USA Officially Announce Home-And-Home Series Against Bowling Green
South Alabama Athletics Director Joel Erdmann officially announced a two-year, home-and-home series with Bowling Green State University.
As prevously reported, the Jags will visit the Falcons on September 11, 2021 and then hosting BGSU in Mobile on September 3, 2022.
This marks the second contract between South Alabama and MAC schools. The Jags traveled to Kent State last season and will host Kent on October 19, 2013 before returning to Ohio for a third game on September 6, 2014.
In the 2021 season, the BGSU game will be the second non-conference game of the season following facing Southern Mississippi in Mobile the prior weekend.
Lady Jags Soccer Split Opening Weekend Games
South Alabama women’s soccer opened the first weekend of the season by splitting their first two games.
They recorded their first win of the season by defeating Nicholls State 2-1 on Friday but fell to Mercer 1-0 on the road on Sunday to open the season with a 1-1-0 record.
Scrimmage Photos
Here is a link to photos from the second scrimmage on Saturday morning.
Jags Improve In Second Scrimmage
Head Coach Joey Jones speaks to his team after the conclusion of the Jaguars first practice of preseason camp.
C.J. Bennett and Brandon Ross lead the Jaguar offense in Saturday morning’s scrimmage for the South Alabama. Ross scored three touchdowns on four carries while Bennett threw for 117 yards and two touchdowns while going 9-of-10 in the scrimmage at Ladd-Peebles Stadium.
Ross’ first rush of the scrimmage was a four yard gain before crossing the goal line from one yard out on his second carry in a red zone possession for the offense. On the second snap after the mid-scrimmage break, Ross took the ball down the sideline for a 55 yard touchdown. Later in the scrimmage he got one more carry for a two yard touchdown. He racked up 62 of the 141 yards of rushing offense on the day to lead all Jaguars.
Ross is returning from a near one-and-a-half year absence following a knee injury in the 2010 season. Ross was the Jaguars’ leading rusher in 2009 and 2010 at the time of his injury.
Bennett led the first team offense on a 97 yard, 11 play drive for its first possession of the scrimmage. He completed six passes for 80 yards of the drive. He opened with a seven yard pass to T.J. Glover, he later found Bryant Lavender for 13-yards on two occasions and also found Tyrome Bivins for 12 yards to get to midfield. Demetre Baker added a two yard run before Bennett hit Jake Howton for 23 yards. Bennett rounded out the drive with a 25 yard strike to Cameron Broadnax for a touchdown.
Bennett only led the offense one other time. That drive spanned 65 yards in seven plays and it was capped off by a 31 yard touchdown pass to Baker.
The first team defense only surrendered two field goals on the day. The final field goal allowed came on a red zone possession at the 15 yard line.
Ben Giles and Anthony Taylor both lead the team with seven tackles each. Taylor added two pass-breakups to his total as well. Jesse Kelley added six tackles. Giles and Kelley both were credited with 1.5 tackles-for-loss. Randon Carnathan and Enrique Williams recorded three tackles each while Davin Hawkins led the reserves with five tackles.
Offensively, Terrance Timmons rushed five times for 29 yards, Ellis Hill had four rushes for 18 yards and Baker added 17 yards on the ground. Broadnax, Glover and Lavender along with Nathan Sassaman all had two catches each as they combined with four different quarterbacks to tally 181 yards through the air.
Michel Chapuseaux made field goals from 37, 42 and 39 yards. Aleem Sunanon convered the final score of the scrimmage with a 32 yard field goal.
“Offensively and defensively, it was good,” Head coach Joey Jones said about the scrimmage. “Overall I’m sure we’re going to see some things on film that we need to correct. But we’re not quite where we need to be on special teams, and our sideline organization needs to get better. It wasn’t terrible, but there are some things that we have got to shore up. That’s why we do this. I think we will come out next week and do it again, and hopefully we will be perfect at it when we come out on Thursday.”
“We are evaluating our players and will see where we are on the depth chart, and make those decisions this weekend,” Jones continued. “Monday we’ll starting putting the game plan in for Texas-San Antonio, we’ll have a few extra days to getting ready for them.”
