Reunion’ games set for Bluff

Sometimes inspiration hits you at the most unexpected time and from unexpected sources.
Ask Greg LaFleur. The Southern athletic director was at a poorly-attended Jaguars basketball game last winter when a fan came up to him with a suggestion to improve basketball attendance. “She comes up to me and she said, ‘Why don’t you invite alumni from area schools to games for a reunion?,’ ” LaFleur recalled.

The idea immediately struck a cord with LaFleur. “We were already inviting high school students (to basketball games), but I had never thought about inviting alumni before,” he said. From that moment, the idea took off with one tweak — “Never mind doing it at basketball games,” LaFleur said. “I decided we were going to do it at football games.”



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SU puts it on the line with sprints

Southern's offensive line boasts patience, depth‎

Chris Browne knows a thing or two about patience. The man is from Cleveland. “When you’re dealing with the Browns, the Cleveland Indians and the Cavaliers, it’s all about patience,” said Browne, Southern’s starting left tackle. “You have to be a Browns fan on the east side of Cleveland. We’re die-hard. Even though the Browns struggle, we always believe that they can go to the Super Bowl.”

If he’s lucky at all, Browne’s faith will soon be rewarded —maybe not when it comes to his home teams back in Cleveland, but when it comes to the Jaguars. He’s invested a little more time and sweat into them, anyway.

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Time Out for August 19, 2010

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Jaguar coach Mitchell promises run game
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Southern irons out wrinkles with first scrimmage of fall
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SU puts it on the line with sprints
New SU QB McGinty ready for pressure
Southern defenders ready to deliver big hits

SU Jaguar coach Mitchell promises run game

When it comes to running backs, Southern coach Stump Mitchell is so very particular. He is, in fact, awfully demanding of them. It didn’t take long for Gary Hollimon to figure that out. “One day, when we (were) in spring practice, we were working on routes. I was running a route, and I kept messing it up,” Hollimon recalled.

The story is long, but here’s the short version: Hollimon, standing in the backfield, was supposed to run diagonally toward the sideline, then cut sharply toward the middle of the field. Only his cut wasn’t sharp. In fact, it wasn’t even a cut. “I rounded my route instead of sticking it,” Hollimon said. What, then, did Mitchell tell him? “You can’t print what he said,” Hollimon said, laughing. “The good version was that you have to plant and come out of your stick a little better.” So began a new era at Southern.

Fresh from an 11-year stint as an NFL running backs coach, Mitchell arrived at Southern seven months ago and joked that one of his new assistants, running backs coach Elvis Joseph, might have the toughest job of anyone on staff, because Mitchell will be watching closely.

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Southern irons out wrinkles with first scrimmage of fall

Southern running back Gary Hollimon runs away from defense during scrimmage.

OK, so maybe fall classes haven’t yet begun at Southern University.

But by Saturday morning, the football program had time to do a little bit of simple math. Between Aug. 3 and Saturday morning, the team had practiced 11 times during preseason camp. Each session lasted about 2 1/2 hours. That, in theory, gave the Jaguars some 30 hours to improve by the time Saturday’s first scrimmage of the season got under way. So what else, exactly, did the Southern football team learn about itself by the end of the scrimmage?

Two things, in particular. No. 1: This week, when a few key starters recover from some minor setbacks, the team will probably look a lot better. No. 2: No matter who returns and who doesn’t, the Jaguars have work to do between now and their Sept. 5 season opener in Orlando, Fla., against Delaware State. “This was really the first time it was a game-type atmosphere for them. So it’s good to get the jitters out,” first-year coach Stump Mitchell said. “We do have two more scrimmages, and that’s a good thing that I’m taking.”

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Southern Notes for Aug. 15, 2010

SU puts it on the line with sprints

Southern Jaguars puts it on the line with sprints

Step outside, feel the heat, close your eyes and imagine this:

You are a football player at Southern University. Preseason camp is in full swing. It is 94 degrees with a heat index of 105. The team is 22 periods deep into a 24-period practice — the second of the day — and your body has started to seize and cramp. And then, with the end almost in sight, you hear the most crushing four-word phrase of all: “Everybody on the line!”

