Jags Preseason Camp Coming To A Close
Freshman T.J. Glover out running the defense in the Jaguars first scrimmage.
Coach Jones and his staff shortened Thursday’s practice by a half hour. Although the practice was still an hour and 45 minutes long, it was a just reward for two weeks of hard work on the practice field. Of the last 14 days the Jaguars practiced 13 of those days and well Coach Jones does not want overwork them.
Early in the practice on Thursday, the Jags worked on skeleton, 7-on-7 passing drills which started with the offense starting in the red zone but ended with the offense facing third down inside it’s own 20 yard line. Later in the practice, the offense and defense worked against the scout teams.
Later still, the Jags would run several situational drills including the first-team offense running first and 10 plays from their own 35 yard line. During the first series of the drill, Myles Gibbon connected with Santuan McGee in the flat for 15 yards. Brandon Ross ran for 10+ yards. The second series saw Ross and McGee both have runs of ten plus yards.
The second team offense struggled against the defense by only converting one third down play against them and suffering a sack. But Myles took a low snap and scrambled for a first down.
Friday the team visited Camp Grace instead of working out. Coach Jones and his staff did the same thing close to the end of preseason camp, which officially ends this weekend as South Alabama resumes classes on Monday morning.
Saturday morning the Jags will hold their second scrimmage of the preseason at 9am and according to Coach Jones, several positions are still up for grabs. The staff is also hoping to start brining into focus a fuzzy depth chart too.
“We’re trying to still evaluate players,” Coach Jones said. “Obviously, we’re trying to progress offensively and defensively with all of our packages, but we’re still looking at individuals. We can see things are starting to fall into place as far as the depth chart goes, but we obviously won’t make any decisions until after Saturday. After this week, we’ll focus more on polishing our offense and defense.”
The coaches are hoping for a better scrimmage from last Saturday’s. The defense gave up three big plays of 40 yards or more, two of which went for touchdowns. But, on the other hand, the offense turned the ball over three times and gave up three sacks.
Freshmen C.J. Bennett and T.J. Glover both showed some brilliance in last weeks scrimmage. Bennett threw for 162 yards on 7 of 13 passing with two touchdowns. Glover led with three receptions for 106 yards, including one for 70 yards.
“We did some good things, but overall too many mistakes were made,” Coach Jones mentioned of last week’s scrimmage. “I think the execution offensively needs to get better, and we need fewer negative plays. Defensively, we don’t need to give up big plays. Last week, they (defense) played well but just gave up too many of those. I think if we can cut that out, then that would be a plus on the defensive side of the ball.”
Unfortunately, C.J. Bennett was one offender on negative plays. He needs to learn how to get rid of the ball to avoid sacks and negative plays.