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

Jackson State was a good win for us, it’s always good to get that first ‘W’ under your belt.  The game played out in a good way for us, there was a lot of positive things to build off of but there is still a lot of things we have to improve upon getting ready for a very good Memphis football team.  We ran the football well, but we had turnovers so that gives us something that we need to get back to work on this week.  Defensively we played really well week one, and though we felt like we didn’t play that well this week we still gave up under 300 yards of offense; that’s a good thing when you think you have things to work on but you still come out with a ‘W.’  It was a good win, but now we turn the page to a very good Memphis team.

On what stands out about Memphis:

Their overall athleticism.  Defensively they are very athletic, their line does a good job of creating havoc ‚Äî that’s a key term now in football ‚Äî which they did against Ole Miss when they held them to 10 points.  That’s something we definitely need to work on this week, eliminating those havoc plays and creating some explosive ones.  Offensively they sent a couple of guys to the NFL last year, they were very explosive, but this year their first game was against Ole Miss with a new defensive coordinator so I know they weren’t as prolific as they’re used to being but they did come out with the ‘W.’  They went back to the drawing board and got a lot of things buttoned up between week one and week two and were able to put up 55 this week.  They have some guys back this season, and are playing a lot of new guys at some of the skill positions who are very explosive.  They have a lot of team speed, what sticks out on both sides of the ball is how fast these guys are.  It will be a big challenge for us this week, but it is one that we are definitely looking forward to. 

On the Jaguar defense: 

We need to start fast both defensively and offensively.  Through the first two weeks of the season, the first drive we have not started fast on defense but we’ve been able to make adjustments to stop the bleeding.  Last week, if you would’ve asked me immediately after the game before I saw the stat sheet, I would’ve said that Jackson State had 528 yards but they wound up with 265.  That’s a testament to where we are headed defensively.  At the end of the day, the ‘one’ defense gave up one touchdown, and that was aided by two targeting penalties.  The first two weeks we’ve gotten off to a little bit of a slow start, but we’ve been able to make adjustments and keep them off the scoreboard.