MOBILE — South Alabama opened the 2026 season Saturday night the way its new coaching staff said it intended to: by handing the ball off, over and over, until the game was decided.
The Jaguars beat Southeastern Louisiana 39-14 at Hancock Whitney Stadium, running the football 59 times for 241 yards, holding possession for more than two-thirds of the game and never allowing the Lions to convert a third down.
South Alabama took the field with a very different roster from last season and an almost completely new coaching staff. The result looked like a team that had already agreed on an identity.
Nineteen Points in the First Quarter
The Jaguars received the opening kickoff and drove 55 yards on five plays. Bishop Davenport found Brendan Jenkins for a 26-yard touchdown, Davis Little added the extra point, and the tone was set inside three minutes.
Damyrion Darby intercepted Southeastern Louisiana quarterback Kyle Lowe on the Lions’ first possession. South Alabama converted the turnover into a 35-yard Little field goal and a 10-0 lead with 6:07 left in the quarter.
The Lions then gave up two more points in the most demoralizing way available: a high snap over the punter’s head rolled into the end zone, forcing him to kick the ball out of bounds for a safety.
South Alabama took the ensuing possession and drove for another score, a 1-yard run by Trae’Von Dunbar. The Jaguars led 19-0.
Southeastern Louisiana got on the board before the quarter ended, taking advantage of a facemask penalty on a long play to set up a 12-yard scoring pass from Lowe to Lonnie Shinn, cutting the margin to 19-7.
Aggression, and One Decision Applewhite Wanted Back
Head coach Major Applewhite said afterward that aggression was the plan, and that he intended to keep it that way.
“We’ve got to sustain, not to jump to the negative, but I was very pleased with the way the guys came out and attacked, and we stayed in that attack mode,” Applewhite said. “And sometimes I’ll put it on the guys, I’ll put it on me, a little aggressive in some midfield fourth-down decisions. I wish I’d had one back.”
“But that’s the way we’re going to need to play. We’re going to have to play that way and be the aggressor. Very seldom are we going to line up and be the most talented team. So we have to be aggressive from the coach’s standpoint.”
That is an unusually candid statement of program philosophy: a coach saying publicly that his team will usually be outmanned and therefore has to accept variance. Twice in the first half the Lions stopped the Jaguars on fourth down at midfield. Southeastern Louisiana’s best chance off those stops ended when Drew Talley’s 47-yard field goal try hit the left upright.
South Alabama had a fourth-down stop of its own late in the quarter — all three fourth-down stops in the game left possession at the opponent’s 49 — and turned it into a 30-yard Little field goal and a 22-7 halftime lead.
The Lions’ Best Stretch, and the End of It
Southeastern Louisiana wasted no time after the break, driving 65 yards in four plays and scoring on a 7-yard Lowe-to-Shinn touchdown. It was 22-14 with 12:46 left in the third.
South Alabama answered with a drive that should have been a touchdown — P.J. Martin scored from six yards out, only for a holding penalty to erase it — and settled for a 26-yard Little field goal capping an 11-play, 45-yard possession.
Less than two minutes later, Jaylen Moson jumped a hitch route, intercepted Lowe and returned it to the Lions’ 12. Four plays after that Davenport scored on a 2-yard keeper for a 32-14 lead, and the game was effectively finished.
The Jaguars added a fourth-quarter touchdown at the 9:02 mark on a 3-yard Martin run capping a 14-play, 57-yard drive. South Alabama had lined up for a 24-yard field goal before Southeastern Louisiana jumped offside, moving the ball to the 3 on fourth down. Applewhite sent the offense back out. Martin scored.
The Numbers
Davenport finished 18 of 27 for 154 yards and a touchdown, adding 11 carries for 23 yards and a rushing score. Jenkins caught five passes for 78 yards and a touchdown, and was the only Jaguars receiver to catch a pass in the first quarter.
Martin led the rushing group with 69 yards and a score on 18 carries. Keenan Phillips added 66 yards on 13 carries, and Dunbar had 60 yards and a touchdown on 13 carries. Four Jaguars had 10 or more carries, and the team averaged 4.1 yards per attempt.
South Alabama held the ball for 37:18 and ran 86 plays. Southeastern Louisiana held it for 18:43 and ran 37. The Jaguars generated 395 total yards and 26 first downs to the Lions’ 11.
Defensively, South Alabama allowed 231 total yards and just 45 rushing yards, produced two interceptions, and did not permit a third-down conversion in seven attempts or a fourth-down conversion in one. Cole Blaylock led with five total tackles; Jayvon Henderson and Parker Shattock added four each. Former walk-on linebacker Jordan Williams started and recorded the only sack of the night.
Little was perfect on special teams: three field goals, four extra points.
‘One of Our Pillars’
Applewhite returned repeatedly to the idea of being 1-0.
“One of our pillars of our program, we talk about being 1-0, and these guys have done that throughout all of fall camp,” Applewhite said. “And to get a chance and actually be 1-0 in the won-lost column is huge. And to see them have fun and play together and some of the complimentary football that went on in different parts of the game. So, just really pleased with the way they played.”
He was also already looking at film. “We talked to them in there whether we won or whether we lost tonight, there’s still things that we’ve got to go clean up, and as coaches we’ll see those things tonight on film and explain to the guys in the morning and just try to get a head start on Tulane tomorrow afternoon.”
A Defense Full of Question Marks Answers Some
Every listed defensive starter for the Jaguars is at least a junior, but the group came in with real uncertainty — several were incoming transfers and others were first-year starters. Whether they would function as a unit was an open question.
Blaylock said the answer came in waves.
“D. Darby came out first drive with a big pick,” Blaylock said. “He didn’t play that much last year. That was a huge play. Moson transferred, made a huge play. I mean, I could go on and on about it, but I really like the way we played aggressive, and we took our shot even when we missed and just covered each other up.”
He pointed to one sequence in particular. “We had one stretch of the game where there was a tackle inside the 15-yard line, picked off, gave the offense a short field, and they punched it in. So, I mean, that’s always huge to know that you can play together as a team.”
Not One-Dimensional
Jenkins said the run-heavy approach was the point.
“That was something that we emphasized,” he said. “We didn’t want to be one dimensional this year so defenses actually had to gameplan for us so I feel like we did that tonight and we’re ready to do it again next week.”
South Alabama was missing senior wide receiver Anthony Eager, a Mobile native who saw action only on special teams due to a cast on his hand. Eager missed spring practices with a broken hand and was limited in practice during game week.
Tulane Next
The Jaguars travel to New Orleans to face Tulane on Saturday. Kickoff is 6 p.m. Central at Yulman Stadium, streaming on ESPN+.
Tulane enters 0-1 after a 17-3 loss to Duke, the reigning ACC champion. It is a substantial step up in class from an FCS opener, and it will test whether a ball-control offense that dominated time of possession against Southeastern Louisiana can do the same against a Group of Five program with a recent history of winning.
South Alabama starts 1-0. Under a coaching staff in its first game together, that was the stated objective, and the Jaguars met it.