Forest – B.J. Bennett
• at Gardner-Webb – Rob Sullivan
• vs. North Carolina A&T – Corey Mitchell
• vs. Towson – Ikenna Nwokeji

NOTES FROM LAST GAME
• Elon’s defense posted its second straight five-sack game as six players were in on quarterback takedowns
• Defensive back Greg Liggs Jr. posted the first interception of his career
• Quarterback Connor Christiansen accounted for 190 yards of total offense, including 145 passing yards and a team-high 45 rushing yards
• Christiansen scored Elon’s first rushing touchdown of the year – a 16-yard dash in the fourth quarter
• Nine different players caught at least one pass

LINEBACKER DUO RACKING UP THE TACKLES
Junior linebackers John Silas (Powder Springs, Ga.) and Corey Mitchell (Jacksonville, N.C.) have been amassing impressive tackle totals over the past two weeks. Against Gardner-Webb, Silas made a career-best 17 tackles. He followed that up with a 10-tackle game against North Carolina A&T. Mitchell posted a personal-high 18 stops at Gardner-Webb and another 10 against the Aggies. Together, this pair has accounted for 55 tackles in Elon’s last two outings. For the season, they have a combined 64 total stops.

SACKED
The Phoenix defense amassed five sacks in the victory over Gardner-Webb. That was the most sacks by an Elon team since recording five sacks at Western Carolina on Nov. 7, 2009. The maroon and gold followed that up with a five-sack night against North Carolina A&T, marking the first time in over a decade that the maroon and gold posted back-to-back games with at least five sacks.

Through three games, the Phoenix has tallied 13 sacks, just seven shy of its total of 20 from the 2014 campaign.