South Alabama Spring Practices Wind Down; Annual Spring Game on Saturday
The South Alabama Football team is winding down their spring practice schedule. They have one final practice this afternoon at 3pm before their annual Red-Blue Spring Game on Saturday at Ladd-Peebles Stadium.
On Wednesday, the football team held a practice in shells on campus. Instead of conducting a team period, the Jags used 7-on-7 skeleton passing drills on two separate occasions, they were nearly 30 minutes long combined, and ran around 75 plays.
Both special teams periods focused on punt formations and punt coverage.
Offensive coordinator Bryant Vincent chose Claude Garrett as the offensive player of the day. Vincent praised Garrett for his work ethic and his great speed. He also was part of the play of the day. On the final snap of practice, Garrett beat his defender with a spin move and broke free to grab a 50-yard touchdown pass from Hunter Vaughn.
Defensive coordinator Travis Pearson chose Nigel Green as the defensive player of the day. Pearson praised Green for being more aggressive and confident which impressed Pearson. Pearson also said that Green showed him that he can contribute to more depth at the cornerback position.
Head coach Joey Jones talked after practice about what he’s learned about the team this spring. “I’ve seen the most improvement on defense. We weren’t very good defensively early in the spring, but I think we’ve gotten better. We’ve started to shore up some holes on the front, some guys have stepped up over there, Demarius Rancifer is one example, and we knew Jimmie Gipson III was going to be a good player but he brought his game to another level this spring.”
Jones spoke about the main goal for the offense during spring practices. “Offensively we wanted to improve our tempo, and I think we’re much better there. There’s no doubt we can get even better in that area, but I thought our improvement from day one to now has started to become second nature to them. The more we do that, the better off we’re going to be.”
In the special teams area, Jones said that it was the biggest improvement from last year. “We probably haven’t worked our game as much this spring, but our kickers have been performing very, very well.”
The captains announced for the spring game were: Braedon Bowman and Terrance Timmons for the offense and Blade Dees and Jimmie Gipson III for the defense. On Thursday afternoon the captains picked the teams.
According to Jones, “We’re going to limit what we do, basically we’re going to run one defense with one coverage and about seven offensive plays. We’re not going to show a lot, but we are going to let them get out there, compete and have fun.”
The annual Red-Blue Spring Game will get started at noon on Saturday at Ladd-Peebles Stadium. Gates open at 8am for tailgating and the gates to the stadium open around 11am.