By JOSEPH SCHIEFELBEIN, Advocate sportswriter
Jaguars open season with ‘gut check’ win over FAMU
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Southern started nicely enough, with Darren Coates bolting for a 90-yard touchdown run on the offense’s first play. But the Jaguars finished even better, overcoming an eight-point halftime deficit to score a 33-27 victory over Florida A&M in the MEAC/SWAC Challenge on Saturday in Legion Field.
After an offseason in which SU lost at least 15 players since the spring, an attrition that thinned the offensive and defensive lines, the Jaguars were supposed to be the team that wore down. Instead, the opposite proved true.
“It comes a point in a game like this of who’s going to survive,” Southern coach Pete Richardson said. “Now it’s a gut-check time. That’s what we had to do at halftime.”
First, Southern’s offense drove 68 yards for a touchdown on the opening possession of the second half. Then the defense made three big plays: a Jarmaul George interception that turned into the go-ahead TD, a fourth-and-1 stop at the Southern 25-yard line with five minutes left in the third quarter, which turned into a long touchdown drive for Southern, and then a Glenn Bell interception in the end zone three minutes into the fourth quarter.
“They only thing (the attrition) did with our football team was bring out the character,” Richardson said.
“They did an excellent job of pressing through. They kept playing hard, with a lot of perseverance,” FAMU coach Rubin Carter said.
Southern quarterback Bryant Lee was 22 of 29 for 215 yards and one touchdown and ran for 50 yards and another score. He was named Southern’s MVP of the game, echoing his finish last season as the school’s Bayou Classic MVP.
Plus, Coates ran for a career-high 142 yards and two touchdowns, with the senior, starting for the first time, outdistancing his career totals of 119 yards and one TD set last season. And wide receiver Gerard Landry had seven catches for 81 yards, including a 46-yard, second-quarter touchdown in which he blasted through two defensive backs and sprinted away.
In front of 30,106, Southern (1-0) became the first Southwestern Athletic Conference team to win a MEAC/SWAC Challenge, now in its third year.
Photo: Southern’s Darren Coates (43) is inches from being out of bounds, but tightropes his way down the sideline on a 90-yard TD run as a diving Dannel Shepard (27) and Jason Beach (28) can’t catch him on SU’s first play on offense. Photo by TRAVIS SPRADLING
Jaguars open season with ‘gut check’ win over FAMU
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Southern started nicely enough, with Darren Coates bolting for a 90-yard touchdown run on the offense’s first play. But the Jaguars finished even better, overcoming an eight-point halftime deficit to score a 33-27 victory over Florida A&M in the MEAC/SWAC Challenge on Saturday in Legion Field.
After an offseason in which SU lost at least 15 players since the spring, an attrition that thinned the offensive and defensive lines, the Jaguars were supposed to be the team that wore down. Instead, the opposite proved true.
“It comes a point in a game like this of who’s going to survive,” Southern coach Pete Richardson said. “Now it’s a gut-check time. That’s what we had to do at halftime.”
First, Southern’s offense drove 68 yards for a touchdown on the opening possession of the second half. Then the defense made three big plays: a Jarmaul George interception that turned into the go-ahead TD, a fourth-and-1 stop at the Southern 25-yard line with five minutes left in the third quarter, which turned into a long touchdown drive for Southern, and then a Glenn Bell interception in the end zone three minutes into the fourth quarter.
“They only thing (the attrition) did with our football team was bring out the character,” Richardson said.
“They did an excellent job of pressing through. They kept playing hard, with a lot of perseverance,” FAMU coach Rubin Carter said.
Southern quarterback Bryant Lee was 22 of 29 for 215 yards and one touchdown and ran for 50 yards and another score. He was named Southern’s MVP of the game, echoing his finish last season as the school’s Bayou Classic MVP.
Plus, Coates ran for a career-high 142 yards and two touchdowns, with the senior, starting for the first time, outdistancing his career totals of 119 yards and one TD set last season. And wide receiver Gerard Landry had seven catches for 81 yards, including a 46-yard, second-quarter touchdown in which he blasted through two defensive backs and sprinted away.
