Jaguar Offense Flounders In 30-3 Loss To Appalachian State
The South Alabama Jaguars dropped their sixth consecutive game of the season to #21 ranked Appalachian State 30-3 to fall to 1-7 (0-4 SBC) on the season. This was also the second consecutive homecoming loss for the Jags, dropping their record to 9-2 all-time in homecoming games.
When you think the offense has hit rock bottom and can only get better, the Jags only mustered 23 total yards of offense in the first half and didn’t cross the 50 yard line until the second half. They had 2 total yards on 19 plays in their first six possessions of the game with only one first down coming by way of a roughing the kicker penalty.
Their first offensive first down came in the final minute of the first half.
The Jags went into halftime with a 13-0 deficit.
Midway through the third quarter the Mountaineers added to their lead on a three yard touchdown run by Williams Jr. He set up the score with runs of 20 and 35 yards on the drive.
After going down 20-0 midway through the third quarter, the Jags coaching staff decided to pull Cephus Johnson in favor of Desmond Trotter after the Johnson-led offense only had 35 yards of offense on 29 snaps.
But Trotter’s first series culminated in a three-and-out leading to the Mountaineers adding a 46 yard field goal to take a 23-0 lead. Highlights of that drive were a 21 yard run by Jalen Virgil and a 29 yard keeper by quarterback Zac Thomas.
Opening the fourth quarter, the Jags had an opportunity to stave off a shutout but Frankie Onate’s 32 yard field goal was partially blocked.
Onate would prevent the shutout with a 37 yard field goal with 5:43 left in the game.
But App State wasn’t ready to go home, as Raykwon Anderson broke a 67 yard touchdown run with 4:48 left in the game to close out the scoring.
The Jags came up on the short end of the statistics too. Total offense they were out gained 139 to 445, rushing they were out gained 87 to 313, and passing they were out gained 52 to 132. ASU gained 21 first downs to the Jags 10. Jags held the ball for only 25:24 while ASU possessed it for 34:36. Both teams converted their only 4th down attempt.
USA only converted 1 (one) 3rd down attempt out of 15 tries. One, uno, ein. In whatever language you want to state it, it is still pathetic. App state converted 6 of 17.
Starting quarterback Cephus Johnson went 3 of 11 passing for 9 yards and sacked once. Desmond Trotter was 3 of 8 for 43 yards and was sacked twice.
Tra Minter led the Jaguar rushing attack with 94 yards on 23 attempts. Jared Wilson was next in line with 5 yards on three carries.
Six Jaguars caught a pass in the game, but no one caught more than one. Cade Sutherland’s catch went for 30 yards to lead the team.
App State’s Zac Thomas was 16 of 28 for 132 yards and a touchdown. Anderson carried the ball four times for 99 yards and a touchdown. Williams Jr carried the ball 11 times for 94 yards and the other Mountaineer touchdown. Thomas Hennigan caught six passes for 58 yards and the only passing touchdown for the Mountaineers.
“We didn’t get much going at all early, until the fourth quarter,” head coach Steve Campbell said after the game. “We’ve got to look at what we need to do… We’ve got to do much better, but Appalachian State is a good football team.”
When asked about making a quarterback change, Campbell would not commit to anything. “We’ll see,” he said. “We’ve definitely got to move the ball better. Desmond will have an opportunity.”
“We need to do something to try to move the football,” he concluded.
The Jags are assured of their sixth consecutive losing season and their third consecutive season without a bowl game.
Campbell and his team have an open date next Saturday and will return to action in two weeks on November 9th when they travel to Texas State, the team they defeated to end the 2018 season.
Over the next two weeks the Jags will have to go to the white board and figure out how to play better on offense in particular.
South Alabama Falls In Battle For The Belt 37-13
Questionable play calling, mistakes, and a porous defense were the key in the Jags 37-13 loss at Troy.
South Alabama falls to 1-6 overall and 0-3 in conference play while Troy improves to 3-3 overall and 2-1 in conference play.
