Monday Press Conference Previewing Arkansas State
The Jaguar cheerleaders leading the team onto the field while Coach Jones greets his team on the sidelines prior to the Jags game against Nicholls State.
The University of South Alabama and head coach Joey Jones held their weekly Monday press conference. This week coach Jones discusses Saturday’s road game at Arkansas State. Below are some highlights from the press conference.
Opening statement: “Arkansas State is a very good football team. I watched them play last Thursday at FIU. They went down there on the road and beat a very good FIU team. Their losses have come to the likes of Oregon and Nebraska, so they are a very good football team. They’re very good on offense, and have a lot of juniors and seniors starting in their offensive and defensive lineups. They are a veteran team, and we expect them to be a great football team when we walk into the stadium.”
Jones then spoke about the open week and how the team benefited from it. “It couldn’t have come at a better time. We were beat up. Being nine-and-a-half weeks into it, counting fall camp, it came at a great time for our players and coaches after an emotional three games of playing N.C. State, Mississippi State and Troy.”
He then spoke about how the practice will change for the offense since the Jags have named a starting quarterback and that they will no longer rotate quarterbacks. “When we play one quarterback, he’s going to get more reps in practice. Before, we were splitting the reps 50-50 because they were going to play in the game 50-50. We’re going to give our starter [Ross Metheny] probably 70 percent of the reps, and C.J. [Bennett] will get about 30. It should make him sharper in the games, so we’ll see. We just felt like it was a move we needed to make for the offense. We’re trying to find that identity in where we are, so I think that will help us with him getting more reps in practice. We think it’s going to help us. We tried to let it pan out over the last five games, but I think it will help us just from the standpoint that they [offense] know that he [Metheny] is going to be the guy right now.”
Jones then spoke about improvement needed from the offense. “We have not put a complete game together. We have to be balanced. We’ve had too many three-and-outs, and that’s not really any one person’s fault. We have a young offense. We started the season with two freshmen and five sophomores on the offensive unit. We have to get better, but it isn’t easy to get better when you’re playing the teams we are playing. We’re a better team than we were last year, but we’re playing much better competition right now and it just isn’t showing. We have to be able to stick the ball into the end zone. Defense and special teams are playing good enough to win, so if we can get that part going on offense then we’re going to get this thing rolling. But we have to get out there and get it done.”
Coach Jones then spoke about what ASU does well. “They are pretty good on both sides of the football. They’re averaging about 500 yards a game offensively, and are playing really good defense. They’re just playing with a lot of confidence. Any time you win a championship the year before, you can just tell they’re playing with a lot of confidence.”
He then spoke about how the off week helped the team to prepare for the Arkansas State offense. “I would hate to have known that we would have to have gotten ready in one week for what they’re doing. [Head coach] Gus [Malzahn] does a great job of changing things up and scouting himself. You can tell that he scouts himself well with their personnel groupings. They give you fits all over the field, both horizontally and vertically. They really make you play the whole field on defense. That’s probably the most difficult thing.”
Arkansas State head coach Gus Malzahn is well known in the Southeast. He spent three seasons as the offensive coordinator at Auburn University, most notably during the 2010 national championship season. Also during the 2010 season he tutored eventual Heisman winner Cam Newton.
Jags Rest Up For Eight Game Stretch To End Season
As the players took a couple days off to rest and recharge for the final eight games of the season the coaches hit the road to do some recruiting. After the first five games with a tough three game stretch, it was much needed.
They return to the practice field to prepare for their trip to Jonesboro, Arkansas, which will be the fourth in what many consider the toughest portion of the Jaguars schedule. Arkansas is coming off of a 34-20 win Thursday night over FIU to even their record at 3-3 (1-1 Sun Belt).
The Jags will be focusing on correcting things that have plagued them in the first five games of the season. They are trying to get the offense on track and moving the ball, ending big plays on defense, eliminating penalties and turnovers. If they can correct them, they will correct the most important item on their list: ending the losing streak.