In front of 30,106, Southern (1-0) became the first Southwestern Athletic Conference team to win a MEAC/SWAC Challenge, now in its third year.
Photo: Southern’s Darren Coates (43) is inches from being out of bounds, but tightropes his way down the sideline on a 90-yard TD run as a diving Dannel Shepard (27) and Jason Beach (28) can’t catch him on SU’s first play on offense. Photo by TRAVIS SPRADLING“(Defensive coordinator Terrence) Graves challenged us to search our souls,” Bell said. “He knew we were a better team than the way we were playing. Coach Graves got on us a little bit. But that’s what we needed to get rid of those butterflies.”
Though both teams had plenty of mistakes in the first half, from Southern’s muffed punts to FAMU’s false starts, the Rattlers turned in more big plays to go ahead 20-12 at halftime.
Particularly troubling to SU, after taking a 6-0 lead on Coates’ burst two minutes into the game, was Chad Harris muffing a punt return at the SU 9 to serve up a Leon Camel 9-yard TD run on the next play. Southern then gave up a 45-yard Phillip Sylvester TD run on a second-and-10 and allowed a 40-yard TD pass from Camel to Javares Knight. That left the Jaguars down 20-12 with 2:19 before halftime.
“A large part of it came at halftime, with senior leadership stepping up in the locker room and calling some individuals out,” Richardson said. “We gave up a few cheap touchdowns in the second quarter that almost cost us the game.”
The next 18 minutes were telling, beginning with a steady, five-play, 68-yard scoring drive, capped by sophomore Brian Threat’s 14-yard touchdown run to get SU within 20-19 with 12:46 left in the third quarter.
“Coach Pete and (offensive coordinator Mark) Orlando told us we were still in the game; that execution was the main thing,” Lee said of the halftime message to the offense. “If we go out and execute, the game will come to us and we’ll win.”
George’s interception and 24-yard return set up the go-ahead score, with the Jaguars taking over at the FAMU 24. Three plays later, Lee scored from 3 yards out, giving SU a 26-20 lead with 8:03 left in the third quarter.
Lee cramped up after with a calf muscle tightening that delivering shooting pain. Tellingly, a host of teammates grabbed him by his limbs and carried him off the field.
“We’re a team, so they helped me out,” said Lee, who returned after getting treatment on the sideline.
SU’s defense turned in a huge stop of Sylvester, with defensive end Vince Lands snagging Sylvester for a 1-yard loss on a fourth-and-1 at the SU 25 with five minutes left in the third quarter. With Lee back, the SU offense then uncorked a 14-play, 74-yard masterpiece with Coates plunging in for a 1-yard TD and a 33-20 lead with 14:11 left in the game.
Bell then intercepted starter Albert Chester II on a 39-yard heave to the end zone.
The surge was important, because fatigue and cramps started to hamper both teams, with the game taking 3 hours and 45 minutes to play.
“Everybody was going down and we were able to hang on and survive,” Richardson said. “It almost became a mystery there at the end, who would be on the defensive line, because they were going down also.”
FAMU got within 33-27 on Sylvester’s 4-yard run with 16 seconds to play, but Southern wide receiver Juamorris Stewart recovered the onside kick to effectively end the game.
“Don’t give up on Southern,” Southern defensive tackle Dwayne Charles said. “We’re here to stay.”
Lagniappe
All SWAC teams will wear stickers honoring Grambling great Eddie Robinson. The stickers have Robinson’s initials, EGR, over 408, Robinson’s win total. There was a moment of silence before the game for Robinson. Wide receivers Del Roberts and Nick Benjamin sported Mohawk haircuts. SU and FAMU, longtime rivals who last met in 2001, meet again Sept. 20, 2008, in Baton Rouge to start a four-game series. SU junior RB Kendrick Smith, who was cleared to play Friday, drove up that night to meet with the team. Sophomore C Ramon Chinyoung also made the trip up, but is not cleared. Senior C Demarcus Stewart started in his place. In the booth for SU: offensive coordinator Mark Orlando, first-year RB coach Elvis Joseph, DL coach David Geralds and first-year LB coach Todd Middleton.
No comments:
Post a Comment