After Troy opening the game with a field goal, the Jags answered by driving down to the 1 yard line. On back-to-back plays Jared Wilson and Cephus Johnson would both be stopped dead in their tracks and head coach Steve Campbell would settle for a 17 yard field goal to tie the game.
On the ensuing possession, Troy would methodically drive down and put a touchdown on the board with a 1 yard rub pass towards the front pylon.
The Jags next possession would stall at the Troy 35 and Frankie Onate would drill a 51 yard field goal, but the Trojans would be flagged for a personal foul for hitting the kicker giving the Jags 15 yards and a first down at the Troy 20 yard line. Minter would carry the ball on back-to-back plays to give the Jags a 1st and goal at the 3 yard line. Minter would add two more yards and then the offense could not put it in the end zone. Minter would be snuffed on two consecutive plays. Then on 3rd and goal, Cephus took the snap from the shotgun, Troy would bring pressure up the middle and drop him for a two yard loss.
After a time out, Cephus would throw the ball too high for Jalen Tolbert, who was in double coverage anyway and Troy would get the ball.
Three plays later, Troy quarterback Kaleb Barker would just lose his grip on the ball and the Jags would recover at the Troy 3 yard line.
A jet sweep to Kawaan Baker would net the Jags a touchdown, their only one of the game.
Travis Reed would pick off Barker at the USA 22, but then two plays later Johnson would be picked off at the Troy 43 yard line.
The Trojans would get three points off the turnover.
USA would get the ball with 1:08 left in the opening half trailing 13-10. They would draw up passes on first and second down before giving it to Minter up the middle for no gain. Troy would get the ball back after only :21 when Jack Brooks punt was shanked and only netted 24 yards.
Behind Barker’s passing, the Trojans quickly moved the ball but the Jags defense held for only a field goal to go into the locker room at halftime trailing 16-10.
USA opened the second half with two first downs before having to punt. Brooks would pin the Trojans at their own 13 yard line but Barker and the offense would pick apart the Jaguars slashing runs and precision passing. Barker would cap the drive off with a 15 yard touchdown pass to Kaylon Geiger to make it 23-10.
Tra Minter breathes some life into the team with a 45 yard kickoff return to the Jags 47. After a jet sweep to open the drive, which gained one yard. The Jags then threw the ball on 8 consecutive plays. On the final one, Johnson had Jalen Wayne in the end zone but he dropped it. Onate’s 45 yard attempt would miss wide right.
The Jags would get the ball back two plays later when Barker was intercepted by Travis Reed again. But the drive would stall at the Troy 14 yard line and Onate connected on a 31 yard field goal to make it 23-13.
Troy would miss a 36 yard field goal giving the Jags the ball at their own 20 yard line.
Cephus then threw what looked like was supposed to be an out route but the receiver was at least 10 yards farther down the field, and it was intercepted and returned 29 yards for a Troy touchdown.
After the Jags could not convert 4th & 1, Troy took over at their own 31 and just ground out 69 yards on 13 consecutive run plays, with four of them going for 10+ yards, to make the final score 37-13.
The confusing and frustrating part were so many attempts from the 1 yard line and not a single one of them came from a snap under center. Instead the ball was snapped to the quarterback in the shotgun and either handed off or the quarterback was stopped once stopped for a 2 yard loss.
Another frustrating set of play calls came on the Jags final possession of the half. With 1:08 left, 1st and 10 from your own 25 yard line and still in the game trailing 13-10. Kenny Edenfield calls two passes that fell incomplete and stopped the clock then came back with a draw up the middle for just one yard gain. Something we’ve seen countless times this season. That coupled with a poor punt and a defense playing deep and not putting pressure on receivers allowed the Trojans to quickly move the ball and get a field goal as the first half expired.
Troy did their best to help keep the Jaguars in the game. Two interceptions by Travis Reed and a fumble recovery by A.J. DeShazor led to 10 of the Jaguars 13 points in the game. But they left points on the field offensively.
Unfortunately the defense wore down as the game played out and by the fourth quarter Troy was gashing the defense both on the ground and through the air.
