MOBILE, Ala. — After a three-week gap between games, South Alabama has finished its practices for Army Prep and will play the second game in program history Saturday at Ladd-Peebles Stadium.
The Jaguars opened their inaugural season Sept. 5 with a 30-13 win over Hargrave Military Academy. Kickoff against the Army Prep Black Knights is set for 4 p.m.
Making Use of the Layoff
Head coach Joey Jones acknowledged the long break following an emotional opener was a concern, but said practices have gone well.
“The tone has been good out here,” Jones said. “We have had some good practices the last two weeks. The guys have come out to work, practices have been real businesslike. The emotional level has picked up this week, which is what you want. You want to peak on Saturday – our kids understand that, they will be ready.”
“I have not been part of anything like this, it has been tough,” he added. “A lot of things in life can be negative but we were able to turn it into a positive, we’ve had a long time to get ready. We feel like we have worked against them every day for two-and-a-half weeks, that has got to help us.”
Jones said he was not worried that players had focused only on the program’s debut.
“The bottom line is that every game is a big game, and our kids understand that,” he said. “They want to have a great season, not just a great first game. We’ve been working a lot of hours so that any time that we go on the field we will be ready.”
Lessons From the Opener
The extra time allowed the Jaguars to work against scout teams running the plays and formations Army Prep is expected to use, and gave the coaching staff a chance to review film of the Hargrave game in detail.
“There are a lot of little things that we have been able to improve on the last few weeks,” Jones said. “Our offense is always working on scoring in the red zone, it seems like we talk about that a lot because it’s hard to score down there.”
South Alabama scored on three of its five trips inside the red zone against Hargrave. Running back Brandon Ross scored two touchdowns in the opener.
Stopping the Triple Option
Defensively, Jones said the staff has worked on short passes that Hargrave completed, but the main challenge this week is Army Prep’s running game.
“Defensively we did a lot of great things, although we gave up some short passes so we’ve been addressing that,” Jones said. “This is a running team we’re playing against, though, so our challenge on defense this week is stopping the triple option.”
The Jaguars held Hargrave to 106 rushing yards on 27 carries. Hargrave finished with 344 yards of total offense.
Game Day Details
South Alabama will hold a walk-through at Ladd-Peebles Stadium on Friday before final preparations Saturday. A free online audio broadcast will be available at usajaguars.com, with pregame coverage beginning at 3 p.m. and a postgame wrap-up following the game.
