Southern tops Alabama A&M

Baton Rouge, LA - Dray Joseph believed he was a better quarterback. He felt it.

In the days after Joseph and the Southern football team lost an ugly season opener, Joseph said he focused on his playbook and trusted his instincts. He also prayed.

Saturday at A.W. Mumford Stadium, hours before the Jaguars began Southwestern Athletic Conference play with a stunning 21-6 victory over Alabama A&M, the sophomore quarterback wrote a biblical verse, Mark 9:23, on one of his taped wrists. Everything is possible for one who believes.




Saturday night, Joseph believed in himself, and his teammates believed in each other.

It certainly showed.

In a virtuoso performance that stunned almost as many Southern fans as it did the visiting team, the Jaguars ripped apart Alabama A&M’s secondary for 332 passing yards ...

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Southern notes: Jaguars end skid at 7 games

If you believe Southern football coach Stump Mitchell, the results of Saturday’s 21-6 victory over Alabama A&M were not surprising at all. Not to him. “No,” the second-year coach said. “Last week was shocking.”

Mitchell was referring to last week’s season-opening 33-7 loss at Tennessee State, during which the Jaguars were often manhandled at the line of scrimmage.

At the time, it dropped Mitchell’s record to 2-10 at Southern. It also extended the team’s losing streak to seven games, including a six-game slide to end last year.

“It was only a one-game losing streak for this team,” Mitchell said. “But for me, it was seven or eight, or whatever it was. It was too long.”

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QB Mason takes road less traveled

Huntsville, AL - At the end of every summer workout and practice in the grueling heat, Alabama A&M quarterback Deaunte Mason and his teammates closed with this: “SWAC Champs.”

For Mason, and his teammates, that is the ultimate goal. Instilling this motto, as Mason characterizes it, made A&M shake off the feeling of a 3-8 season in 2010. The 21-year-old Mason’s journey to Huntsville, Ala., was a road he didn’t expect to travel.

Named Tennessee’s Mr. Football for Class 3A in 2008, Mason passed for 2,375 yards, rushed for 1,052 yards and scored 35 touchdowns as a senior at Pearl-Cohn High School, in Nashville, Tenn. His strong senior season garnered a scholarship from the University of Kentucky.

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