South Alabama Jaguars College Football Pregame Quote, 11/18/2019

On the Louisiana game last weekend:

Obviously we were very disappointed we didn’t come away with the victory over a very good Louisiana football team, but there were some things to build off of. I thought we ran the ball extremely well ‚Äî it was the best we’ve run the ball all year ‚Äî against a good defense; we need to keep building on that and try to sustain that success running the football. For us to be successful moving forward, we need to be able to move the football on the ground. Tra [Minter} had a real good game, and Carlos Davis came in and ran the ball extremely well, which was good to see. I thought Desmond [Trotter] did a really good job of managing the game, and of putting us in position to convert some key third downs by pulling the ball down. Over the last eight quarters, we’ve had eight touchdown drives of 70-plus yards which is something we weren’t doing earlier in the year. That’s double-edged, we need to continue to be able to extend drives and score points, but we also need to help ourselves with our explosiveness. This past week, it’s kept Louisiana’s offense ‚Äî which is very explosive, and not only one of the top offenses in the Sun Belt but in the country ‚Äî on the sideline.

On Georgia State:

Georgia State is a good football team, they have played really well this year; they’ve beaten Tennessee and Army, some really good opponents. It will be a big challenge for us this week, but we’re looking forward to it.

On defending Dan Ellington:

We’ll prepare the same way as if Dan is going to be 100 percent. We’ve been watching Dan Ellington since he was at Itawamba Junior College, he is an outstanding competitor and a great football player. He has all the athletic ability, but what makes him special is his intangibles; that’s what allowed him to play last week, and they jumped up on App State 21-7. He has a great ability to run the football, to make plays out in space and to throw the football, just because he is a little limited due to that ACL doesn’t take away the intangible qualities that you need from your quarterback to help the team move the football. We’ll prepare the same way regardless of his condition or who winds up playing quarterback, they are going to have a good quarterback either way. We need to have a great week of practice and get after whoever it is

On the team’s attitude heading into the final weeks of the season:

I listen to our players and I love their attitude, they have come to work each and every day with a positive attitude and an approach to get better. We left some plays out there against Louisiana that could’ve helped us win that football game; we had a lead in the second half and a chance to put it away but had a holding penalty that brought back a big conversion for us. We weren’t able to convert after the penalty, I really thought on that drive that we were going to take it down and go up by two scores, and that’s against a team that will probably play for the [Sun Belt] conference championship and may have a chance to win it. At this point in the season with what the guys have gone through, they are still battling every day and getting better.

On the next step in Desmond Trotter’s progression:

The next step for Des is going to be to finish and win this next game. If the score had played out a little different, you would’ve said he played really well against Louisiana coming off of a fourth-quarter drive that led to a game-winning field goal on the road against Texas State. Obviously that didn’t happen, but let’s build off of that, go on the road and get a big conference win this week against a real good Georgia State team.

On the second half against Louisiana:

They are good, I don’t think they did a lot different to be honest. The play where they converted the fourth-and-one was the play that we had stopped earlier in the game on a third-and-short to force a punt. They ramped it up a little bit and we weren’t quite able to match that intensity. That’s what good football teams do, they were able to do it and we have to get to the point where we can stop it in that situation; we have to take that next step. Normally we say there are four or five plays in each game that determine the outcome, that was one and there were obviously some things in the kicking game that helped turn that game in the other direction.