Southern hopes for better weather so its passing game will be cleared for takeoff

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana -- Mother Nature has slowed down the Southern passing offense more effectively than most Southwestern Athletic Conference teams’ defenses have.

The Jaguars zipped through their first four SWAC games with one of the most productive passing games in the conference. Then the rains came: first in Houston against Texas Southern two weeks ago, then last week at A.W. Mumford Stadium against Alcorn State.

In both cases, the deteriorating conditions made passing far more difficult than normal, first in a 40-21 victory, then in a 48-7 defeat.

Quarterback Austin Howard said the conditions for the Alcorn game were the worst he has ever played in, “much worse than Texas Southern.”

The Jaguars actually completed a higher percentage of their passes the past two games than they did in their first four — 69.5 percent to 68.8 percent — but that’s partly because of the need to reduce the degree of difficulty under the conditions.

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