MOBILE, Ala. — Lightning near the practice facility forced South Alabama to cut short its second practice of preseason camp on Friday, as head coach Joey Jones called the team off the field after about an hour of work in a light rain.
The South Alabama football practice weather delay came during skeleton passing drills. The Jaguars had worked through a little more than 30 minutes of individual drills and roughly 15 minutes of skeleton passing before players, coaches and staff were sent back to the Football Fieldhouse.
Saturday Session Moved to Morning
The program moved Saturday’s practice from the previously announced 6:30 p.m. start to 7:15 a.m. The session will be the first of camp in which players wear shells and are permitted light contact.
Jones said the team had planned to shift to morning practices beginning Monday regardless, and that the forecast played into the decision to move Saturday’s workout up.
“We had a lot of good meeting time today, but unfortunately lightning popped and we had to go back inside,” Jones said. “We can make it up with good meeting time and walk through time, but the bottom line is we didn’t get in much of a practice. But we’ll have a good practice tomorrow morning, I’m looking forward to that.”
“We were going to practice in the morning starting on Monday anyway,” Jones added. “There’s a 20-30 percent chance of rain tomorrow morning, but 40-50 percent chance in the afternoon, so we rolled the dice and will go in the morning.”
Offense Installing the Spread
First-year offensive coordinator Robert Matthews said the shortened workout would not set back the offense. According to Matthews, the meetings and walkthroughs held before the team took the field kept the installation of the game plan on schedule heading into Saturday.
The Jaguars’ offense is transitioning to a spread attack after previously running a multiple power offense.
South Alabama is preparing for the 2012 season, its first as a member of the Sun Belt Conference in football.