The offense is near the bottom in most offensive categories. They rank last in rushing offense. They rank ninth in passing offense, total offense and scoring offense. They are last in passing efficiency and 3rd down conversions. They rank ninth in kickoff coverage, penalties and turnover margin. And they are eighth in time of possession and first downs.
The defense is doing much better though. They are second in total defense, fourth in rushing defense, fifth in scoring defense and passing defense. Senior linebacker Jake Johnson is ranked at the top of the league in tackles per game with fellow linebacker Enrique Williams ranks 11th in the same category.
During the off week, head coach Joey Jones announced they were shelving the two-quarterback system but will evaluate the position, like all positions, on a week-to-week basis. He named Ross Metheny as the starting quarterback for Arkansas State. The coaches hope that this will bring more consistency to the offense.
The Jags do have a tough schedule left to go. After Arkansas State and FAU at home they will travel to Louisiana-Monroe who defeated Arkansas in overtime and narrowly lost to Auburn in Overtime. They then return home to face FIU before hitting the road for North Texas. They then return home for the last time this season for Middle Tennessee State, who defeated Georgia Tech by three touchdowns recently. They close out the season with road trips to Louisiana-Lafayette and Hawaii.
Hopefully they are well rested. The next eight games will continue to test them week-in and week-out.
Sun Belt Conference Scores From The Weekend
Western Kentucky, Troy, FAU and the Jags were all off this weekend.
Arkansas State 34 – FIU 20
FIU, who was picked to win the SBC title this pre-season, fell to 1-5 (1-1 SBC). While Arkansas State improved to 3-3 (1-1 SBC) on the season. ASU’s Ryan Aplin became the SBC’s all-time leader in career offense with 10,365 yards as he went 15-of-23 for 223 yards. Running back David Oku rushed for three touchdowns while freshman receiver J.D. McKissic caught five passes for 124 yards, his first 100-yard receiving game, and a touchdown.
The Jags will travel to Jonesboro, Arkansas to face ASU this weekend.
UL-Monroe 31 – MTSU 17
ULM improved to 3-2 (1-0 SBC) on the season with their win while MTSU fell to 3-2 (1-1 SBC).
ULM quarterback Kolton Browning went 26-of-38 for 285 yards and a touchdown in the win. ULM receiver Brent Leonard caught eight passes for 73 yards and Je’Ron Hamm added three catches for 62 yards and a touchdown. Running back Jyruss Edwards added 87 yards rushing on 17 attempts with two touchdowns.
UL-Lafayette 41 – Tulane 13
The Ragin’ Cajuns (4-1, 2-0 SBC) rushed for 294 yards as they defeated the Tulane Green Wave for homecoming. ULL rushed for 164 of those yards in the first half en route to a 24-10 halftime lead. Alonzo Harris rushed 23 times for 123 yards and a touchdown. Terrance Broadway got his first start at quarterback for ULL and went 9-of-22 for 150 yards and two touchdowns while also adding a rushing touchdown as well.
North Texas 21 – Houston 44
UNT (2-4 overall, 1-1 SBC) fell behind a mere 1:15 into the game as Houston scored on five of its first six possessions. They turned the ball over on downs deep in UNT territory on the only possession of the first half without a score. Each scoring drive averaged over 77 yards and only took just over two minutes to score.
UNT’s Derek Thompson went 20-of-38 for 252 yards with two interceptions. Running back Brandin Byrd rushed 19 times for 96 yards while Jeremy Brown added 80 yards on 7 carries. Ivan Delgado caught four passes for 85 yards in the loss.
USA Ending QB Rotation Is The Right Decision
Quarterbacks Trey Fetner and transfer Ross Metheny participating in position drills.
Press-Register and AL.com writer Tommy Hicks wrote an an article yesterday evening concerning South Alabama’s quarterback situation.
He was spot on.
He said that the coaching staff made the right decision to side-line the two-quarterback system and name a single quarterback as the starter for the Jags in Arkansas State. Each quarterback is comfortable with their own style and pace for things, but rotating those styles every three possessions has to cause some problems in the offense as a whole. Not to mention the difficulty that other players on offense have in trying to play consistently when quarterbacks are continually rotated.
