SU Jaguars can’t overlook Prairie View this time

By JOSEPH SCHIEFELBEIN, Advocate sportswriter

What Southern has to do this week, the Jaguars should already know.

Southern is 2-0, just like last year. Southern is facing Prairie View on Saturday, just like the Jaguars did at this point last year.

For them, what happened last year has to be remembered — and what happened last year can’t be allowed to happen again.

A year ago, their season dissolved in an amazing fourth-quarter collapse on a cauldron of a field in Houston. The result of blowing a two-touchdown lead late in the fourth quarter: PV won its first game against Southern since 1971 with a 26-23 overtime decision.

That loss began a stretch, for Southern, of five losses in six games.

What Southern (2-0, 1-0 Southwestern Athletic Conference) will face in a 6 p.m. season opener Saturday in A.W. Mumford Stadium is a Prairie View team (2-0, 1-0) that is better than last season’s edition and one which has the confidence, unlike previous Panthers teams, that Southern is no longer invincible.



This looms as a big early season Western Division showdown.

Southern beat Mississippi Valley State 23-6 Saturday in Chicago, while PV, with Val Ford returning two blocked punts for first-half touchdowns, beat Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference member North Carolina A&T 22-7 in Los Angeles.

Southern, after two straight losing seasons, is trying to live up to the program’s good name under Pete Richardson and A.W. Mumford. A win Saturday would continue the momentum and help erase memories of last season, with Prairie View players taunting Southern players relentlessly at game’s end.

Prairie View is still trying to scratch out respect as a conference contender, something the program, so down in the 1990s, hasn’t had for decades. A win Saturday would give them consecutive victories over Southern, something which last happened when the Panthers won three straight from 1962 through ’64. That would be a powerful statement.

There should be a tremendous sense of clarity and will from both sides.

This is going to be quite the home opener.

Make sure you’ve got tickets.

Photo: SU QB Bryant Lee vs. MVSU, runs for first down.

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Southern has a nice trio at running back, with Darren Coates (25 carries, 197 yards, two touchdowns), Brian Threat (15 carries, 117 yards, one TD) and Kendrick Smith (nine carries, 61 yards — plus two receiving TDs Saturday). Coates, in the season opener, and Threat, Saturday, have already posted their first career 100-yard games.

Make that a four-man threat, with quarterback Bryant Lee (30 carries, 88 yards, one TD) included.

The Jaguars already have 531 rushing yards so far. At this point last season, they had 58. More, the 531 is almost half of what SU totaled in 11 games last season: 1,233.

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Southern has to avoid the slow starts on offense. Granted, the first offensive play of the season was a 90-yard touchdown run. The point here, though, is getting into a rhythm as a unit. Once SU gets going, the Jaguars have been dynamite.

“We made a few adjustments. &hellip We have to figure out what defenses are doing,” said Richardson, who also mentioned the exuberance of youth as a possible factor in keeping SU from settling in.

Quick hits

Saturday’s reported attendance of 49,872, though the entire upper deck on the West side was empty and the stadium seats 61,500, was better than any total, even the Bayou Classic (47,136), that saw the Jaguars last season. The total was certainly better than the last time SU played Valley in Chicago, with 9,069 coming to see the Jaguars win 51-30 in the 1997 season opener. The public address announcers were often way out of line, talking about betting on the game while in progress and drinking Courvoisier after the game. Then, there were lines like, “He jumped on that boy like he caught him stealing out of his momma’s purse.”

Up next

Southern hosts Prairie View at 6 p.m. Saturday in A.W. Mumford Stadium. The home opener begins a stretch where SU plays five of its next six games at home. SU is at home for three games in October and will take that final Saturday off.