By JOSEPH SCHIEFELBEIN, Advocate sportswriter
CHICAGO — Southern quarterback Bryant Lee is missing out. Kind of.
For the second straight week, he didn’t get to see wide receiver Gerard Landry mash a defender en route to a long score.
That’s OK with Lee. He heard the crowd react, and he can always watch the film. And, best of all, the Jaguars are on a nice early roll to their season.
That play, good for a 54-yard touchdown down the right sideline, sparked Southern to a 23-6 Southwestern Athletic Conference victory over Mississippi Valley State in the Chicago Football Classic on Saturday at Soldier Field.
“It was an explosive play,” said Lee, named the game’s offensive MVP after throwing for 206 yards and three touchdowns and running for another 38 yards. “I really couldn’t see it. I had to listen to the crowd’s reaction.”
Starting with that play, Southern (2-0, 1-0 SWAC), which is undefeated after two games for the second straight season, scored on four of five possessions to pull away.
“The play was very important,” said Landry, who blasted through four Florida A&M defenders on a 46-yard TD catch in a 33-27 win the week before. Lee didn’t see that one, either. “It just gave us that momentum. Other guys started making plays, and we started clicking.”
Sophomore Brian Threat, who ran for 69 yards all last season, ran for 106 yards on 11 carries and Del Roberts had 74 yards on seven catches.
“The defense held up for us in the first half, and we had to execute on the offensive side,” said Lee, who won his third straight start, getting MVP honors in all three.
Meanwhile, Southern’s defense did some soul-searching in the locker room for the second straight week, and again responded.
This time, after Valley (1-1, 1-1) closed to within 14-6 Paul Roberts’ 20-yard touchdown pass with 6 seconds before halftime, SU held Valley to 9 yards and one first down in the second half.“I thought that was going to give us a lot of energy, but we just didn’t have enough in the second half,” Valley coach Willie Totten said. “I felt pretty good right there at the end of the half. I felt we were in the ballgame and we had a chance, but we were too flat in the second half and made too many mistakes. We’ve got some work to do.”
Maybe the missed extra point, glancing off the right upright, was a portent of disaster.
Or maybe the touchdown, like the way Southern gave up two deep scores to Florida A&M in the second quarter the week before, simply sparked the Jaguars defense, like how the game played out a week earlier.
“We gave away a free touchdown, but they told us to step up, make sure they don’t score again, and that’s what we did,” said SU defensive end Vince Lands, the game’s defensive MVP. “We came out to prove a point, and that’s what we did.”
The first 21 minutes were a bore, with the teams combining for nine punts and Southern freshman Josh Duran missing his first career field-goal try, a 37-yard attempt glancing off the right upright.
Then, Southern scored on consecutive touches, converting a big play and staging a long drive, to take control by halftime.
First, Lee hooked up with Landry for the 54-yard TD, with Landry trucking over Valley cornerback Pierre Marshall along the way for a 7-0 lead with 8:18 until halftime. Then Lee directed a 10-play, 85-yard march, finding wide-open running back Kendrick Smith for a 12-yard touchdown and a 14-0 lead with 2:17 until halftime.
Roberts, despite an erratic first half, nevertheless led the Delta Devils on a 70-yard touchdown drive in the final two minutes, connecting with Clarence Cotton on a 20-yard touchdown with 6 seconds before halftime. Jamie Whitworth hit the right upright with a PAT, leaving the score at 14-6.
Roberts was 4-for-4 for 43 yards, with his hookup to Cotton going for Valley’s longest play of the game, and ran for two first downs. Until then, he was 9-for-21 and once threw three incomplete passes with Valley taking over at the Southern 34-yard line late in the first quarter.
“We had a mental lapse,” Richardson said. “We work on that. (The defender) bit up, and the guy ran a beautiful route to the corner.”
The vice grip came in the second half.
SU punted on its first possession but then drove 51 yards for another Lee-to-Smith TD pass. And a 74-yard drive produced a 30-yard Duran field goal and a 23-6 lead a minute into the fourth quarter. The Jaguars then powered away, eating the clock with a dominating running game and holding Valley to no yards in the final quarter.
For the game, Valley had seven three-and-outs and punted 11 times.
“It was just pride,” Lands said. “(Defensive coordinator Terrence) Graves kept preaching to us, pride, Jaguar pride.”
So far, through two games, Southern has shown a defense and an offense that gets better as games progress. The Jaguars, off two straight losing seasons, want that to translate to the season picture as well.
“Just a little more (work), and we’ll be good,” Lee said.
Lagniappe
Southern’s charter flight left Baton Rouge at 6 p.m. Thursday but didn’t arrive until around 11 p.m. The team had to put down for a couple hours in St. Louis to wait out a rainstorm blasting Chicago. Neither team got on Soldier Field until before the game Saturday. Friday, Southern had a short walkthrough practice at Niles West High School, while Valley went through its walkthrough, without footballs, at its hotel, the Midway Marriott. SWAC Commissioner Duer Sharp made his second straight Southern game. He caught the MEAC/SWAC Challenge a week earlier. Sharp also went to Thursday’s televised game, with Arkansas-Pine Bluff winning at Alcorn State. Valley coach Willie Totten asked Sharp before the game if a Howitzer, firing blanks, could be moved from his team’s sideline. No luck there, though.
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