Learning on the fly: More experienced Southern football team is eyeing more success this season

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana -- The Southern football team was young last season.

At certain points, the Jaguars listed as many as 16 freshmen and sophomores on their two-deep depth chart, 10 of whom played on defense.

For most of the year, it was common to see three or even four underclassmen in the secondary. Not one of the four quarterbacks on the roster was more experienced than a sophomore.

That inexperience led to one of the most frustrating seasons in the Dawson Odums era, with the Jaguars failing to string together consecutive wins until November.

But that was last year.

“Same guys, same team,” Odums said. “The only seniors we lost were a couple offensive linemen. … There’s no replacement for experience.”

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