SU Jaguars cautiously optimistic after win

By JOSEPH SCHIEFELBEIN, Advocate sportswriter

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Southern got off to a great start to its 2007 football season Saturday.

Then again, the Jaguars did so last year as well.

One game is still just one game. There are 10 more to go.

“It’s not a statement game for us,” SU coach Pete Richardson said. “We’ve just got to grow. We have a young football team. They have to develop the confidence, and the main thing we have to guard against is injuries.”

A strong surge in the first 18 minutes of the second half — 21 unanswered points and three big defensive plays (an interception setting up the go-ahead touchdown, a fourth-down stop deep in Southern territory and an interception in the SU end zone) — powered the Jaguars to a 33-27 victory over Florida A&M in the MEAC/SWAC Challenge in Legion Field.

Southern started last season 2-0, including a 30-29 season-opening victory over Bethune-Cookman College, another Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference team. But the Jaguars collapsed from there, finishing 5-6.

The day that doomed SU most was its fourth-quarter collapse to Prairie View, what became a 26-23 overtime loss in the third game of the season.

Photo: Southern’s Frank Harry (66) dives after a loose ball over FAMU's Philip Sylvester on Saturday.

A year ago, Southern seemed to be a team with a strong future in preseason camp and then seemed to confirm that in those first two games. Then the season unraveled.

“We almost got decimated at quarterback. A lot of our defensive personnel were banged up going into the last part of the year,” Richardson said.

This season, Southern is thinner and younger on its offensive lines, but there is the knowledge of what happened last season. There’s a realization of how tenuous a season can be, of how Southern must avoid injuries.

“(The offensive line) held up well,” Richardson said. “We’re going to have to be able to stay injury-free. If we can do that, and learn from every game, that will be the keys.”

So, Saturday’s victory leaves Southern with cautious optimism.

Oh, and confidence. And confidence is big. Never underestimate confidence.

“We have a lot of good character on this team,” said SU senior free safety Jarmaul George, one of the team’s two captains and the Southwestern Athletic Conference’s preseason defensive player of the year. “Like we say, we have to play with some type of swagger. That’s what a football team’s supposed to do, come together and play with some swagger. That leads to big things.”

Do more of this
In its final three games of last season, with Mark Orlando as the offensive coordinator, SU ran for 236, 152 and 131 yards.
That trend continued Saturday.

Southern ran for 238 yards on 43 carries, highlighted by Darren Coates going for career highs of 142 yards and two touchdowns in his first start, which was, in turn, highlighted, by his 90-yard TD burst on the offense’s first play.

“I think people thought we were just jiving around, but we’ve got to be able to run the football to take pressure off that young quarterback,” Richardson said. “We spread the field, but we have to be able to run the football.”

Do less of this
Southern’s punt returners were awfully sloppy in the first quarter, with Ronald Wade, in his first collegiate game, fumbling on a return and Chad Harris, a veteran, muffing a punt. FAMU fumbled the ball at the Southern 1 after Wade’s fumble, and scored on a 9-yard run one play after Harris’ bobble. Wade, to be fair, came back and recovered a fumble forced by Coates on a FAMU punt return.

Quick hits
SU quarterback Bryant Lee is 2-1 in three career starts (he would have earned a win in baseball parlance for his work off the bench against Texas Southern as well). He was 9-for-10 after halftime, directing a much-smoother offense, after going 13-for-19 in the first half (including 3-for-5 for minus-5 yards in the first quarter). FAMU’s MVP for the game was freshman running back Phillip Sylvester, with 101 yards and two TDs in his first college game. Southern held the ball for 9:35 of the third quarter.

Up next
Southern (1-0, 0-0 Southwestern Athletic Conference) plays Mississippi Valley State (1-0, 1-0) in the Chicago Football Classic at 4 p.m. Saturday at Soldier Field. Valley beat Arkansas-Pine Bluff, the defending Western Division Champion and considered a contender to make a run for the SWAC title this season as well, 16-9 Saturday in Itta Bena, Miss. SU beat Valley 31-14 in A.W. Mumford Stadium a year ago in the second game last season.