MOBILE, Ala. — South Alabama held its second day of spring practice Thursday, getting in a full two-hour session despite the threat of rain as the Jaguars continued adjusting to a new spread offense.
Practice Rundown
Most of the first half of practice was devoted to individual drills with position coaches. Before the offense and defense faced each other, the defense spent about 20 minutes on formations and blitzes while the offense worked against the scout team for about 15 minutes.
Near the end of practice, the offense and defense went head to head in two 10-minute periods, first in a 7-on-7 skeleton passing drill and then in full 11-on-11 work. Both periods emphasized the defense, particularly the pass rush and blitz packages.
Adjusting to a New Offense
The Jaguars are moving from the power offense they previously ran to the spread attack installed by new offensive coordinator Robert Matthews. Head coach Joey Jones said the new personnel groupings and faster tempo are among the main challenges for players this spring.
“When you hurry a kid up on the second day of practice in a brand new offense, it multiplies the problems,” Jones said. “I think they have handled it pretty well. The biggest thing is that day 15 has to be much better than day two, that’s what we are shooting for.”
Depth Chart ‘Wide Open’
With a full Sun Belt Conference schedule and a difficult nonconference slate ahead in the fall, the coaching staff is using spring practice to evaluate players at every position. Jones said there is only so much the staff can learn before contact.
“You can’t tell much without pads on, we’re just trying to teach them and get them to learn what they are doing,” Jones said. “Saturday when we put the shoulder pads on, we will be able to tell a lot more about our players.”
“We want to find out who our players are, who will be on the two-deep,” Jones said. “It’s really wide open. There are some spots that are obvious, but there are a lot that aren’t. We’ve got guys who have worked their way up in our program, who are going to be juniors, and have been No. 2 or No. 3 fighting for jobs, and we’ve brought in some new players who are fighting for those spots. I would say that 75 percent of our spots are wide open right now.”
Experience at Linebacker
Jones said he is comfortable with the experience at linebacker. Jake Johnson and Enrique Williams each started all 10 games last season at the inside positions, and Clifton Crews started all 10 at outside linebacker. Logan Bennett and Bryson James have each lettered at outside linebacker for the past three years, and Ben Giles and Desmond LaVelle saw playing time last season.
‘It’s Just Going to Take Some Time’
Jones said he was pleased with the effort.
“I thought it was a good day,” Jones said. “The intensity was there, the kids were working hard. Offensively, we are a long way from being all together, but we were expecting that. The kids have really locked in, they are making some mistakes out there but we had some good things happen when they went against the defense too. It’s just a matter of being patient, of coming in every day and studying what we are doing and getting better. It’s just going to take some time.”
The team will take Friday off before practicing in shells for the first time Saturday. That practice is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. at the Jaguar Practice Facility.