Welcome to the latest round of post-practice conditioning. Others call them sprints. Some teams call them “gassers.” Others call them “suicides.” Most players don’t really care what you call them, as long as you call them off. Are we having fun yet?

“It’s rough, man. I’m not going to lie,” senior wideout Curry Allen says. “I mean, we were already practicing in 110-degree weather. We’re in two-a-days, and it’s hot. And every period, the coaches want you to go full-speed. You get a water break here and there, but they want you to go full-speed. And then you’re almost at the end. And then you hear it: ‘On the line!’ ”

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New SU QB McGinty ready for pressure

You want pressure?

The new starting quarterback at Southern University will feel it. First, he’ll fill the role left behind by Bryant Lee, who led the Jaguars’ offense for so long he seemed like a faculty member. As a senior last season, Lee finished as the school’s all-time leading passer. Second, he’ll take control of the new, complex, pro-style offense installed by first-year coach Stump Mitchell — and Mitchell, who said he expects to win right away, won’t give the new guy an easy way out.

So who in the world is prepared to fill this role? Maybe no one. But among the candidates, maybe Jeremiah McGinty comes closest. McGinty has felt pressure. He’s been in a spot like this before. Mitchell has said he believes McGinty will start, but he hasn’t yet made a final decision. “The coaching staff — they’re more chilled about it,” McGinty said. “Whoever’s getting the job done, that’s who’s going to play. It’s a competition, and of course I’m trying to win. I don’t know. We’ll see how it goes, you know?”

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Southern defenders ready to deliver big hits

Over the years, the nickname has changed.

Players used to call them “bone crushers.” Then they were “slobber-knockers.” Nowadays, it’s called a “de-cleater.” That’s the trendy term for a big hit. By any name, Southern linebacker Corey Ray said, the big hit is a surefire sign that preseason camp has shifted into a higher gear. It’s just a shame, Ray said, that de-cleaters have been in short supply so far.

“On defense, that’s what we live for. That’s what we want,” Ray said. “Any situation calls for a de-cleater. You know what I mean?” Most players seem to. The Jaguars have practiced eight times since players reported for camp Aug. 3 — and while SU’s coaching staff often tells players to stay on their feet, that doesn’t always happen. Every so often, during team drills, they sneak in a noteworthy lick.

“For the most part, I’m pleased with how physical we’ve been,” first-year coach Stump Mitchell said. “On both sides of the ball, we will be a more physical football team than what people have seen at Southern over the past few years. I like that. That’s what I want.”

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Southern defense gets lots to digest

When Stump Mitchell came to Southern University and brought in a new group of assistant coaches, linebacker Gary Chatman figured he’d have to make a few adjustments. Then he saw the new playbook. Hello, adjustments.

Before spring practice began, defensive coordinator O’Neill Gilbert introduced his new playbook. Cobbled together from years in Division I college football and the NFL, the playbook is a three-ring binder that is three inches thick and very, very full. It practically made the local yellow pages look like a pocket Bible.

“When I saw it, I was like, ‘Wow,’ ” Chatman said. “In the beginning, I’m not going to lie: It was hard (to digest). It was really hard. If you really study the book and keep listening — yes, it’s a lot of adjusting, a lot of checks and a lot of different rotations with the DBs and linebackers. But if you get in your book and study and commit to the game, it’ll come very easy.”

Southern Football Puts on Full Pads for 2-a-Days



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Southern Jaguars Coach Mitchell Expects 12-0 Season

We’re going to recruit good players, give them all the necessary tools and give our fans a team they can be proud of. We’ll work our guys hard, make ’em play until the whistle blows and see where we stand at the end of the year. We’re going to do everything we can to produce fine young student-athletes and win some games in the process. Blah. Blah. Blah.

