South Alabama Jaguars College Football Pregame Quote, 11/25/2019

We are getting ready to face a very good Arkansas State football team, a team that is coming in having won their last four games and appears to be getting better every week. I thought we had played better the previous two weeks prior to the last game, the thing that was most disappointing was that I thought we went backwards just a little bit offensively against Georgia State. We had scored 27 and 28 points the prior two weeks and statistically Georgia State was not at the top of the league so we had every intention of going in and winning that football game but offensively we left too may plays out there. Defensively I thought we started off really strong but we didn’t finish the way that we started. Georgia State was averaging about 38 [points] a game and at the top of the league in scoring offense and we held them to 28, but had the opportunity to hold them to 14 points. It was a disappointing loss for us, it’s big for us to get back on the track of improvement this week. We’ve got a great group of seniors, we need to send those guys out with a ‘W’ in their last college football game and the last South Alabama game at Ladd-Peebles Stadium.

On the message to the team after watching film of the Georgia State game:

The big thing that I talked to our guys about last night is that was a game that we could’ve won, there have been a handful of games this year that have gotten away from us that we had the opportunity to win. I liked the way we came out of the gates, we jumped up 3-0 and then left some plays out there. We’ve got a young football team, offensively we have two seniors who will be playing in their last game; I want to win the football game, but I want to see that progress each and every week as well. If we will improve over the way we played the last couple of weeks we’ll have a great opportunity to win this football game on Friday and finish this season the way that we need to with a win over a very good football team. Football is not like basketball or baseball, you only get 12 opportunities so each game is precious. A lot of our seniors have been playing since they were five or six years old and been playing college four or five years, this is their last opportunity so let’s make sure that we play our best football game to give ourselves a chance to win it.

On if the weather changed the game plan at Georgia State:

You never know how those things are going to play out. I could see watching their first series that [Dan] Ellington was having trouble with the ball and that it was going to be tough to throw the football because it was raining pretty hard early. In the first half you definitely had to protect the football and make sure that you didn’t put yourself in harm’s way so it changed the strategy early. In the second half it cleared up and the elements weren’t that much of a factor, but in the first half they affected the game plan on both sides.

On Tra Minter:

Tra has been a very special kids since I’ve been here. He’s had an outstanding career on the football field as evidenced by the fact that he has 1,700 all-purpose yards and has a chance to become our first 1,000-yard rusher this week. He’s been a great football player doing a lot of different things for us ‚Äî running the football, catching passes and on special teams. I’ve been blessed to have coached a lot of good players over the years including a lot of good backs, but Tra is special. He has been a great leader for us, even with as well as he has played he’s a very humble guy who comes to work every day and sets a great tone and tempo for the rest of the guys. We have five freshman running backs behind Tra, he has done a really good job of showing them how they need to go about their business in order to have the career that he has had. He’s a great role model who has been special for us on and off the field, we will definitely miss Tra Minter.