As for if the right quarterback has been selected to be the starter, that will have to proven on the field. Right now, Ross Metheny knows he is the starter and will be getting the majority of the snaps in practice. It’s his job to keep. While C.J. Bennett will have to go above and beyond what he has done to earn his starting spot back while taking a reduced number of snaps in practice.
Bennett has shown flashes of brilliant play during his career at South Alabama, but he has also had quite a bit of criticism over decision making. Particularly last season when he threw 17 interceptions to only 7 touchdowns.
Sometimes it takes some adversity to make you rise to the occasion. Sometimes it takes some faith in a new face. Either way, the Jags want to win and they are trying to find that formula.
You can read the article here.
Jags Finish Final Practice Of The Week On Wednesday
Offensive lineman running position drills in preseason camp.
The Jaguars practiced again on Wednesday, their last practice of the week before returning for regular game-week preparation.
The two hour practice was very similar to day before with work on fundamentals, game-planning for Arkansas State and getting younger players in for some reps. An off-week is a great time to get younger players reps on the practice field, especially when the team is as banged up as they are right now.
Four defensive linemen are out after the game against Troy. Romelle Jones is healing from an injury suffered early against NC State. Montavious Williams suffered an ankle injury against Troy. Anthony Taylor suffered a season ending broken leg against Mississippi State.
“We just tried to install parts of the gameplan and had some good fundamental work today,” head coach Joey Jones told the Press-Register. “We had a little scrimmage with the young guys again today so I think that this break is coming at a real good time. I think if we had to play this weekend we’d be in bad shape. We’ve got about four defensive linemen out. They’ll be back, but they would be in some pretty significant pain if they had to play this weekend so it came at a pretty good time.”
The Jags will have Thursday, Friday and Saturday off before returning for meetings and gameplan study. Then they will return to the practice fields on Monday afternoon to continue implementing their game plan for their trip to Jonesboro, Arkansas to face Arkansas State.
Nick Saban Isn’t A Fan Of The No-Huddle
The Jaguar offense looks to the sideline for play adjustments against UTSA.
Press-Register beat writer covering the University of Alabama posted an article on Wednesday about Nick Saban’s thoughts on the no-huddle offense.
Alabama defeated Ole Miss 33-14 on Saturday. Ole Miss has a new coach this season in Hugh Freeze who brought the no-huddle spread offense from Arkansas State for the Rebels. Ole Nick Saban isn’t too fond of this style of offense that is spreading around the nation.
“I think that the way people are going no-huddle right now, that at some point in time, we should look at how fast we allow the game to go in terms of player safety. The team gets in the same formation group, you can’t substitute defensive players, you go on a 14-, 16-, 18-play drive and they’re snapping the ball as fast as you can go and you look out there and all your players are walking around and can’t even get lined up. That’s when guys have a much greater chance of getting hurt when they’re not ready to play.
I think that’s something that can be looked at. It’s obviously created a tremendous advantage for the offense when teams are scoring 70 points and we’re averaging 49.5 points a game. With people that do those kinds of things. More and more people are going to do it.
I just think there’s got to be some sense of fairness in terms of asking is this what we want football to be?”
You just try to get your players ready to do it the best way that you can,” Saban said. “I don’t think anybody really ever thought we’d go no-huddle and the coach could control the game from the sidelines and call the plays based on how the defense was lined up. That’s a real advantage for the offense.
You have to adapt on defense, your players have to adapt and it can be stressful in terms of communication and keeping their focus and energy level where it needs to be to play at that pace. It is what it is, so we try to get our players ready to do that.
I think there’s always been good offensive teams in our league. I think people that have really good quarterbacks and skill players and can make plays in the passing game. When they get hot, they certainly can score quickly and make a lot of big plays.
There’s always been teams in our league that can play very well on defense, but some days even good defenses get exposed a little bit, especially when they play a really good offensive team. I’m not surprised by it.