Year after year, preseason after preseason, we hear the same football coaches say the same things about their same programs. Most of them, in the interest of protecting their own backsides, back away from any kind of hard and fast prediction, lest they fall short. And then there’s Stump Mitchell.

Time and again this summer, Southern University’s first-year coach has done the exact opposite. He has done it with three words: Twelve and zero. “That’s the goal,” he said. “We want to go 12-0 this year, and we think at the end of the season, we’ll be 12-0.”

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Weather shuffles Southern practice

Out on the practice fields at Southern University, where the football team has spent most of its afternoons for the past week, players are not permitted to place their hands on their hips. Or, for that matter, on top of their heads. As the new coaching staff dutifully (and sometimes loudly) reminds them, those movements convey a message to the opponent. “You keep doing that,” strength and conditioning coach Thomas Hall said, “you’re telling them you’re tired.”

One other thing: Even with above-average temperatures and triple-digit heat indexes, players cannot talk about the weather. Which made Monday afternoon awfully awkward. Coaches and players hit the field just after 3 p.m. Monday, gearing up for what was supposed to be SU’s first practice in full pads this preseason. At the time, the temperature was 96 degrees with a heat index of 109, making it the second-hottest day of preseason camp thus far. Of course, conditions didn’t stay that way for long.

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SU quarterback coach stresses details

Each afternoon, the quarterbacks at Southern University begin practice with something so simple, so routine, it’s almost an afterthought to everyone else. It wasn’t an afterthought to Ted White. White, the Baton Rouge native and first-year SU quarterbacks coach, watches carefully as his players speak. Or, more accurately, he listens. Is the timing right? Do they sound OK? Do the quarterbacks bob their heads too much? White watches, listens and instructs.

The quarterbacks’ cadence is important, he says — not just to them, but to the entire offense.

It’s one of those details that might help the Jaguars’ new pro-style offense go from being average to being great. “If you want to run any type of offense, and you want the offensive linemen and receivers and everyone else to get used to your cadence, you have to practice it every day,” White said. “That’s what they do in the NFL. That’s what they did when I played college football. You try to bring those experiences from everywhere you’ve been.”

To read The Advocate's Southern University Preseason page, Click Here.

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Southern Offense By Position Southern Defense By Position SU quarterback coach stresses details Southern Notes for Aug. 8, 2010

SU Jaguars’ practice pace faster this year

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows that it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows that it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle: When the sun comes up, you’d better be running.

—origin unknown

Every so often, during the first three days of preseason football camp at Southern University, players placed their hands on their hips between periods, then strolled to various spots on the practice fields. The coaching staff was not impressed. Take, for example, Friday afternoon’s session. About halfway through, when too many players straggled on their way to team drills, the squad got a quick, blunt and alarmingly loud reminder from first-year coach Stump Mitchell and his assistants.

In so many words, the message went like this:

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SU Jaguars defensive coordinator, O'Neill Gilbert.

Fresh from a pair of beatings after the first two days of preseason practice, Southern center Ramon Chinyoung spotted his nemesis in the parking lot of the A.W. Mumford Field House late Thursday night. Walking toward the double doors, Chinyoung locked eyes with defensive coordinator O’Neill Gilbert. “Hey, coach O’Neill,” he said, pointing at Gilbert with his helmet. “Nice job today.”

As the Jaguars geared up for meetings and looked ahead toward their third day of football practice — they plan to wear shoulder pads for the first time today — first-year head coach Stump Mitchell made something crystal-clear: During team drills, the offense did not live up to his standards. Gilbert’s defense did. Mitchell offered a tip of the cap. Gilbert’s reaction: pleased, but not satisfied.

“We need to get stronger; we need to get in better shape; and we need to get in the playbooks,” Gilbert said. “We still have a ways to go in terms of learning what we’re looking for in the defense. We haven’t arrived. We just need to keep on, day by day, getting stronger and faster and continuing to learn.”

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First-time head coach Stump Mitchell, Karl Morgan taking over at SWAC schools

Mississippi Valley State University coach Karl Morgan has one of the more difficult task in the SWAC in rebuilding the Delta Devils football program.