The game was effectively put away when Troy scored the pick-six at the 14:02 mark of the fourth quarter and yet they would put another score on the board as the Jaguar defense just was unable to slow down the Trojan ground game.
“I’m very disappointed in the loss,” coach Campbell opened his post game press conference. “I thought the kids gave a good effort, but we obviously came up short in a game like this. We need to go back to work, keep improving and find a way to win a game like this; we had opportunities.”
“We need to make a few more plays, we talked about what we could’ve done better,” Campbell said when asked what he told the players in the locker room after the game. “There are some calls I wish I could have made differently, and there are some things that we can definitely do better to put ourselves in a position to win. This game hurts and those players in the locker room are hurting. Let’s get back to work. No defeat is ever final and no victory is ever final; you have to get back and get to work, and we have some things we need to work on.”
“We probably could have run the ball outside a little bit more, but the coaches made good play calls,” senior running back Tra Minter responded when asked about being unable to capitalize on short-yardage plays near the goal line. “We just need to execute them as players.”
The Trojans held advantages in all of the stat columns, except turnovers. Total yards the Trojans led 432 to 271. Passing yards they led 212 to 183. Rushing yards they led 220 to 91. First downs they had 28 to USA’s 20, which was a huge improvement over their 4 (though two were touchdowns) against Georgia Southern. Third down conversions the Trojans were 10 of 17 while the Jags were only 3 of 12. Troy converted the only 4th down attempt they tried while the Jags converted 1 of 3 attempts. Troy held an 81 to 72 play advantage and a time of possession advantage of 34:57 to 25:03.
Offensively it was the Tra Minter show for the Jags as he put up 200 all-purpose yards in the game. He had 78 yard on kick off returns, 86 rushing yards on 17 carries, and 36 yards receiving on 6 receptions leading the team in rushing yardage and passes caught.
Kawaan Baker added 15 yard rushing on four carries and the lone Jaguar touchdown. He also caught five passes for 42 yards. Davyn Flenord caught four passes for 33 yards and Jalen Tolbert caught two passes for 48 along with the teams longest offensive play of 34 yards.
Cephus Johnson went 20-for-38 for 183 yards and was sacked twice. Though at times he was inaccurate throwing the ball, he did have several passes hit players in the hands with opportunities make the catch.
Jack Brooks punted twice for an average of 27 yards per punt, hurt by the 24 yarder off the side of his foot in his first kick. But the second was nicely placed inside the opponents 15 yard line.
South Alabama will have a couple extra days to recover and game plan before hosting conference-leading Appalachian State on October 26 for the Jaguars homecoming game. The Mountaineers are an undefeated 5-0 on the season and 2-0 in the conference with noteworthy wins over North Carolina and Louisiana-Lafayette.
ASU will be in action this Saturday as they host Louisiana-Monroe for a 3:30pm kickoff at Kidd Brewer Stadium in Boone, NC for their annual homecoming game.
The Jags and the Mountaineer will kick off at 11am on ESPNU on Oct 26 at Ladd-Peebles Stadium. Radio coverage can be heard on 99.5 FM The Jag and 96.1 FM locally in the Mobile area or on iHeartRadio app world wide.
In the meantime, the Jags have to go back to the drawing board once again to figure out a way to get their first FBS win of the season.
Go Jags
South Alabama Falls To Georgia Southern 20-17 In 2OT
The South Alabama Jaguars fall in heartbreaking fashion in double-overtime to Georgia Southern 20-17 in an ugly game.
The Eagles (2-3, 1-1 SBC) tried everything to give the game away, but the Jaguars (1-5, 0-2 SBC) just couldn’t capitalize down the stretch. It was blind side pressure on quarterback Cephus Johnson that ultimately set up the Eagles for their game-winning field goal attempt in the second overtime period.
You may be asking ‘how ugly was it’?
Well, let me tell you some numbers. The Jags only had 4 first downs in the game to GSU’s 22. The Jags finally surpassed the 100 yards of total offense about midway through the third quarter. They ended the game with 242 total yards of offense to GSU’s 383. USA only managed 48 yards rushing to 305 for the Eagles. USA threw the ball for 194 yards while the Eagles gained 78 through the air.
