South Alabama Jaguars College Football Pregame Quote, 09/02/2019

It was obviously a disappointing loss to Nebraska, I was proud of the way that the guys fought but we expected that.  They played hard and gave us a chance to stay competitive throughout the game.  The game turned during what we call the ‘middle eight,’ everybody remembers the buzzer-beater games where somebody scores on the last drive ‚Äî those, of course, are the ones that show up on the highlights ‚Äî but most college football games typically turn right before and after the half.  I thought we did a really good job right before the half, our defense got two big stops and we forced a field goal that Jalen [Thompson] got a hand on, but in the second half we had the turnover where they scored and on the next series we had the miscue in the kicking game; we didn’t finish the ‘middle eight’ the way that we wanted to.  We did come back and finish the quarter, the third quarter wound up a 14-14 tie, and after the miscue to start the fourth quarter we gave ourselves a couple of opportunities to tighten the game but we couldn’t cash in. 

Good football teams make their biggest improvement between week one and week two, that’s what we need to do.  We have plenty of things to work on to get better and give ourselves a chance to win a football game like that, which is good because Jackson State is a good football team.  Last week they outgained Bethune-Cookman two to one but they turned the football over, I am sure they are meeting today and talking about if they could correct a couple of turnovers they are a 1-0 team.  They have a lot of speed offensively, the quarterbacks who played a predominant number of the snaps both can really run.  When I was watching the game on TV I thought they had a bunch of 230-pound running backs, when you get the roster you see that they are not quite that big but they run hard ‚Äî I was convinced they had a bunch of Robert Newhouse kind of guys, they looked big on film but they are very explosive and can run.  They gave up 270 yards, Jackson State is very stout on defense.  John Hendrick is their head coach, he is a defensive guy by trade who runs a 3-3 stack and does a lot of Joe Lee Dunn’s stuff from back in the day.  They bring pressure from a lot of different angles and have a lot of speed defensively.  It will be a big challenge for us this week, but it is one that we are definitely looking forward to. 

On his evaluation of Cephus Johnson after the Nebraska game: 

What was very encouraging was our first touchdown, he made two big plays with his feet.  We ran an option where he got down the sideline and may have been horse-collared, even though that wasn’t called, he jumped right up and now you can call that play again; he showed toughness and moxie.  So the next play we called it again and he makes their starting strong safety miss and runs into the end zone.  The ball he threw to Tra Minter on the wheel route, he dropped that in perfectly, I thought he made some outstanding throws.  The thing I like about Cephus is that he’s tough ‚Äî he got hit a couple of times and jumped right back up, he wanted the ball in his hands again ‚Äî which is exciting and very encouraging. 

On penalties:

We had three penalties for 11 yards in the first half, that was something we made a big deal out of and our kids have taken ownership of that.  The first play of the second half we had a holding penalty on the kickoff, and two or three plays later we get another one and two or three plays after that we get another one, then I get mine and we ended up at seven.  After that, it shut back down miraculously, don’t know why but it’s something that we’ve worked hard at. 

On what he saw in the preseason that made him believe in the team: 

Starting back in January you could see that this group had an esprit de corps, they had a spirit where they really bonded together and like each other; it’s not offense/defense or linemen/skill, these young men truly bond and hang out together and do the things that good football teams do.  You could see that there was a little different vibe with this group, which was encouraging, and though there are a lot of teams that like each other that aren’t great football teams it’s normally a key ingredient.  The other thing was that our defense was pretty stout against us in the first two scrimmages, they did a great job and we had a hard time sustaining long drives against them.  Typically, my experience has been your defense is ahead during fall camp and the offense needs a chance to catch up and when it’s not that way you’re not where you need to be.  That was definitely the case this year, our defense was ahead all fall camp even though we were able to make some plays and do some really good things offensively, but I never was concerned about whether or not we were going to be able to move the football.  I looked over there and saw a bunch of really good players, you would look down the list and personnel-wise I thought that we were better at each position.