MOBILE, Ala. — South Alabama scaled back its contact Wednesday, practicing in shells ahead of Thursday’s situational scrimmage, the final scrimmage of the preseason.
The Jaguars are preparing for their third season of football, which opens against West Alabama at Ladd-Peebles Stadium.
Practice Structure
Practice followed its usual flow. The special teams opened with work on kickoff returns, followed by individual drills, skeleton passing drills and inside drills.
Later, the first units worked against the scout teams for about 30 minutes. The offense ran more than 30 plays on the turf field while the defense worked on the grass field.
Two-Minute Drill
A 10-minute two-minute drill segment near the end of practice ended without a score for the offense. Both the first-team and second-team defenses kept the offense out of the end zone and off the scoreboard.
The second-team offense had a scoring chance after Trey Fetner completed a long pass to Jake Howton down the left sideline, setting up a field goal attempt. The kick missed in the final seconds of the drill.
The Jaguars closed practice with more special teams work on kickoff coverage.
Jones on Focus
Head coach Joey Jones called it a good practice but said the team’s focus slipped late.
“I thought it was a really good practice, though we lost our focus a little bit at the end,” Jones said. “Just watching the offense I thought we had some missed assignments late. But other than that, it was a great practice. We have to learn to focus at the end when it’s the fourth quarter and we’re a little tired and it’s hot.”
Scrimmage to Simulate a Game
Jones said Thursday’s scrimmage will be run like a game, starting with a kickoff and moving through each phase.
“We’ll run a few plays and have the punt return team come out, we’ll play it just like a game,” Jones said. He said he will follow a script that includes situations the team has not covered in practice, such as taking a safety, a kickoff return after a safety and taking a knee on the last play of the game.
The Jaguars will be in full pads Thursday for the scrimmage at the Jaguar Practice Facility. No time was announced.