Georgia Southern ran 83 offensive plays and held the ball for 40:38. The Jags only ran 39 offensive plays and possessed the ball for 19:22.
USA was 0-of-10 on 3rd downs. That’s right zero, zilch, nada, nothing, nil.
GSU was 5-of-18 on 3rd down and converted their only 4th down attempt.
Georgia Southern was the first to get on the scoreboard with a 46 yard field goal at the 11:03 mark in the second quarter. But their lead would not last long.
On the first play from scrimmage for the Jags, Johnson lofted a ball up and over the Eagle defense and right into Kawaan Baker’s arms for a 75 yard touchdown to take a 7-3 lead only :11 seconds after GSU broke the scoreless tie.
After a three-and-out by the Jags offense and a 25 yard punt by Jack Brooks gave Georgia Southern excellent field position at the USA 42. After an incomplete pass to start the drive, GSU rushed six consecutive times and found the end zone to retake the lead 10-7 with 1:11 left in the third quarter.
After punting back and forth, the Jags started at their own 20 yard line after a touchback when Tra Minter took the second down handoff 20 yards to the Jaguar 40 yard line. Then Johnson loaded up and tossed it deep for Jalen Tolbert, who hauled it in and scoring his first career touchdown on the 60 yard play with 5:41 left in the third quarter.
The Jags were looking to put the game away when Johnson lofted another deep pass to Kawaan Baker, but this time Baker had to slow down for the ball ever so slightly which allowed the Georgia Southern defenders to bring him down at the GSU 31 after a 43 yard gain. However the Jags would not be able to keep the chains moving and had to settle for a 45 yard field goal by Frankie Onate at the 4:24 mark in the fourth quarter giving the Jags a 17-10 lead.
After Diego Guajardo’s kickoff went out of bounds, the Eagles then methodically marched the ball down the field with runs of 14, 9, 16, and 22 on consecutive plays to get to the Jaguar 4 yard line. They finally punched it in on 3rd and goal at the 1 to tie the game at 17-all with :20 left in regulation.
South Alabama won the overtime coin toss and elected to go on defense first. The Jags defense bent but didn’t break. The Eagles got to the Jaguar 5 yard line before going in reverse via penalties for illegal formation then an illegal forward pass.
The 32 yard field goal was hooked left giving the Jags the opportunity to score and end the game.
The Jags offense went backwards with a loss of a yard by Minter followed by a false start putting the ball at the 31 yard line. Onate’s 45 yard field goal attempt was blocked to go to the second overtime period.
This time the Jags went on offense first and on the first play Randy Wade beat the left tackle and got to Johnson stripping the ball before he could throw it and the Eagles pounced on it.
The Eagles were content to just run the ball mostly between the hashmarks until the last run put it on the left hash, the same position of the missed field goal just minutes before.
However this time it split the uprights for the 20-17 final score.
Minter was held to 45 yards on the ground and just 8 yards receiving. Kawaan Baker led the receivers with 126 yards and a touchdown on four receptions. Tolbert had the one catch for 60 yards and a touchdown.
Shai Werts threw the ball 17 times and completed nine of them. But he was also the games leading rusher with 102 yards on 20 carries. JD King rushed for 72 yards on 22 carries.
South Alabama will have 13 days to get ready for their trip to Troy for the 2019 Battle for the Belt. Troy will play on Saturday and will have 10 days to prepare.
While the Jags finally found a deep pass threat, they had some significant issues in other offensive phases of the game. They couldn’t run, they couldn’t convert third downs, and they were significantly out-snapped and out-possessed by their opponent.
“We did some good things, but obviously not enough to win the game,” head coach Steve Campbell said after the game. “It’s very disappointing.”
“We couldn’t generate any kind of a running game, and that was the difference,” Campbell said. “We could not run the football. We had a hard time blocking their defensive front and linebackers.”
On a bright note, the Jags defense held up very well considering the situation.
Now the Jags have a bye week and 13 days to prepare for their in-state rival.
