Four Jaguars Earn All-SBC Preseason Honors
The Sun Belt Conference office released the 2015 preseason All-Sun Belt Conference teams on Monday in conjunction with Media Day. The South Alabama Jaguars had three first-team selections and four Jaguars overall were honored.
Chris May, Josesph Scelfo and Aleem Sunanon were all selected as first-team All-SBC student-athletes. Safety Roman Buchanan was voted second-team preseason All-SBC.
May, a 6’5″ 290-pound senior from Tuscumbia, Alabama, has earned his second all-conference honor. He was chosen first-team All-SBC in 2013 then was an honorable mention selection last year. Last season he graded out at 80 percent or higher on six occasions with a total of 33 knockdown blocks. He received a season-high grade of 85 in the Raycom Media Camellia Bowl against Bowling Green.
In addition to being selected to the All-SBC team, Scelfo was recently added to the Rimington Trophy and Rotary Lombardi Award Watch Lists. Scelfo is coming off of a season where he graded out at 80 percent or better on six occasions with 20 knockdown blocks. He earned the coaches’ offensive line award in 2014 after USA wins over Idaho and Troy, posting a season high 88 percent grade against the later as he helped the offense rush for 296 yards. The 6’1″, 295-pound junior center earned the highest grade on the team against SEC schools.
Sunanon, who is also on two watch lists himself, was 15-of-18 on field goal attempts last season while leading the team in scoring with 69 points. In 2013 he converted 18-of-23 attempts for a team-best 91 points and earn honorable mention All-SBC. Sunanon converted his last eight attempts of the season, including a school game-record-tying four at South Carolina. He ended the season tied for the league lead and 12th nationally with a 83.3 percent success rate. He was also third in the conference with a 1.15 field goals per game average.
Buchanan ended last season third on the defense with 74 total tackles and tied for second with seven passes defended. The 6’2″ 210-pound native of Enterprise, Alabama had a career-high nine stops on three seperate occasions last season including each of the last two games against Navy and Bowling Green at the Raycom Media Camellia Bowl. That also included recording three tackles for loss, two of which came against the Midshipmen. His first nine-tackle game came against Georgia State where he also forced a fumble and broke up a pass.
USA was chosen to finish sixth in the conference in the conference preseaosn poll released on Friday. The Jaguars begin their 2015 campaign on Saturday, September 5 against Gardner-Webb. The game will kick off at 5pm CDT and will be broadcast nationally on ESPN3.