South Alabama Falls In Battle For The Belt 37-13
Questionable play calling, mistakes, and a porous defense were the key in the Jags 37-13 loss at Troy.
South Alabama falls to 1-6 overall and 0-3 in conference play while Troy improves to 3-3 overall and 2-1 in conference play.
After Troy opening the game with a field goal, the Jags answered by driving down to the 1 yard line. On back-to-back plays Jared Wilson and Cephus Johnson would both be stopped dead in their tracks and head coach Steve Campbell would settle for a 17 yard field goal to tie the game.
On the ensuing possession, Troy would methodically drive down and put a touchdown on the board with a 1 yard rub pass towards the front pylon.
The Jags next possession would stall at the Troy 35 and Frankie Onate would drill a 51 yard field goal, but the Trojans would be flagged for a personal foul for hitting the kicker giving the Jags 15 yards and a first down at the Troy 20 yard line. Minter would carry the ball on back-to-back plays to give the Jags a 1st and goal at the 3 yard line. Minter would add two more yards and then the offense could not put it in the end zone. Minter would be snuffed on two consecutive plays. Then on 3rd and goal, Cephus took the snap from the shotgun, Troy would bring pressure up the middle and drop him for a two yard loss.
After a time out, Cephus would throw the ball too high for Jalen Tolbert, who was in double coverage anyway and Troy would get the ball.
Three plays later, Troy quarterback Kaleb Barker would just lose his grip on the ball and the Jags would recover at the Troy 3 yard line.
A jet sweep to Kawaan Baker would net the Jags a touchdown, their only one of the game.
Travis Reed would pick off Barker at the USA 22, but then two plays later Johnson would be picked off at the Troy 43 yard line.
The Trojans would get three points off the turnover.
USA would get the ball with 1:08 left in the opening half trailing 13-10. They would draw up passes on first and second down before giving it to Minter up the middle for no gain. Troy would get the ball back after only :21 when Jack Brooks punt was shanked and only netted 24 yards.
Behind Barker’s passing, the Trojans quickly moved the ball but the Jags defense held for only a field goal to go into the locker room at halftime trailing 16-10.
USA opened the second half with two first downs before having to punt. Brooks would pin the Trojans at their own 13 yard line but Barker and the offense would pick apart the Jaguars slashing runs and precision passing. Barker would cap the drive off with a 15 yard touchdown pass to Kaylon Geiger to make it 23-10.
Tra Minter breathes some life into the team with a 45 yard kickoff return to the Jags 47. After a jet sweep to open the drive, which gained one yard. The Jags then threw the ball on 8 consecutive plays. On the final one, Johnson had Jalen Wayne in the end zone but he dropped it. Onate’s 45 yard attempt would miss wide right.
The Jags would get the ball back two plays later when Barker was intercepted by Travis Reed again. But the drive would stall at the Troy 14 yard line and Onate connected on a 31 yard field goal to make it 23-13.
Troy would miss a 36 yard field goal giving the Jags the ball at their own 20 yard line.
Cephus then threw what looked like was supposed to be an out route but the receiver was at least 10 yards farther down the field, and it was intercepted and returned 29 yards for a Troy touchdown.
After the Jags could not convert 4th & 1, Troy took over at their own 31 and just ground out 69 yards on 13 consecutive run plays, with four of them going for 10+ yards, to make the final score 37-13.
The confusing and frustrating part were so many attempts from the 1 yard line and not a single one of them came from a snap under center. Instead the ball was snapped to the quarterback in the shotgun and either handed off or the quarterback was stopped once stopped for a 2 yard loss.
Another frustrating set of play calls came on the Jags final possession of the half. With 1:08 left, 1st and 10 from your own 25 yard line and still in the game trailing 13-10. Kenny Edenfield calls two passes that fell incomplete and stopped the clock then came back with a draw up the middle for just one yard gain. Something we’ve seen countless times this season. That coupled with a poor punt and a defense playing deep and not putting pressure on receivers allowed the Trojans to quickly move the ball and get a field goal as the first half expired.
Troy did their best to help keep the Jaguars in the game. Two interceptions by Travis Reed and a fumble recovery by A.J. DeShazor led to 10 of the Jaguars 13 points in the game. But they left points on the field offensively.
Unfortunately the defense wore down as the game played out and by the fourth quarter Troy was gashing the defense both on the ground and through the air.
The game was effectively put away when Troy scored the pick-six at the 14:02 mark of the fourth quarter and yet they would put another score on the board as the Jaguar defense just was unable to slow down the Trojan ground game.
“I’m very disappointed in the loss,” coach Campbell opened his post game press conference. “I thought the kids gave a good effort, but we obviously came up short in a game like this. We need to go back to work, keep improving and find a way to win a game like this; we had opportunities.”
“We need to make a few more plays, we talked about what we could’ve done better,” Campbell said when asked what he told the players in the locker room after the game. “There are some calls I wish I could have made differently, and there are some things that we can definitely do better to put ourselves in a position to win. This game hurts and those players in the locker room are hurting. Let’s get back to work. No defeat is ever final and no victory is ever final; you have to get back and get to work, and we have some things we need to work on.”
“We probably could have run the ball outside a little bit more, but the coaches made good play calls,” senior running back Tra Minter responded when asked about being unable to capitalize on short-yardage plays near the goal line. “We just need to execute them as players.”