BIRMINGHAM, AL -- It's always been someone else's canvas, someone else's paint and brushes. It's belonged to Mike Holmgren and Jim Zorn and Terry Bowden. It's been Terry Donahue and Gene Stallings and Bobby Ross with the canvas. It's different now, going from assistant coach to head coach, after going from player to assistant coach. You're the artist. It's your canvas.

"The biggest thing," Stump Mitchell said, "you have to take a look at the picture and see what color you need to use, what you want to draw." "You've got control," Karl Morgan said. "I'm not a control freak, but whatever happens, good, bad or indifferent, you'll have a bigger part of it."

Mitchell and Morgan are the two new head coaches in the Southwest Athletic Conference, which held its annual media day Tuesday morning. Mitchell, an assistant coach in the National Football League for the past 11 years, is the new coach at Southern University. Morgan, a former captain of the UCLA defense, takes over at Mississippi Valley State. They bring to the SWAC an amazing stat that's likely not surpassed in any league. Half of the 10 SWAC head coaches are former NFL players.

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Southern's Mitchell eyes options at quarterback

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — As Southern University’s first-year football coach, Stump Mitchell gets plenty of questions. Usually, they’re of the let’s-get-to-know-this-guy variety. What will his program be like? How does he plan to attack a defense? And, naturally, can his team beat Grambling in four months? But as training camp draws near — the Jaguars are 13 days away from their first practice, but who’s counting? — Mitchell often is hit with one of the old preseason favorites.

Who will be the starting quarterback? Speaking at the Southwestern Athletic Conference media day Tuesday, Mitchell said he thinks he has the answer. But he’s not about to call the race when the gates haven’t opened yet. “I think it will be (Jeremiah) McGinty, but I don’t know,” Mitchell said. “Whoever plays quarterback, we’re going to win. That’s the bottom line.” The Jaguars head to training camp without a proven quarterback for the first time since 2007, when then-sophomore Bryant Lee edged Warren Matthews for the starting job.

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SWAC coaches pick A&M, Prairie View

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — How often does history repeat itself? It depends on the piece of history in question. In the Southwestern Athletic Conference’s preseason poll, released Tuesday at the league’s annual media day, voters predicted that Prairie View and Alabama A&M — last year’s division champions — will meet again at Legion Field in the championship game.

As for Southern ... well, voters apparently aren’t sold on a quick turnaround from first-year coach Stump Mitchell. The Jaguars will finish fourth, according to the poll. “That’s fine,” Mitchell said. “We know that others’ expectations for us aren’t the same as our expectations for us. We’re just going to focus on playing each game and trying to win them all.” Of course, SWAC preseason polls are not often clairvoyant.

In 2006, voters selected Alabama A&M and Southern as favorites to win their respective divisions. They were half-correct: Alabama A&M won the Eastern Division and reached the championship game, but Arkansas-Pine Bluff won the West. The following summer, Alabama A&M and Arkansas-Pine Bluff were preseason favorites. Voters went 0-for-2, as Jackson State and Grambling reached the SWAC title game.

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Southern Jaguars RB Williams ineligible

Southern University tailback Byron Williams will miss the 2010 football season because he is academically ineligible, first-year coach Stump Mitchell said Thursday. “Byron didn’t take care of what he needed to in the spring semester, and that got him where he is right now,” Mitchell said. “But he’s in summer school, so he has a chance to get back where he needs to be, and we’ll bring him back in 2011 if we can.”

Williams, a 5-foot-10, 185-pound Clinton High School graduate, played in seven games last season as a redshirt freshman, but he suffered a broken ankle in a 16-14 loss to Prairie View on Oct. 22. SU used Williams on kickoff returns and as the third option at tailback, where he rushed 25 times for 110 yards and a touchdown. He also averaged 24.2 yards on kickoffs, including a 91-yard touchdown against Alcorn State on Sept. 26. It was the team’s first kickoff return for a touchdown since Oct. 9, 2004, when Kevin Moffett opened a game at Alabama A&M with a 77-yard score.

