Coach Joey Jones Show Recap 2009-03-25
Ronald Douglas watches practice on Tuesday
Coach Joey Jones and Lee Shirvanian are in the studio for the final episode of the Joey Jones show. Coach Jones lunch choice of the day: the Joey Jones Special Black & White chicken. Lee’s choice of the day is the fish and broccoli. Plus, to celebrate the end of this years run of the Joey Jones Radio Show, they enjoy some of Wing’s delicious banana pudding. But don’t worry, the Joey Jones show will return in August for more Jaguar Football goodness.
A caller asked what kind of volunteer work that can be done for the team or sideline work that needs to be done? Coach Jones urges anyone who wants to volunteer to call the office because there will be some volunteer work that can be done on the sidelines and they have the list of what needs to be covered.
Lee asked about yesterdays first practice in pads. Coach Jones loved the intensity and said it was good to start to see who were the tough guys are. They had some full team stuff and had a couple players catch the coaches eye (I saw a huge hit on a running back that got the sidelines and the 30 or so spectators really excited).
When asked about the uniforms, Coach Jones said that the president has approved the uniforms and will hopefully be able to introduce them in two weeks. They are still working out how the home and away situation will be with the fall schedule this season in terms of uniforms. But they are considering doing something different that most schools but similar to what LSU does and wear a white top for home games. Coach Jones also said that he had thought about going with the silver helmets like he had mentioned before on the Joey Jones Show, but he thinks the latest version really stands out to him and will represent the school well.
Today’s practice will be similar to Tuesdays practice but it will have more special teams time before getting into full team practice sessions. They did not really do much special teams practice yesterday and want to start adding more of that starting today.
Men’s Basketball player Ronald Douglas is going to try out for the team. He is 6’8” and is a very good athlete as Coach Arrow told Coach Jones. So he should be out in pads today and will start working out with the team. They are thinking about putting him at the defensive end position. Douglas played football back in high school, so this is not something new for him.
Lee and Coach Jones talk about some of teams on the schedule this season. Coach Jones mentions that the first thing that came out (about the football teams) was that the Jags were going to play 4 or 5 games. However, Coach Jones wanted to increase the number of games and also increase the level of competition. With the schedule that they put together, both he and Joe Gottfried have put together a good schedule of games that will challenge the players to work hard and play hard. Initially they were going to play club teams, but Coach Jones pushed to raise the competition level to test the kids and also recruit some of the good players that come out of these schools. Hargrave Military Academy turns out lots of really good players that transfer to SEC and other Division I schools and finished 10-1 last season. Huntingdon College is the only Division III school on the schedule, the rest are prep, military or junior colleges. Huntingdon finished 8-2 last season and were considered for an at-large bid to the Division III playoffs after starting the season 8-0. They also outscored their opponents 417 – 158 with three shutouts and finished the season ranked 5th in scoring offense.
Some of these teams will have better athletes than a lot of SEC schools signing classes. They have kids that were recruited by schools from all of the BCS conferences and they are getting players from all over the country. Hargrave is probably the number one prep school in the country with the number of players going to Division I schools. Most people do not recognize the number of future NFL players who come out of prep schools.
Most of these kids that go to the prep schools are just under the cut-off for a Division I school. So it’s not the case that these kids just could not cut it in Division I academically, but rather they may have made a C in an English class and just barely missed the cutoff. So they go to these schools and work hard to better themselves and after two years, hopefully sign a Division I scholarship to play and get their education.
Lee asked Coach Jones what do these schools think of South Alabama recruiting these kids. Coach Jones said that these schools are happy, they want to have more of their kids signing Division I scholarships. It looks better for them and helps them to get better kids into their program as well.
When a caller asked about scrimmages and how Alabama has the ‘A-Day Game’ Coach Jones said that every Friday from here through the end of spring practice will be a scrimmage. But, he also said that every day they are out on the practice field, they are doing 11-on-11 plays.
Lee asked what Coach Jones vision for this program is. He then qualified that question to be mainly about stadiums. With a proposed stadium being built by a group that will be out I-10 West that is supposed to seat 50,000, is that something the USA is going to look at or is something on campus is the ultimate goal for the school? Coach Jones said that probably an on-campus stadium should be the ultimate goal because it adds to the atmosphere of the campus and whenever any other team has transitioned from an off-campus to an on-campus stadium, their attendance doubles.
Back to the schedule this fall, the times are all stated at 4pm except for a lone 11:30am kickoff. Lee asked if these times were set in stone or are they subject to change? Coach Jones said that they are subject to change of course, but this year will be time to test different kickoff times and see what works out best for South Alabama versus Alabama and Auburn obviously.