“I was monitoring a couple of spots, but we still had to do things against our offense,” said defensive coordinator Bill Clark. “We got our first guys a lot of good work, I thought we tackled well and got to the ball. Our goal was to go 100 percent on our assignments today, we’ll have to see the film, but I think we looked pretty sound. It’s basically what we wanted to see. We’ve still got work to do, but it was a good finish to camp.”
“I thought the defense came out and stopped the run pretty well and I thought they got after it,” coach Jones said about the defense.
Senior Safety B.J. Scott felt that Saturday’s scrimmage was better than the first one of the preseason. “We just had that in the back of our heads and we came out here and just got after it,” he said. “I think we all as a whole feel a little bit more comfortable and focused. It’s all mental at this point. We’re pretty much done beating up on each other.”
“Fundamentally we have improved a lot since camp started,” offensive coordinator Robert Matthews said. “We were able to execute a lot of base plays early today, in the second part of the scrimmage we tried to do some different things that we have been working on. Our guys know what to do, now it is just doing it at the speed and the tempo we expect. I think we are getting closer but are not there yet.”
The Jags returned to the practice field on Sunday so the student-athletes can take Monday off for the first day of fall semester classes.
USA Kick-Off Celebration At Eastern Shore Wintzell’s On Thursday
Wintzell’s Oyster House on the Eastern Shore will be hosting the USA Football Kick-off Celebration on Thursday, August 23 beginning at 6:30pm.
Fans can celebrate the kick-off of the Jaguars football season with Coach Joey Jones, The USA Cheerleaders and SouthPaw on Thursday. The gathering will be in the courtyard/fountain area just outside of the Wintzell’s in the Eastern Shore Center. The address is 30500 State Highway 181, Spanish Fort, Alabama.
Fans will have an opportunity to get photographs and autographs.
Go Jags!
Jags Work In Shells Preparing For Saturday Scrimmage
The Offensive line gets set while Coach Clark directs the defense during a practice early preseason camp.
The Jags hit the practice field on Thursday which marks exactly two weeks to the day that the South Alabama will open their season against Texas-San Antonio at Ladd-Peebles Stadium. The two-hour practice was in shells.
Thursday’s practice had sessions where the offense worked on inside running plays, team blitz and blitz pick-up and some two-minute drills to close out the practice.
During the blitz session, C.J. Bennett completed passes to Kendall Houston, Corey Besteda and Terrance Timmons. Also Ross Metheny completed passes to Besteda, Cameron Broadnax and Houston. Drew Dearman was very impressive in pass protection.
During another 11-on-11 session, Bennett and Metheny both had big passes. Bennett found T.J. Glover for a touchdown while Metheny hit Bryant Lavender for a big gain. Also the defense made several interceptions; Charles Watson, B.J. Scott, E.J. May and Ben Giles all picked off passes.
During the two-minute drill, Demetre Baker broke a big run and Bennett hit on two big passes with Lavender. However the first team offense stalled and settled for a 50-yard field goal attempt. The kick missed it’s target though. The defense ended the drill with back-to-back interceptions by May and Terrell Brigham.
“It was a good day. We tried to back off a little bit and practice at about 90 percent where we’re getting to the football, and I thought we did that,” head coach Joey Jones said. “They’re starting to get a little tired, so we have to be smart about what we’re doing. We have a great special teams period lined up for tomorrow, and then we’ll bring them back Saturday for the scrimmage. I’m really looking forward to see how well we do when we start putting it all together and look at how everyone concentrates during a game-type situation.”
A highlight of the day for the defense was when Tyrell Pearson manhandled Rush Hendricks on his way for a tackle.
The Jags scrimmage on Saturday will be held at 8am at Ladd-Peebles Stadium but will be closed to the public. The Jags will not have practice on Friday.
Meet And Greet With Coach Jones At Walt Massey In Lucedale
Mississippi Jaguar fans, you will have an opportunity to meet Head Coach Joey Jones in Lucedale, MS on Saturday, August 18th.
WNSP and Lee Shirvanian will be broadcasting live from Walt Massey Automotive in Lucedale, Mississippi from noon until 3pm. Coach Jones will be there from 1pm until 3pm. SouthPaw will also be there with Coach Jones. Go out and support your Jaguars if you are in the area!
