MOBILE, Ala. — South Alabama’s football team returned to practice Monday after a weekend off, opening game preparation for its Sept. 1 season opener against West Alabama on the same day players returned to class for the fall semester.
Practice Structure
Monday’s session followed a format similar to preseason camp. The Jaguars opened with special teams, focusing on kickoff returns, before moving to screens and individual double-team drills.
The offense ran skeleton passing drills before 11-on-11 work, and both the offense and defense worked against scout teams as the staff continued installing plays for the opener. The session closed with more special teams work on kickoff coverage.
Defense Gets to the Quarterback
In additional 11-on-11 work, the offense worked on picking up blitz packages, with the first- and second-team units each running about five plays.
Quarterback C.J. Bennett completed a pass to Corey Walden on a crossing route and connected with Paul Bennett on an out route. Those were the offense’s only two completions in the period.
Cori Barnett and Romelle Jones recorded sacks against the first-team offense, and Desmond Jones added a sack against the second team. Damond Smith and Alex Page each broke up passes thrown by second-team quarterbacks.
Jones: “They Were Focused”
Head coach Joey Jones said the team handled the first day of classes well.
“I thought it was a great practice, especially for the first day of classes,” Jones said. “Usually that’s a bad one because they have their minds on school. … They were focused this morning, it was a really good sign. I think giving them Saturday and Sunday off really helped.”
Jones also pointed to the defense’s work in third-down blitz situations.
“We had some good situational stuff done today with the third-down blitz, the defense did a good job of getting to the quarterback today,” Jones said. “They looked a little fresher on defense, which I thought was good. We’re starting to game plan now, the kids have been watching film on West Alabama.”
Up Next
The Jaguars were scheduled to continue preparation with a 6:45 a.m. practice Tuesday at the Jaguar Practice Facility. South Alabama, entering its third season of football, opens the 2011 season against West Alabama on Thursday, Sept. 1, nine days after Tuesday’s workout.