They are going to need it.
Go Jags!
Jags Face Nebraska In 11am Kick
Here we are, ready for the 2019 season to finally begin. While Thunderjags has been quiet, we are still here. This year has been very busy with off the field family business. Without any further ado, let’s preview game number one.
The Jags coming off a 3-9 record for the 2018 campaign opens in Lincoln, Nebraska to take on the #24 Cornhuskers.
The Huskers enter the third season under head coach Scott Frost after back-to-back 4 win seasons. Despite that, they are getting lots of early hype being ranked #24 in the nation to start the season.
South Alabama lost a lot from last season, but not all of it from graduation. Several players transferred out to other programs. They lost Jordan McCray and Malik Stanley to the transfer portal. Kawaan Baker is by far the leading receiver returning with 33 catches and four touchdowns. While the four returning receivers combine for a total of 10 catches. They do return six squad members from last season, a mixture of redshirts and others who didn’t see any gametime then added seven true freshmen and a senior transfer.
The linebacking corps will look to fill Bull Barge’s big shoes as they return one letterwinner from last season with one sack. They also return three redshirt freshmen and two previous squad members.
The offensive line returns four starters from last year, three of them started all 12 games. But the squad had problems knocking people off the ball, but hopefully an offseason of study and strengthening will pay dividends.
Punter Corliss Waitman decided to transfer to Mississippi State to spend what looks like his final college football season reunited with former Jag head coach Joey Jones. Frankie Onate looks to step up and fill Gavin Patterson’s shoes as placekicker.
Always one of the most talked about positions is quarterback. Evan Orth and Cole Garvin graduated. Orth started eight games, Garvin started three, and 2019 starting signal caller Cephus Johnson started one. While Johnson only threw 19 passes last year, he completed seven of them for three touchdowns and only one interception.
Though head coach Steve Campbell brought in the top ranked JUCO dual-threat quarterback in Tylan Morton, Johnson beat him out for the starting job.
As mentioned before, Johnson will be breaking in a lot of new receivers with one veteran leading the way in Baker.
The tight end position should see more work in 2019. They only accounted for one touchdown last season against Memphis.
The running back position returns two letterwinners. Tra Minter leads the way as a 2nd team All-America all-purpose back by the Sporting News and preseason watch list for the Doak Walker and Paul Hornung Awards. Minter was the only returning back to have carried the ball 10 times or more in a game in 2018. Actually, Jalin Buie hasn’t carried the ball in a game since September 16, 2017.
Though the Jags return four redshirt freshmen and a JUCO transfer to help give depth. Tony Brown and John Tank Miller are two names to keep up with this season as they have been mentioned many times over the last year and in the offseason.
Nebraska’s defense is big up front. The Jags offensive line will have their hands full with the size and speed of the Cornhuskers. Coach Edenfield will look to find mismatches and try to exploit them with misdirection and try to use some of their speed against them.
Additionally the Husker corners are pretty good. Opponents struggled completing outside passes down the field.
Offensively Nebraska has a very good quarterback, possibly one of the best in the nation, in Taylor Martinez. He can throw well and he’s very good and running the ball. The Jags defense will have to play very disciplined football. Everyone is going to make mistakes, especially in the first game of the season. Season openers are won and lost by those mistakes. In order to have a chance to win, the Jags have to minimize their mistakes against what looks to be a very potent offensive attack for the Huskers this season.
The Jags have a win over a top 25 team, they’ve defeated a Power 5 SEC team. This is their second time facing Nebraska in Lincoln. The team is ready to start the 2019 season after the lackluster 2018 record. Maybe the chances of a Jaguar win is a little more favorable than the odds that Doctor Strange gave in Avengers: Infinity War. But it takes precision, focus, and near perfect play.
While I’d love to recreate the Mississippi State win, I’m not confident I’ll see it today. We have 11 games after this one and we need to stay healthy but also get some game experience for lots of new players.
USA is a 36 point underdog according to the Las Vegas oddsmakers. I think the Jags will keep it closer than that on the road but the outright win is slim but would be extremely exciting.