Dawson Odums looks for mental sharpness as Southern wears pads in the heat for the first time

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana -- The pop of pads was audible for the first time at Southern’s preseason camp, but that was not what coach Dawson Odums was looking for Monday.

With his players wearing shells — shoulder pads and helmets — for the first time, Odums was gauging how his players would handle the extra bit of discomfort.

“It’s concentration,” he said. “Once you add the shoulder pads, it creates another element. Our guys pushed through it.”

Odums paid close attention to the conditioning sprints his team ran at the end of practice, after roughly two hours spent practicing in muggy conditions.

The Jaguars broke into three groups to run sideline-to-sideline sprints. The lightest players needed to complete the sprint in 16 seconds, the medium group needed to complete it in 18 and the heavy group was given 20.

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