The Trojans held advantages in all of the stat columns, except turnovers. Total yards the Trojans led 432 to 271. Passing yards they led 212 to 183. Rushing yards they led 220 to 91. First downs they had 28 to USA’s 20, which was a huge improvement over their 4 (though two were touchdowns) against Georgia Southern. Third down conversions the Trojans were 10 of 17 while the Jags were only 3 of 12. Troy converted the only 4th down attempt they tried while the Jags converted 1 of 3 attempts. Troy held an 81 to 72 play advantage and a time of possession advantage of 34:57 to 25:03.
Offensively it was the Tra Minter show for the Jags as he put up 200 all-purpose yards in the game. He had 78 yard on kick off returns, 86 rushing yards on 17 carries, and 36 yards receiving on 6 receptions leading the team in rushing yardage and passes caught.
Kawaan Baker added 15 yard rushing on four carries and the lone Jaguar touchdown. He also caught five passes for 42 yards. Davyn Flenord caught four passes for 33 yards and Jalen Tolbert caught two passes for 48 along with the teams longest offensive play of 34 yards.
Cephus Johnson went 20-for-38 for 183 yards and was sacked twice. Though at times he was inaccurate throwing the ball, he did have several passes hit players in the hands with opportunities make the catch.
Jack Brooks punted twice for an average of 27 yards per punt, hurt by the 24 yarder off the side of his foot in his first kick. But the second was nicely placed inside the opponents 15 yard line.
South Alabama will have a couple extra days to recover and game plan before hosting conference-leading Appalachian State on October 26 for the Jaguars homecoming game. The Mountaineers are an undefeated 5-0 on the season and 2-0 in the conference with noteworthy wins over North Carolina and Louisiana-Lafayette.
ASU will be in action this Saturday as they host Louisiana-Monroe for a 3:30pm kickoff at Kidd Brewer Stadium in Boone, NC for their annual homecoming game.
The Jags and the Mountaineer will kick off at 11am on ESPNU on Oct 26 at Ladd-Peebles Stadium. Radio coverage can be heard on 99.5 FM The Jag and 96.1 FM locally in the Mobile area or on iHeartRadio app world wide.
In the meantime, the Jags have to go back to the drawing board once again to figure out a way to get their first FBS win of the season.
Go Jags
Jags Fall At #24 Nebraska 35-21
South Alabama traveled to Lincoln, Nebraska with upset on their mind and they put a decent scare into the #24 ranked Cornhuskers and Coach Scott Frost.
The Jags took the Cornhuskers to halftime trailing by one score at 14-7 after Jalen Thompson was able to partially block a late field goal attempt by Nebraska. But the Jags focus on the “middle eight” didn’t go exactly as they wanted. On a 3rd and 8 play, starting quarterback Cephus Johnson was locked into his receiver allowing Eric Lee Jr. to jump the route for a 58 yard pick six at the 13:11 mark.
The Jags would get the ball right back but would go three-and-out. The Jack Brooks punt would sail 49 yards to JD Spielman, who elluded the first tackler and then ran it back 76 yards for the second score in under two minutes.
USA attempted didn’t give up, they would answer with two touchdowns in third quarter themselves. The first was set up by a JD Speilman muffed punt where the Jags covered it at the Husker 13 yard line. Four plays later Johnson would find Davyn Flenord on a tunnel screen for a 9 yard touchdown.
The second score was set up by an interception by AJ DeShazor at the Jag 24 yard line. USA got into the red zone thanks to a nice wheel route by Tra Minter down the left sideline then drive was capped off by a 13 yard touchdown reception by Khameron Taylor.
The scoring was capped off on the first play of the fourth quarter where Cephus would be hit from his backside and having the ball jarred loose where Alex Davis would cover it up in the end zone with 14:53 left in the game.
From there, the Jags had a great opportunity to cut the lead back to one score after Dedrick Mills fumbled the ball which Devin Rockette recovered at the Nebraska 49 yard line.
After driving down to the 12 yard line, Johnson was looking for Kawaan baker around the two yard line, but ball was delivered behind him, Baker got his had on the ball tipping it up where Cam Taylor could pick it off and returned it 48 yards to the mid field stripe.
The Jags won the battle on the statistics sheet if you ignore the score. They had more total yards (314 – 276), passing yards (231 – 178), first downs (19 – 15), total plays (79 – 66), time of possession (34:13 – 25:47) while Nebraska out-gained the Jags on the ground (98 – 83).
Cephus Johnson went 19-of-34 for 231 yards, two touchdowns, two interceptions and he was sacked four times. Tylan Morton came in for play and threw an interception when Cephus had to come out due to losing his helmet on a play.
Receiving Kawaan Baker led the way with 59 yards on four catches, Cade Sutherland gained 53 on four catches and Tra Minter gained 47 on five catches.
On the ground, Minter led the way with 37 yards on 10 carries. Baker added 27 yards on five carries and Cephus had a net of 9 yards on 18 carries with the lone rushing touchdown.
The Jags defense held Adrian Martinez to 13-for-22 passing for 178 yards and two touchdowns and one interception.
Rushing Dedrick Mills led the way with 45 yards on 15 carries. Washington added 39 yards on 6 carries after sitting out the first half. Martinez was held to 6 yards on 13 carries, with a big loss on a snap over his head though.
Receiving the Huskers Jack Stoll had three catches for 66 yards, Robinson added 33 yards on three catches and JD Spielman added 36 yards on two catches.
The Jags will open their home schedule with Jackson State on Saturday, September 7 with kickoff scheduled for 6pm at Ladd-Peebles Stadium.