Southern suffers a painful finish against Jackson State

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana  -- The stage was set for the Southern football team to score a thrilling win against rival Jackson State on Saturday night and enter an open date as the last remaining unbeaten in the Southwestern Athletic Conference race.

The Jaguars fell painfully short.

Senior quarterback Dray Joseph had tight end Bradley Coleman open for the go-ahead score with about a minute left, but the fourth-down pass into the end zone was too low for Coleman to corral.

Jackson State celebrated a 19-14 victory before 30,816 fans at A.W. Mumford Stadium, pulling even with Southern in a series that includes 58 meetings.

“We have a good football team, and we fought a good football team,” Southern coach Dawson Odums said. “We just came up short. It came down to the end, just like most of these games do, and we just came up on the wrong side of it.”

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Southern offense laments missed chances, including the last one

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana  --  Southern’s search for productive offense had positive notes Saturday night, but it wasn’t enough to overcome a lethargic overall outing during the Jaguars’ 19-14 loss to Jackson State at A.W. Mumford Stadium.

Southern finished with 348 yards of offense as it nearly matched JSU’s total of 355. But Southern couldn’t capitalize on its opportunities in JSU territory and came up short with the game on the line late in the fourth quarter.

“I hurt for the guys,” Southern coach Dawson Odums said. “This is probably the most focus as a football team we had going into a game.”

Quarterback Dray Joseph threw his only interception early in the fourth quarter. But Southern’s defense held, and Joseph came back to direct Southern on a promising 10-play march to the JSU 7 as the clock ran down. His 32-yard completion to Mike Jones highlighted the series with a first down at the JSU 14.

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Southern rush defense starts strong in loss

The Southern rush defense had been much maligned through the first four games of the season, and rightfully so. The Jaguars had given up 257.2 yards per game, including 419 yards on the ground to Prairie View two weeks ago.

Jackson State entered Saturday’s game as one of the better rushing offenses in the SWAC.

The Tigers racked up an average of 174.5 rushing yards per game, good for third-best in the conference.

However, just as they had done the week before, Southern’s rush defense limited the high-powered rushing attack of Jackson State to a mere 58 yards at the half.

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