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Winning feels good \u2014 especially on your birthday.<\/p>\nFor Charlotte 49ers (1-2) coach Tim Albin, that\u2019s what happened in a 42-35 win against FCS opponent Monmouth on his 60th birthday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was one point late in the fourth quarter where\u2026 some of the [players] were looking around and it was a tight game,\u201d Albin said, \u201cand I said, \u2018Hey guys, this is the most exciting birthday I\u2019ve ever had.\u2019 It got a lot of laughs.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Charlotte quarterback Conner Harrell took another step in the progression Albin wanted him to take by setting the 49ers\u2019 all-time passing completion percentage record with 86.7%. He threw for 382 yards, three touchdowns and an interception. He also carried the ball 13 times for 47 yards and two scores.<\/p>\n
Harrell led the game-winning scoring drive in the fourth quarter with a 55-yard pass to E. Jai Mason followed by a 2-yard run. It was Harrell\u2019s second game-winning drive, the other coming when he was at North Carolina in 2024 against Minnesota.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Even after a performance like Saturday\u2019s, Harrell was focused on getting better.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m blessed for the win,\u201d he said. \u201cI am thankful for the win\u2026 but we have Rice on Thursday, and we had two or three turnovers there in the first half. It is going to be hard to win a lot of games doing that, so we are trying to figure out how I can be better for the next game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Albin said he feels like he keeps repeating himself when talking about Harrell, but he again showed grit.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe it was the first drive of the third quarter,\u201d Albin said. \u201c[Harrell] was stinging a bit from that interception [late in the second quarter] but if my memory serves me correctly, that was the first drive of the third quarter that he finished the great [touchdown] run. I think he just said, \u2018OK, I\u2019m settled, it\u2019s a game, now let\u2019s just go execute the offense.\u2019 And he did a pretty damn good job of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mason had 10 catches on 10 targets for 228 yards, which is third most all-time behind Austin Duke who has two games with more yards. Mason was also on the receiving end of two Harrell touchdown passes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt did feel good to make the most of my opportunities,\u201d Mason said. \u201cI just know that our coaches preach to just make the play when your number is called. So, that is something that I wanted to keep doing is just make the play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Albin said after the loss to Appalachian State that he wanted more explosive plays from Charlotte\u2019s receivers. Javen Nicholas responded with 122 yards against North Carolina and now Mason for better than 200.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think probably the most important thing is hopefully we’ll get some favorable boxes,\u201d Albin said. \u201cNot that we just run the ball every time, but you know that eight hat is going to have to know where those guys are. I hope that we can use the production in those two receivers and really some of the tight ends. Gus [McGee] had a big catch down there going towards Tryon, and then Joey [Bearns III], that fourth down catch (in the fourth quarter). I think those things are going to loosen the box a little bit. It’s going to help in there and the offensive line in just getting some favorable number counts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Charlotte, which had a combined 97 rushing yards against Appalachian State and North Carolina, reeled off 181, led by sophomore Rod Gainey Jr., with a career high 74. His previous single-game best was 29 yards in 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe running game is important,\u201d Albin said. \u201cThe numbers [in the first two games] may be a little skewed because of the snap [issues]. \u2026 But, after the first game one of the biggest things we talked about was pad level. \u2026 The run game is important, and everyone knows why. We got better and we\u2019re going to take the positives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Comments<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MATT LACZKO | THE CHARLOTTE POST
The Charlotte 49ers delivered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2080],"tags":[220,21178,7,6,1161,252,2624,2623],"class_list":{"0":"post-366487","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco-49ers","8":"tag-49ers","9":"tag-charlotte-49ers","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-san-francisco","13":"tag-san-francisco-49ers","14":"tag-sanfrancisco","15":"tag-sanfrancisco49ers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115200747609697270","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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