MOBILE, Ala. — South Alabama piled up a school-record 542 yards of offense and held off Division II Henderson State 37-31 in a homecoming shootout Saturday at Ladd-Peebles Stadium, keeping the Jaguars unbeaten in their second season of football.
C.J. Bennett completed 20 of 26 passes for 280 yards, and Kendall Houston ran for 140 yards. Both teams entered the game averaging more than 425 yards of offense per game.
Offensive Balance
Bennett completed passes to nine receivers, six of whom caught more than one ball. T.J. Glover led the group with five catches for 78 yards and finished with a career-high 189 all-purpose yards. Bennett was sacked three times.
Houston carried 27 times for his fourth 100-yard game of the season. Three other South Alabama running backs combined for 99 yards on nine carries.
Reddies Attack Through the Air
Henderson State, from Arkadelphia, Ark., threw the ball 43 times. The Reddies’ quarterback completed 23 passes for 359 yards against a South Alabama secondary that has lost two players to season-ending injuries.
The Jaguars’ kickoff coverage allowed two returns to the end zone, though one was nullified by a block-in-the-back penalty. Henderson State’s Darius Davis finished with 186 yards on five kickoff returns, including a 93-yard touchdown.
Kicking Game
Lawson McGlon made three of four field goal attempts, including a career-long 40-yarder late in the third quarter.
His miss came at the end of the first half. South Alabama faced third-and-6 at the Henderson State 12 after a timeout, but Bennett was sacked for a 14-yard loss. With no timeouts remaining, the field goal unit rushed onto the field, and McGlon’s hurried 43-yard attempt fell short.
Jones Takes Responsibility, Then Reconsiders After Film
Head coach Joey Jones credited Henderson State after the game and said his team was not as sharp as usual.
“I want to congratulate Henderson State for playing a very good football game. We knew watching on film that they were a very good team,” Jones said. “But I probably didn’t do a great job of getting the team ready in my opinion. That’s probably the first time since I’ve been here that I didn’t think we were 100 percent sharp like we normally are. And I’ll take the blame for that.”
“They’ve been throwing for 400 yards all year long, so it didn’t surprise us,” he added. “Their quarterback is a really good player and puts the ball on the money; that worried us going into this game.”
After reviewing the game film a day later, Jones offered a more positive assessment.
“When you feel terrible in a game and after a game, when you go back and look at the tape, it’s a lot better than you thought it was,” Jones said. “We played really hard and did a lot of great things. We had some bad plays and did some bad things, but if you take those five or six plays out of the game we played a really, really good game. So, I was really pleased after I watched the film, much more so than I was Saturday night.”
Season Finale Next
The win was South Alabama’s eighth straight game without an open date since the season-opening victory over Pikeville. The Jaguars, who went undefeated in their inaugural 2009 season, will close the 2010 schedule at home against Arkansas-Monticello with a 6 p.m. kickoff at Ladd-Peebles Stadium.