Jags Basketball Split First Two Games, Final Game Of Tour Tonight
South Alabama basketball got a head start on the season this week as they began their Canadian exhibition tour.
The Jags first game was against Windsor in Ontario, Canada. It took a big fourth-quarter rally in order for the Jags to send the game into overtime. But the Jags were outscored 8-6 in the overtime period to fall 82-80.
Junior Augustine Rubit led all players with 27 points and 11 rebounds for a double-double. Mychal Ammons also had a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds. Seniors Javier Carter and Freddie Goldstein scored in double digits with 17 and 11 respectively.
“I thought we came out and played good early in the first four or five minutes but we let them get too far ahead,” said Jaguar Men’s head basketball coach Ronnie Arrow. “We had a great comeback but we just couldn’t finish it out. Hopefully we learned from it, which is what this is all about. Naturally we want to win, but I think this did us some good. We saw some things that we need to work on. Tomorrow night we’ll start a completely different bunch—we’ll probably play the two new inside guys a lot more than the ones back from last year and give them a chance to get some minutes.”
“We shot 38 percent (from the floor) in the first half, that was the start of it, and then we didn’t guard on top of it and that’s how we got down so much,” Arrow said.
The Jags entered the fourth quarter trailing 60-46 as the Jags were outpaced 26-17 in the third quarter.
Tuesday night the Jags took on Western (Ontario) University in London, Ontario, Canada. The Jags busted the game wide open with a 21-2 run in the third quarter as they ran away with a 68-47 win.
South Alabama was led by senior Xavier Roberson who scored a game-high 15 points off the bench. He shot 6-for-9 from the floor and 2-for4 from three point range and added three assists. Junior Augustine Rubit also came off the bench to add 11 points and two steals.
Coach Arrow started a completely different starting lineup from Monday nights loss. The new lineup came out of the gates quickly with a 5-1 run and used a 16-3 run to build a 21-11 lead by the end of the first quarter. Western got within five points in the second quarter but the Jags tightened up the defense. Western missed their first five shots of the second half and went 1-for-14 from the floor with six turnovers in the third quarter.
“I thought tonight we really got out and played hard,” said Jaguar Men’s head basketball coach Ronnie Arrow. “We had some guys that were hurt last night and didn’t play and they really helped us tonight. I thought our defense really helped us score.”
“Our effort defensively tonight was good,” he continued. “We practice that good defense leads to offense. I was telling our guys that I hope they understand that tonight because I thought this team had some good shooters and were quicker overall, and we used that defense tonight to take out some good shooters out of their range.”
The Jags will close out their trip won Thursday night at 6pm CDT.
Curry Annouces Retirement From GSU After 2012 Season
GSU Coach Bill Curry announces retirement at the end of the 2012 season on August 15, 2012.
In a press conference in Atlanta today, Coach Bill Curry announced he will retire from coaching at the conclusion of the 2012 football season. Curry, 69, was hired in 2008 to start the football program at Georgia State after spending 11 years as a television analyst for ESPN.
“The opportunity to start a football program at a university that I love, in my hometown, and the privilege to coach these young men has been one of the highlights of my career,” said Curry. “This has been a labor of love, but after this season, it will be the right time to step away from coaching. I am blessed with good health, but I am ready to move on to other things in my life and devote more time to my wife, Carolyn, and our children and grandchildren.”
In April, Georgia State announced it would move up to the FBS level and join the Sun Belt Conference.
South Alabama and Georgia State, both young programs, completed a home-and-home series last season. They split the series as the Jags won the first meeting in Mobile, but fell in overtime at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.
Here is the link to the Sports Illustrated article from Wednesday. Here is also a link to the Atlanta Journal Constitution article posted Wednesday.
Jags Get Two JuCo Player Commitments For 2013
South Alabama picked up two more commitments for 2013 from the JuCo ranks. Running back Justin Jones of Northeast Mississippi Community College and safety Terrell Pinson both pledged their intention to join the Jags.
Jones is a 5’9″ 180-pound running back who rushed for 920 yards last season and also caught 27 passes out of the back field.
Pinson is a 6’3″ 200-pound saftey who is making the move from wide receiver to the secondary this season. This is the position that he will likely play at South Alabama as well.