South Alabama Picked Sixth in Sun Belt West as Four Jaguars Land on Preseason Second Team

The Sun Belt Conference coaches have spoken, and they do not think much of South Alabama’s chances this fall.

Coming off a 4-8 season, the Jaguars were picked to finish sixth in the seven-team West Division in the league’s annual preseason coaches’ poll, released Monday by the conference office. South Alabama collected 31 points in the voting.

The West Division Vote

Troy was the runaway pick to repeat as West champion, drawing 12 first-place votes and 96 total points – the Trojans won the division a year ago. The full West Division tally:

The Full West and East Division Vote Tallies

• Troy – 96 points (12 first-place votes)
• Louisiana – 75 (1)
• Arkansas State – 69
• Louisiana Tech – 55
• Southern Miss – 47 (1)
• South Alabama – 31
• ULM – 19

In the East, defending Sun Belt champion James Madison was picked to take the crown again with 94 points and 11 first-place votes, followed by Old Dominion (73), Marshall (67), Georgia Southern (53), Coastal Carolina (45), Appalachian State (43) and Georgia State (17).

South Alabama’s Four All-Conference Selections

South Alabama finished ahead of only Louisiana-Monroe, which drew 19 points at the bottom of the division.

Four Jaguars on the Second Team – All on Offense

South Alabama placed no players on the preseason All-Sun Belt first team. It did land four on the second team, and every one of them plays offense: running back Keenan Phillips, offensive linemen Kenton Jerido and Ethan Hubbard, and wide receiver Anthony Eager, a product of Mobile’s McGill-Toolen.

Keenan Phillips rushed for 607 yards and three touchdowns last season, averaging 4.8 yards per carry. He added 48 receiving yards and posted a season-high 104 rushing yards against Coastal Carolina.

Ethan Hubbard started 11 games on the offensive line in 2025, helping anchor a unit that ranked 20th nationally in rushing offense at 199.8 yards per game. The Jaguars finished third in the Sun Belt with 30 rushing touchdowns.

Kenton Jerido appeared in all 12 games and started five of the final six, logging snaps at all five offensive line positions during the season. That versatility helped a South Alabama offense that eclipsed 200 rushing yards in six games.

Anthony Eager led the Jaguars with 40 receptions for 339 yards and a touchdown while also serving as one of the team’s top kick returners. He recorded a season-high eight catches at Auburn and finished with five receptions for 83 yards in the Jags’ win over ULM.

Reading the Tea Leaves

There is a coherent story buried in those individual honors, and it is not entirely a pessimistic one. Four second-team selections, all on offense, three of them in the run game – a returning 600-yard back behind two returning linemen on a unit that finished 20th nationally in rushing.

Team Identity and Where Improvement Is Needed

That is a team with an identity. The Jaguars can run the football, and the coaches who voted in this poll clearly recognize it.

The absence of any defensive selections is the harder truth, and it points at where a 4-8 record came from. Preseason polls are, at bottom, a projection of last season forward. Teams that outperform them tend to do it by fixing the side of the ball nobody voted for.

Around the League

Marshall quarterback Carlos Del Rio-Wilson was tabbed Preseason Offensive Player of the Year. Troy defensive lineman Donnie Smith was selected Preseason Defensive Player of the Year, and Troy punter Evan Crenshaw took Preseason Special Teams Player of the Year.

Program Context Heading Into the 2026 Season

The Sun Belt Conference has grown into one of the more competitive Group of Five leagues in the country, and the West Division in particular has produced a string of bowl teams and occasional New Year’s Six upsets. South Alabama’s 4-8 record last season was a step back from the program’s recent upward trajectory, when the Jaguars posted winning campaigns and knocked off Power Four opponents. A sixth-place projection reflects caution from coaches who watched the offense lose production, but preseason polls in the Sun Belt have a habit of being overturned by October.

For the four Jaguars named to the second team, the recognition is a baseline rather than a ceiling. Running back Keenan Phillips anchors a ground game that has been the program’s identity, while the offensive line duo of Kenton Jerido and Ethan Hubbard gives the unit the kind of experience that typically translates into late-season improvement. Anthony Eager, the Mobile native out of McGill-Toolen Catholic, headlines a receiving corps asked to replace departed production. All four being on offense underscores where the coaches believe the team’s best path to surprising the league lies.