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Southern QBs to toss new balls

When he arrived at Southern University six months ago, first-year coach Stump Mitchell started to assess and review almost everything within the football program. Eventually, he even inspected the footballs themselves. Mitchell changed those, too.

When the Jaguars report for fall camp Aug. 3, they’ll break in a new set of footballs — the result of a new deal brokered between Mitchell and Wilson Sporting Goods Co., the Chicago-based firm that manufactures game balls for the NFL, not to mention thousands of other high school and college programs.

Mitchell said he made the move with two things in mind — quality and efficiency. “We’ve got to cut expenses around here. Everything is in cost-cutting mode at Southern,” Mitchell said. “So I had an opportunity to let our quarterbacks throw the Wilson. They liked it, and we just made the switch.” In recent years, SU had deals with Nike and Spalding, but the team was only allowed so many footballs per season. “With Wilson, we can get as many balls as we need,” he said. “The opportunity was afforded to me, and it worked out.”

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2010 MEAC/SWAC Challenge Tickets Now On Sale

ESPN Regional Television (ERT) has announced that tickets for the 2010 MEAC/SWAC Challenge football contest between Delaware State University and Southern University (La.) on Sep. 5 at the Citrus Bowl in Orlando, Florida, are now on sale through Ticketmaster and Anthony Travel.

Individual game tickets are $20 (plus tax and fees), and can be ordered by calling Ticketmaster at 1-800-745-3000 or logging on to www.ticketmaster.com. Fans can also purchase travel packages through Anthony Travel's web page at www.anthonytravel.com or by calling 1-800-736-6377.

Delaware State University is also working with Anthony Travel on MEAC/SWAC Challenge packages for students, alumni and other Hornet fans. Information on the DSU packages can be obtained by logging onto http://www.desu.edu/meacswac-challenge or www.DSUHornets.com. The DSU travel packages include admission to Disney attractions.

The MEAC/SWAC weekend will include step shows, a career fair, parade and battle of the bands. Delaware State University will also host a tailgate and "fan center" in Orlando.

This will be Delaware State's first appearance in the MEAC/SWAC Challenge, which pits a top team from the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference against one from the Southwestern Athletic Conference. Southern will be making its second appearance in the challenge. The Jaguars defeated the MEAC's Florida A&M 33-27 in 2007 in Birmingham, Alabama.



Delaware State is 2-0 all-time vs. Southern. The Hornets, led by first-year head coach Bill Collick and All-American John Taylor, defeated the Jaguars 46-8 in 1985 in Baton Rouge, La. The teams met again the following year in Shreveport, La., with the Hornets coming out of top, 21-14.

The 2010 MEAC/SWAC Challenge will air on ESPN/ESPN HD and ESPN3.com. This will mark the first time this event will be televised on ESPN.

For more information about the MEAC/SWAC Challenge and for access to its Facebook page, please visit the official website: www.meacswacchallenge.com. Fans can also stay up to date on the event via Twitter: www.twitter.com/MEAC_SWAC.

Crunch time for Southern athletics

His hands folded, his posture tall and towering, Greg LaFleur surveyed the carnage inside his office last Wednesday afternoon. Old books, stacked high on a chair, formed a dusty skyscraper. His computer took up residence on the couch. Files covered bookshelf after bookshelf. LaFleur, who enters his sixth year as Southern’s athletic director, had tough decisions to make. What does he need to keep? What can he afford to scrap?

Stuff was everywhere — and when you move from one place to the other, that’s the best word for it: stuff. This summer, members of the athletic department are bailing out of old Jesse Owens Hall, a building grimy and battered beyond salvation. Some personnel will head back to the F.G. Clark Activity Center. LaFleur is moving to a seldom-used room in the new A.W. Mumford Field House. “Definitely a move for the better,” he said. “For everyone involved.” This offseason marks another crossroads for the SU athletic department. All at once, it’s an exciting and stressful time.

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