Arkansas-Monticello by the numbers
Coach Jones on the sideline late in the game against Henderson State.
The Boll Weevils will have their starting senior quarterback for the game against the Jags. Scott Buisson injured his throwing hand back in late September and returned to lead the team over West Georgia to get their first home victory of the season and to snap their 3 game losing streak.
Buisson is a double threat. He has a good arm and he can also run. So the Jags will have to stay on top of him. However I think the Jags will want to end the season with a big statement against the Boll Weevils. Additionally, the coaches and Coach Jones himself will make sure the team does not take the Boll Weevils lightly. The Weevils are not as good as Henderson State and the Jags match up much better against them so I do not expect a Jaguar loss in this game.
Arkansas-Monticello, by the numbers, stacks up like this.
Their average score is 23.4 against 28.6. They have 105 first downs on the season and have allowed 137 on the season themselves.
The Boll Weevils are much more balanced that the Jagaurs previous two opponents. They have rushed for 931 yards on the season which averages out to 133 yards per game and 3.5 yards per rush. Defensively they have given up 878 yards which is 125.4 yards per game and 3.5 yards per rush as well.
Passing the Boll Weevils have gained 1,296 yards through the air on 96-of-184 passing with 8 touchdowns and 7 interceptions for an average of 185.1 yards per game and 13.5 yards per completion. Defensively they have given up 1,779 yards through the air which is 254.1 yards per game and 14.0 yards per completion. Opposing quarterbacks have gone 127-of-241 passing with 7 interceptions and 9 touchdowns.
This comes to an average of 318.1 yards per game offensively and 379.6 yards per game defensively.
Special teams play is fairly good with an average of 18.8 yards per return for both punts and kicks while averaging just over 40 yards per punt. However they are 8-of-14 in field goals.
UAM is converting 35% of their 3rd down attempts and 33% of their 4th down attempts. Defensively the opponents are converting 31% of their attempts and 44% of their 4th down attempts.
The Boll Weevils score 80% of the time they are in the red-zone, 55% of them are touchdowns. Defensively their opponents score 71% of the time with half of them being touchdowns.
Arkansas-Monticello is a first half team, scoring 66% of their points in the first half. However they have only scored 17 points in the 4th quarter all year. Defensively they have given up pretty much and equal amount of points in every quarter so they do not really have a weak or strong part of the game.
THe Boll Weevils have three running backs with over 100 yards rushing on the year. Nakita Myles leads the ground attack with 405 yards on the season with 6 touchdowns and a long of 98. Johnny Polite has rushed for 192 and 3 touchdowns and the third is quarterback Scott Buisson with 177 yards and a touchdown.
Scott Buisson is 82-of-141 with 3 interceptions and 7 touchdowns in 5 games two other quarterbacks have started and they have combined for 4-of-14 and 1 interception with also 1 touchdown and 83 yards.
Five Boll Weevil receivers have gained over 100 yards with two of them picking up most of the work. Jywin Ceasar has 26 catches for 321 yards and 4 touchdowns. DJ Stephens has 13 catches for 302 yards and 1 touchdown. Two other receivers have 11 catches on the season.
South wins shootout against Henderson State 37-31
CJ Bennett looks on as Kendall Houston runs the ball in the second half of the Jaguars win over Henderson State.
South Alabama came away with the homecoming victory in a shootout on Saturday against Henderson State, 37-31. It wasn’t unexpected by anyone who looked at the numbers really. Both teams averaged over 425 yards per game. It was just that the Reddies are a Division-II team from Arkansas, not a team that most people in the Southeast would normally hear about unless you lived in Arkansas.
CJ Bennett went 20-of-26 passing for 280 yards for the Jags with Kendall Houston adding 140 yards in a record offensive game for South Alabama. The Jags totaled 542 yards for the game.
Henderson State, whose offensive strong point happened to match up with the Jaguars defensive weakness, went after the Jaguar secondary. Two season ending injuries in the secondary has left the Jags without any sense of comfortable depth, which the Reddies exploited to the tune of 359 yards on their quarterback’s 23-of-43 performance.
Bennett spread the ball around well by connecting with nine difference receivers with six of them having multiple receptions in the game. TJ Glover lead the receiving corps with five catches for 78 yards and a new career high of 189 all-purpose yards. However, Bennett also took three sacks in the game.
Houston carried the ball 27 times for the 140 yards which marks his fourth 100 yard game of the season. The three other running backs 99 yards on 9 carries.
Special teams had some high points and some low points. The kickoff squad gave up two returns to the end zone, however one was called back on a block in the back, saving a touchdown. Darius Davis ending the game with 5 returns for 186 yards, his touchdown went for 93 yards.
On the other side, Scott Garber averaged 59 yards per punt with both being touchbacks. Lawson McGlon made three of four attempts, including a career long 40 yard field goal as time running down in the 3rd quarter. McGlon attempted a 43 yard kick at the end of the first half, however it was rushed and came up short, so it’s hard to count that against him.
The 43 yard attempt came after the Jags were in a great position at the Henderson State 12 yard line with 3rd and six after calling a time out. However Bennett took a 14 yard sack and with the Jags without any remaining time outs, had to rush the field goal unit onto the field to hastily attempt the kick. Coach Jones was visibly annoyed by the turn of events on those two plays.
Coach Jones said after the game, “I want to congratulate Henderson State for playing a very good football game. We knew watching on film that they were a very good team. But I probably didn’t do a great job of getting the team ready in my opinion. That’s probably the first time since I’ve been here that I didn’t think we were 100 percent sharp like we normally are. And I’ll take the blame for that. We can make all the excuses we want, but the bottom line is there are no excuses. That’s not to take anything away from Henderson State, they have a great football team. I kept trying to tell our team, and I guess they didn’t hear that.”
He continued, “We knew they were good on film. They’ve been throwing for 400 yards all year long, so it didn’t surprise us. Their quarterback is a really good player and puts the ball on the money; that worried us going into this game. We knew that they had some really good receivers and some good athletes on that team.”
However a day later after reviewing the game field, Coach Jones had more to say about the game and how his players played in the game. “It’s always, when you feel terrible in a game and after a game, when you go back and look at the tape, it’s a lot better than you thought it was. And when you think it was great, you go back and look at the tape and realize it was a lot worse than you thought it was. It was that way. We played really hard and did a lot of great things. We had some bad plays and did some bad things, but if you take those five or six plays out of the game we played a really, really good game. So, I was really pleased after I watched the film, much more so than I was Saturday night.”
The Jags have played eight consecutive games since their open date after the season opening game against Pikeville College. With injuries and fatigue, the Jags are definitely looking forward to the end of their second season on Thursday night. With a short preparation and hopefully a refocusing on the job at hand, I think the Jags second undefeated season is within grasp. But as the old adage goes, “never count your eggs before they hatch.”
The Jags will host Arkansas-Monticello on Thursday evening with kickoff scheduled for 6:00pm at Ladd-Peebles stadium.
Go Jags! Beat those Boll Weevils!!