South Alabama opens the 2026 season with expectations modest enough that a strong September could quickly shuffle the division. The program, based in Mobile and competing in the Sun Belt, has made clear in recent years that it intends to be a consistent winner on the Gulf Coast, and a rebound from 4-8 would reassert that ambition. The preseason poll is, at most, a starting line.

South Alabama’s recent history gives the modest projection some context. Under head coach Major Applewhite, the Jaguars had built toward respectability in the Sun Belt, and the program’s home games at Hancock Whitney Stadium on the campus of the University of South Alabama in Mobile have drawn growing crowds from across the Port City and Baldwin County. The 4-8 mark represented a regression, and preseason voters appear to be weighing that slide against the returning talent.

The West Division itself is not especially deep at the top beyond Troy and Louisiana, which means a couple of upset wins could scramble the order quickly. Southern Miss, Arkansas State, and Louisiana Tech all landed between 47 and 69 points in the polling, a clustered middle that South Alabama’s 31 points sits just beneath. A single road win or two against that group would put the Jaguars right back in the mix for a winning record and a bowl berth — the metrics by which the program measures a successful season.

For the four second-team honorees, individual recognition is also a recruiting asset. Phillips, Hubbard, Jerido, and Eager give South Alabama a core of recognized offensive talent to build around, and their presence on the preseason team signals to incoming recruits that the Jaguars’ offense has established pieces. Spring practice and fall camp will determine whether that talent translates into the kind of season that proves the coaches’ poll wrong. The Jaguar faithful in Mobile will be watching the opener closely.

Program History and the Road Ahead

The Sun Belt Conference is one of the more visible Group of Five conferences in college football, having produced New Year’s Six bowl upsets and consistent bowl eligibility across its membership. The conference split into East and West divisions in recent years, with South Alabama competing in the West alongside Troy, Louisiana, Arkansas State, Louisiana Tech, Southern Miss and ULM.

Hancock Whitney Stadium, the on-campus home of South Alabama football, opened in 2020 and replaced the aging Ladd-Peebles Stadium as the Jaguars’ primary venue. The stadium, located on the University of South Alabama campus in west Mobile, has a capacity of roughly 25,000 and has helped elevate the program’s recruiting and game-day experience.

The University of South Alabama is based in Mobile and offers undergraduate, graduate and professional programs across multiple colleges. Its athletics program fields teams in the Sun Belt Conference, with football, baseball, basketball, softball and other sports competing at the Division I level.

Preseason polls in the Sun Belt Conference are typically dominated by programs that finished strong the previous season, and sixth-place finishes have frequently been surpassed in actual play. Recent Sun Belt history includes multiple bowl wins by programs picked in the bottom half of their divisions at the start of the year.

South Alabama’s 4-8 record in the most recent season was a step back from the program’s recent upward trajectory. The Jaguars had posted winning seasons and bowl appearances in earlier years, including a notable upset of a Power Four opponent that helped establish the program as a credible Sun Belt contender. The 2026 preseason projection reflects expectations that the program will need to rebuild its offensive identity around the four returning players honored on the second team.

Troy, picked to repeat as West Division champion, has been the standard in the Sun Belt’s West Division in recent years. The Trojans’ combination of returning production, established coaching and conference-tested scheme has made them the team to beat. Louisiana and Arkansas State, the other teams picked ahead of South Alabama, also bring back significant experience, which contributes to the cautious projection for the Jaguars.

The Sun Belt Conference has expanded and reorganized multiple times since its founding, with new members joining and divisions reshaped to reflect the conference’s growth. The West Division, where South Alabama competes, has historically produced some of the conference’s strongest programs, including Troy and Louisiana. The Jaguars’ path back to bowl eligibility will likely run through at least one or two upset wins against the middle of the West Division.

The Jaguars’ 2026 schedule includes several winnable non-conference games and a Sun Belt slate that includes both home and road matchups against the West Division favorites. A fast start against the non-conference portion of the schedule could provide the momentum the team needs to compete in conference play. The four returning second-team honorees give the Jaguars a foundation around which the rest of the roster can develop.