Granted, some people may not like the no-huddle spread offense but it’s an equalizer of sorts for the smaller teams over the bigger teams. Either way, teams get film and have a chance to formulate a game plan to prepare for such teams.
I dislike using the terms upper-level and lower-level teams. But if you look at it, teams like Alabama and others in the “big six” conferences are typically considered upper-level schools. They tend to be able to recruit big linemen and, as coach Jones has pointed out many times, there’s only so many of those big linemen to go around.
I believe one of the reasons that Coach Jones made the move to a no-huddle spread offense was partly because of that. It’s the offense’s potential to run plays back-to-back-to-back that allows the “lower-level” team a way to equalize the playing field somewhat.
Does Nick Saban want to push the Senior Bowl rules into College Football as a whole? Where there’s no blitzing? I think the defense has to cover 2 even.
I don’t see anything wrong with it. Do you?
UPDATE: Andrew Gribble posted a follow-up article this morning that had reactions from all over including Hugh Freeze and Urban Meyer. You can read it here.
Troy Receiver Added To Biletnikoff Award Watch List
Fresh off Troy’s win over the Jaguars, Troy wide receiver Chip Reeves has been added to the Biletnikoff Award watch list by the Tallahassee Quarterback Club Foundation. Reeves was one of 11 players to be added to the award watch list, which is awarded to the nation’s top wide receiver.
Reeves leads the Sun Belt and ranks 35th nationally with an average of 85.6 receiving yards per game. Reeves has 29 catches for 428 yards through five games this season and averages 14.8 yards per reception.
Reeves is a fifth-year senior for the Trojans.
Ross Metheny Named Starter At Quarterback
Quarterback Ross Metheny reads the NC State defense pre-snap in Raleigh, NC.
Head coach Joey Jones announced today that Ross Metheny will be the starting quarterback for the Jaguars. This was first reported on AL.com and reiterated while filming the Joey Jones Show that airs each Saturday on UTV44 in Mobile, Alabama.
In an interview with the Press-Register, Coach Jones said that Metheny would be the starter for the Jaguars “right now.” Jones indicated that the position would be evaluated on a week-to-week basis, which leaves the door open in the future for C.J. Bennett to work his way back into the spot. However doing so will take much more effort and focus since Metheny will begin getting most of the first-team snaps when the Jaguars resume practice next week.
Bennett started 16 consecutive games for the Jags. The first two of 2012, all 10 games in 2011 and the last four of the 2010 season.
Coach Jones has reiterated a number of times that Metheny and Bennett were very close to each other. Both could stand to improve but they both also played well. Jones decided to go with one quarterback so they would get a majority of the reps in practice and see if that helps the offense to improve over their performance so far this season.
Hopefully this will take the pressure off of the quarterbacks and they are able to play to their best potential. But most of all, that it will give the Jags opportunities to win.
Metheny has gone 34-of-59 for 354 yards, a touchdown and three interceptions so far this season completing 57.6 percent of his passes. He has also ran 25 times for 7 yards. Bennett has gone 52-of-95 for 543 yards, three touchdowns and four interceptions on the season. Which comes out to a 54.7 percent completion average. Bennett has also rushed 28 times for 134 yards, one of those rushes went for 50 yards last Saturday against Troy to set up the Jags only touchdown of the game.
Coach Jones hopes this gives the offense the spark they need to improve as a team on offense.
Jags Hit Practice Field On Tuesday
Head Coach Joey Jones speaks to his team after the conclusion of the Jaguars first practice of preseason camp.
South Alabama returned to the practice field on Tuesday for a two hour practice that focused on fundamentals along with special teams. Also notably many players on the depth chart that do not normally see many reps got opportunities to take some snaps.
The Jags will practice once more on Wednesday before taking three days off on Thursday through Saturday. They will then get back into game-week preparation for Arkansas State on Sunday with practices beginning on Monday.
“We had a good practice today,” Coach Jones was quoted saying. “We just worked on fundamentals and special teams games, and we worked on running the ball offensively and the same thing on defense. I thought we had a good day.”