Lee said that he has had people ask him what is the best way to get their son recognized and possibly help them get a scholarship to South Alabama to play football. Coach Jones said that the biggest and easiest way to mass publicize a player is for a high school coach to make a highlight reel for a player. But USA is getting over 2,000 DVDs and they at least look at them all for some amount of time, but it’s hard to pick players from video. While their highlight reel may show their two good plays from a game, they may have had 5 bad plays in the game and they want to know this. A really good way for a kid to be recognized by the coaching staff at USA, or other schools for that matter, is for that kid to go to a football camp. Some schools may not sign a player unless they have either been chosen as a ‘blue chip’ recruit or have gone to at least one of their football camps. Coach Jones also said that he will not sign a quarterback without actually seeing him play in person.
That wraps up this season of the Joey Jones show. Keep visiting Thunderjags.com for more football news. Also check us out for information from other sporting news from the Jaguars. Also come out and support all of the South Alabama sports, including baseball and softball, which are going on right now.
Go Jags!
Jaguars Fall In SBC Championship Game, Falls Short Of NCAA Tournament
Several things lead to a rough first half for South Alabama. WKU begin the game with an 11-0 advantage and eventually see their lead swell to as much as 15 with 5:58 to play in the first half. The first half saw the worst of the Jaguars with plenty of turnovers and an inability to get a defensive rebound allowing the Hilltoppers to shoot two, three and sometimes four times down the court. Then in addition to the sloppy play, WKU took advantage of USA’s spotty 3-point defense.
DeAndre Coleman, who was still suffering from a stomach illness, took the Jaguars onto his back and kept them in the game for the first half. At halftime, the Jaguars were only down by ten points, 35-25.
The second half saw the Jaguars come out of the locker room determined to try to win the game, knowing that their only opportunity to get a bid to the NCAA Tournament was by winning this game.
Domonic Tilford came out and drained an early 3-pointer to cut the hilltopper lead under ten points for the first time since it was 9-0. Add a DeAndre Coleman layup and another Tilford trey and the jaguars were within four points with 16:29 left in the game.
Sherrer connected with Coleman for another layup and a foul on Magley of the hilltoppers. Coleman connected on the free throw to get the Jags within one points of the lead 37-36 with 15:48 left in the game. Then Coleman gave South Alabama their first lead of the game 41 seconds later on a tip-in.
Tilford would extend the Jaguar lead to 43-39 on a three pointer with 12:17 left. However the lead was short lived after a layup and a trey by the hilltoppers retook the lead with 10:58 left in the game at 44-43.
The Jaguars would tie the game up one more time at 46 on a DeAndre Coleman free throw with 8:34 left in the game. However the Jags ran out of fuel and could not keep pace with the hilltoppers. Each time the Jags would start to get close, Orlando Mendez-Valdez would drain a 3-pointer. The Jaguars were within four points with 2:52 left but free throw shooting, turnovers and shots that would not fall would end the game. The final score was 64-56.
Brandon Davis would lead all scorers, coming off the bench to score 27 points on 11-16 shooting, 5-6 from the free throw line and adding 9 rebounds. Domonic Tilford, the Jaguars leading scorer, could only score 12 points on 4-10 shooting, 4-6 from beyond the arc.
A.J. Slaughter would lead the hilltoppers in scoring with 18 points on 5-14 shooting, 2-8 from 3-point range and 6-6 from the free throw line. Steffphon Pettigrew added 15 points and Orlando Mendez-Valdez added 10 points and eight assists. Mendez-Valdez only hit two shots from the floor, but they were both 3-pointers to seal the game.
The Jaguars shot 50% from the floor for the game compared to 42% for the hilltoppers. The Jags shot 50% from 3-point range while the hilltoppers shot 35%. The Jags went to the charity stripe 8 times and made five of them while the hilltoppers made all 14 attempts.
South Alabama will have to wait and see if they receive an invitation to play in the NIT Tournament.
The seniors DeAndre Coleman, Domonic Tilford, Brandon Davis, B.J. Ford, Ronald Douglas and Jamal Harris played a great season for the Jaguars. They fought hard through injuries, a tough last second losing streak and illness to have a good season. Hopefully they will go on and do good in whatever comes of them after their time at South Alabama.
GO JAGS!!
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Joey Jones Show Recap 2008-12-10
Coach Jones joined the program over the phone since he was just across the state line from Auburn in Columbus Georgia for recruiting. He left out early this morning and will return late tonight. Also Travis Toth joined Lee Shirvanian at Wings Sports Grill, he is the marketing director at USA.
First off Lee wanted to bring everyone up to date on recruiting. Coach Jones said that they are at the point where they can be more specific about what they are looking for such as defensive linemen, linebackers, getting another quarterback or so and they would be looking pretty well. They seem to be set with offensive linemen, running backs and wide receivers for now.
