USA Football Signs Six JuCo Transfers
Head Coach Joey Jones talking with wide receiver Carr Tigner during preseason practice.
The University of South Alabama football team received National Letter-of-Intent’s from six junior-college transfers on Wednesday.
Jay Jones, Cristobal Dinham, Montell Garner, Desmond LaVelle and twins Steven and Steffon Fuller all signed with the Jaguars on Wednesday. They will enroll at USA in January and will be eligible to participate in spring drills.
Jones is a 5’9″, 180-pound running back from Horn Lake, Mississippi adn transferring from Northwest Mississippi Community College. Jones rushed for 504 yards and three touchdowns to rank in the top 50 in the nation rushing. He also added 11 pass receptions for 150 yards and a touchdown. He began the season with an 83-yard, one touchdown rushing performance with another 23 yards on three catches against Copiah-Lincoln CC. He followed that up with a season-high of 157 yards rushing on 29 carries in a win at Jones County CC. He then followed that performance with a 126 yard rushing performance with a touchdown against Holmes CC. He also had a 51 yard reception during the season.
Dinham is 5’10”, 210-pound running back from Lithonia, Georgia and transfers from Independence Community College in Kansas. He ranked fifth in the NCJAA by averaging 126.5 yards per game and finished the season with 1,012 yards and 10 touchdowns. He rushed for 100+ yards in five of his eight games. He rushed 30 times for 276 yards in the season finale in a win over Highland Community College. He tied a school record by scoring four times in a game against Dodge City Communtity College while rushing for 176 yards in the game. He also rushed for 157 and 110 yards in back-to-back wins for the school.
Garner is a 6’1″ 185-pound cornerback originally from Colleyville, Texas and transferring from Navarro Junior College. He tallied eight pass break-ups in the season which tied him for fifth in the Southwest Junior College Football Conference. He also added 23 tackles and an interception. The Bulldogs finished ranked fourth in the NJCAA poll with a 10-2 record. Against nationally ranked Kilgore Junior College, Garner tallied 10 tackles in the 42-14 win. Then against Blinn JC he tallied seven tackles, three passes defended and an interception in the win.
LaVelle is a 5’11” 230-pound linebacker from Decatur, Alabama who transfers to USA from Northwest Mississippi CC. He tied for fourth on the team with 53 tackles, with 4.5 of them for a loss, two fumble recoveries an interception and a pass defended while earning first-team All-Conference honors. His team finished 8-2 on the season ranked ninth in the final NJCAA rankings and a defense ranked 14th in the nation with 316.6 yards per game. As a freshman in 2011, LaVelle collected 25 tackles, two of them for loss, an interception and a fumble recovery.
The Fuller brothers are from Scooba, Mississippi and attended Kemper County High School. They both attended East Central Mississippi CC. Steffon is a 6’4″ 205-pound safety who recorded 54 tackles and four pass break-ups last season to be named first-team Mississippi Association of Community and Junior College’s First-Team All-State. He recorded eight tackles in three of the Warriors’ nine games including against nationally-ranked East Mississippi CC.
Steven Fuller is also 6’4″ weighing in at 200-pounds. He played in the secondary, at wide receiver and on special teams until last year. Defensively he had 20 tackles, three of them for loss, two pass defenses and a blocked kick. Offensively he caught seven passes for 95 yards while collecting 13 pancake blocks on run plays.
“Any time you sign junior college kids, you want to upgrade your starting lineup. Not that these young men will be given a starting job, but when you sign a junior college student-athlete you anticipate that they can come in and start,” Jones stated. “We’ve got a couple of safeties that we feel really good about — they are real good athletes who had a ton of offers — who will help us fill the void losing B.J. Scott, and a tall cornerback. We also signed two running backs because we had a lot of depth issues with injuries there in the fall. You can’t have enough good running backs. And with Desmond LaVelle returning, we signed four on defense and two on offense.”
“I think we have upgraded our team for sure.”
Wednesday was the first day Junior College transfers could sign their National LOI’s. They have through January 15th to sign with schools.
Comments
2 Responses to “USA Football Signs Six JuCo Transfers”
Nice article.Was looking at the pic with Tigner.What happened to him i didn’t see him on the roster?
I’m pretty sure he was redshirted this season. I think all of the freshmen with the exception of Broadnax were redshirted.