“Then we put our young guys in and had a scrimmage at the end,” Jones continued. “I thought that was good to get them about 20 or 24 plays. An off week is the time to do that because you don’t have as much time during a game week. So we got them out there, let them get some reps and got them on film (for evaluation).”
“We want to have another physical practice (Wednesday) and them come back next week and get into game week,” Jones further explained. “We’ve installed some of the gameplan and we’re finishing that (for the Arkansas State) but we want to have just good, fundamental work. Anytime you’re successful, you get better fundamentally and that’s what we want to continue to work on.”
South Alabama is 1-4 on the season with three consecutive losses for the first time in the program. This is also the first time the Jaguars faced a full Division I schedule with 11 of the 13 opponents on the schedule being full FBS members with one being an FBS transitional team.
Jags Looking To Build Consistency In Off-Week
C.J. Bennett reads the defense while head coach Joey Jones looks on from the sidelines in Starkville Mississippi.
There has been a lot of debate by fans over the Jaguars two-quarterback system that they have used so far this season. The coaches are also debating that question.
Coach Jones was quoted saying, “We’re going to make that decision – actually we’re formulating that decision as we speak – and I think by Wednesday we’ll definitely have an answer. I think by the Wednesday practice we’ll make an announcement as to how we’re going to do it.”
C.J. Bennett is 59-of-95 for 543 yards, four interceptions and three touchdowns on the season. Virginia transfer Ross Metheny is 34-of-59 for 354 yards, three interceptions and one touchdown on the season himself.
But Bennett is ranked second among rushers with 28 carries for 134 yards with no touchdowns yet. Metheny has ran 25 times for 7 yards and no touchdowns either.
While Trey Fetner came in for two plays against Troy, he will not be thrown in the mix for the starting position. However, he could be used in certain situations. Trey ran in from three yards out for the Jags only touchdown against Troy on Saturday. His other play in the game, he ran on 4th and 1 to pick up the first down. “We’ll use him in the wildcat (offensive set),” Jones explained. “He’s a good runner. He offers that and it would be good to expand on that package too.”
The week off comes at a great time for the Jaguar defense. Safety B.J. Scott missed the second half of the game against Troy due to a “mild concussion”. He is expected to be available to play when the Jags travel to Arkansas State on October 13. Scott make six tackles in the game, five in the first quarter as well as an interception on the first play from scrimmage by Troy. He also had a pass breakup, a tackle for loss and two quarterback hurries.
Defensive lineman Romelle Jones returned to the lineup against Troy after missing Mississippi State and most of the NC State game due to injury. Montavious Williams is dealing with an ankle injury but should be fine by Arkansas State. “Romelle Jones played (against Troy) but not at 100 percent,” Jones explained. “Hopefully this will give him time to get his knee back 100 percent because he missed the Mississippi State game. Montavious Williams turned his ankle. He played about 10 plays and that was it. Hopefully another two weeks and he’ll be ready to go and hopefully we’ll be back to 100 percent on defense.”
But while they are trying to decide between quarterbacks and healing their bumps and bruises, they are also working hard to gain some consistency.
The offense is looking to find a way to put more points on the scoreboard and to consistently move the ball. While the defense is trying to prevent more big plays. The coaching staff is staying late at night to watch game film to devise game plans and schemes to help achieve these goals.
In the Monday press conference coach Jones said, “I didn’t sleep Saturday night. I’m hard on myself and I expect to win. You hurt for about a day or two, but then you get back to work and realize you have a chance to get better. You can take adversity any way you want, you can pout about it or you can learn from it and get better. If we take the approach of learning from it, then we have a chance to get better. We’re going to keep fighting.”
“We need it,” Jones said about their off date this weekend. “our guys are beat up. We’ve been through four-and-a-half weeks of camp and five weeks of games, you’re talking about nine weeks without a break. It’s coming at a good time.”
The team will practice through Wednesday then the players and coaches will have three days off before getting back to work on game-week preparations for Arkansas State.