It was brought up that a letter was sent out by the SEC and SBC clarifying an NCAA rule that they had been back and forth on for some time now. The rule maybe was a bit fuzzy so they ruled that coaches could not attend the game or practice of the Alabama – Mississippi All-Star Game coming up soon. Even though they are in a contact period with recruits they cannot go to these events. A lot of good players have played in this game and it’s a huge honor for any high school player to be selected to play in this game.
When asked about the challenges the coaches have when it comes to preparing for this game coach Jones answered that the key was offense. Defensive schemes are easier to prepare and get the kids ready for, but offense is a huge key to get prepared. They will be bringing together kids that play in a multitude of different offensive schemes. Some may have played in the Wing-T, Veer, or Spread offenses so bringing them together and creating a cohesive offense that they can run together is a huge task. The key is to keep it simple so they can learn, understand and execute it over the course of a four day period.
The holidays is coming up and Travis Toth talked about an ad they are running in the Mobile Press-Register as gifts for that sports loving fan this holiday season. They have a choice of two sideline tickets ($75 for the season) or two endzone ($48 for the season). It will come with a certificate for the tickets and a USA Football T-Shirt. So if you know a USA sports fan, this would be a great holiday gift for them to open on Christmas day.
Coach Jones said they have set dates for spring football practice and when I talked to one of the team members last night he told me that it will start February 18th. So after the holidays, they will jump right back into the grind to get ready for South Alabama Football in the fall. When asked about something like an A-Day game, similar to what Alabama and Auburn have in the spring, coach Jones said that they would have something special for the last day of spring practice. He did not indicate if it would be a full on A-Day game like experience or if it would be a more low-key scrimmage but something will be planned and we will know about it on his radio show for certain.
Daniel McCarthy has been hired as directory of compliance so he will be working closely with the football program to make sure everything is done by the book and no rules are broken accidentally. The rule talked about earlier with the All-Star game was mentioned again and he expects that it may be changed in the future. Kids may be recognized at the game who may not have received a scholarship otherwise which is a huge benefit to the kids.
Recruiting trips will continue through December 20th and then they will pick back up on or around January 4th, Coach Jones could not remember the exact date since he was on the road recruiting. USA will be able to sign up to 30 kids in February but they could receive more than those in verbal commitments. Some may not qualify academically, but they are talking to a lot of interested kids that have good grades so that may not be a concern come signing time.
Lee Shirvanian then asked Coach Jones what his first roster could look like. Jones responded that they could have anywhere from 50-60 on scholarship this fall and about 20 of those would be Junior College transfers and the rest walk-ons. He expects them to be 120-130 players by the time they start next summer preparing for the fall schedule. He started recruiting Junior College kids fairly close to home but they are now recruiting them from Texas, California and other places to find the best players they can to fill the positions they need. So far this year, 17 kids have been signed to scholarships and they have 13 more they can sign this calendar year. They have been working on some and can announce them around the December 17th deadline hopefully.
Lee brought up an interesting thing, why don’t Junior Colleges in Alabama play football? Coach Jones and others agreed it would be great for kids in our state. The economy and money are probably the biggest factors.
Coach Jones is not close to releasing the schedule yet for next year. Many of the coaches he is talking to for contracts have been in the midst of their season so negotiations have been put on the back burner for the last few weeks. They will be getting back into that soon. Currently, even the players do not know who they may be playing and I know at least one of them is quite eager to know.
Going back to the rules talk, Lee Shirvanian stated that lately he has not hear much about football rules violations. Mr. McCarthy said that rules compliance for football is much harder than for basketball. Basketball has maybe from 7-10 players they have to monitor. Football they could have 120-130 as Coach Jones indicated on their roster, that they have to monitor and make sure no rules are being breached. Its really a whole team effort to get this done. USA has a group of faculty volunteers that help advise these players when they come to see the school and it really helps that they can talk to faculty from their potential chosen majors too.
When asked about the sports dorms that the NCAA has gotten rid of, Coach Jones was outspoken about them. He likes the sports dorms for players so they are held responsible and are kept out of potentially bad situations. When he was a player at Alabama he knew that there were people there watching out for them. Kids are going to be kids, nothing has changed since he was in college. They do not need babysitting but they can sometimes use a big brother as a mentor.
Lee asked Coach Jones about how soon USA could have a senior in the Senior Bowl, which is held each year in Mobile, Alabama. Coach Jones was very optimistic and enthusiastic stating that it could be in the next few years. They are really bringing in good, talented players that could be selected. Its also a good recruiting tool to say that the Senior Bowl is located in Mobile and that they will definitely be looking at USA for potential players.
Travis Toth then mentioned that USA will be hosting our basketball rival, Western Kentucky on Thursday, December 18th and we need everyone we can get into the Mitchell Center to help kick off the Conference season with a big win over the Hilltoppers. They have been playing well and so has USA. So come out and join us for the game!
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