South Alabama Jaguars College Football Pregame Quote, 09/16/2019

Obviously we are disappointed in our showing against Memphis, going into the game I felt that if we could play a clean game as far as cutting down on penalties and turnovers that we could go toe-to-toe with them. They came out and were the more violent football team, the game was decided at the lines of scrimmage. We needed to see that, when we go to work this week we need to make sure we have our stinger out and we’re ready to go from the get go. The things had hurt us through the first two weeks, we wound up with three penalties and didn’t have a turnover until the game was well decided; the things that had gotten us the first two weeks didn’t get us this past week, there were definitely some things to build off of.

Now, we need to be the more physical, violent football team and stay in check with the things that can hurt you. We’ve got another great test this week, UAB is a very good football team on both sides of the football. They are very good defensively ‚Äî they are ranked in the top half in the country in a lot of different categories ‚Äî and offensively they are throwing the ball around really well and they have a big back they can hand the ball off to and run it. Their quarterback has done a good job of getting the ball down the field to their receivers. It’s a big challenge for us this week, but it’s a game that we’re definitely looking forward to. Our guys responded really well last night when we practiced, we watched the film and were able to see some of the plays where we could have taken advantage of a couple of things and that game a better football game. We’ll make those corrections and move forward this week.

On the team’s injury situation:

We’re banged up because that was our most physical football game this year, Memphis was a very physical bunch. We’ll lose a guy or two, but we are getting some guys back which is good.

On putting the Memphis game behind:

There is a desire to do that, but I think we can learn a lot. There are some games where you just want to burn the film and move on, this game I know I learned a lot. We went toe-to-toe physically with Nebraska on the line of scrimmage, I thought we held our own and may have actually had the upper hand. We outgained them and we outgained Jackson State two-to-one, I thought going into the Memphis game if we didn’t turn the ball over and have penalties we would be good, but that was not the case. What I learned about our team is that we need to have an edge. Memphis came in and was definitely playing with an edge, we need to get that edge back. Let’s learn from this before we put it behind us. It wasn’t a [Sun Belt] conference game, so we have one more test ‚Äî we’ve played a Nebraska team everybody picked to win their half of the Big Ten, we’ve played a Memphis team that faced Central Florida twice [last season] ‚Äî against a UAB team that played Middle Tennessee two weeks in a row after meeting in their conference championship game. Before we go into our conference we’ll have faced some really good tests.

On Cephus Johnson:

I was pleased with some of the things that Cephus has done, what I challenged him with this past week was don’t turn the football over. We need to make a few more plays without putting ourselves in danger of turning the football over. We have a young football team that will take each and every week and improve.

On the team’s youth:

Jared Wilson came in and did some good things, I thought [John] Tank Miller had a couple of good runs against a Memphis team that I think is ranked seventh in the nation in defense; once Tra [Minter] goes down the rest of them are freshmen, but those guys got in there and filled in. Our freshman punter had his best game kicking, so there were some areas where you could see a couple of silver linings. There will be a day — and it needs to be this week — where two or three of those things come together at the same time.

On he knows about UAB QB Tyler Johnston III:

Just that he didn’t lose any games in high school, he’s a winner who does a great job and has continued at UAB what he did in high school. He is an athletic guy, but what I hear is it is not so much his athleticism as it is his savvy.