First Ever Media Day For South Alabama Football
On Monday, head coach Joey Jones as well as offensive coordinator Greg Gregory, defensive coordinator Bill Clark, and players Jon Griffin, Charlie Higgenbotham and Anthony Mostella participated in the first ever Media Day for South Alabama Football. The program included a tour of the fieldhouse and lunch before the highly anticipated interviews.
Highlights of the press conference can be read on the USA Jaguars page located here.
Less than 12 days until kickoff. Do you have your tickets yet?
Jones Says Propst And Mumme Not Coming To USA For OC Position
As wrote about before, Rush Propst will not be returning to the Mobile area to be the offensive coordinator with the Jaguars. He publicly released this to shoot down the unrest in the community in Colquitt County Georgia. He won five state championships at Hoover before leaving amid some controversy in 2007.
Propst has been eyeing collegiant jobs but no one offered any positions to him after leaving Hoover. He took head coaching position with Colquitt County last season and improved on a 2-8 season to go 4-6 his first season.
Another name mentioned for the Offensive Coordinator job was Hal Mumme who went 11-38 in four seasons at New Mexico State before being fired this year. But is probably more recognizable from his stint at Kentucky from 1997-2000 replacing Bill Curry.
Mumme revitalized Kentucky football which was reeling from 6 losing seasons out of seven under Curry, his lone exception was a 6-6 season that ended with a loss to Clemson in the Peach Bowl. Mumme brought in what he called the “Air Raid” offense lead by sophomore quarterback Tim Couch. His offensive coordinator through 1999 was Mike Leach who is now head coach at Texas Tech but left Kentucky to go to Oklahoma at the time.
However, the 2000 season would see questions popping up and investigations concerning NCAA rules violations. Replacing their starting quarterback with an untested freshmen seemed to alienate his team, then coupled with the off field problems lead to a 2-9 season although many games were close and the offense producing huge numbers. But nearing the end of the season it was becoming apparent that many significant NCAA rules violations had been committed by staff.
Mumme resigned after terminating his recruiting coordinator, his defensive coordinator and his football operations director being put on an eight-year “show-cause” order which blackballed him from college sports for those eight years, he resigned on national signing day in February 2001.
Coach Jones did confirm that Propst and Mumme were among the “seven or eight” coaches he has interviewed but neither would be coming to USA. Jones declined to indentify any other potential coaches who might have been interviewed. He did say he has talked with former Auburn offensive coordinator Tony Franklin but he said it was not an interview and that Franklin is not under consideration for the position.