Donor Appreciation Day At Ladd-Peebles Stadium
Coach Joey Jones Addressing Donors
Donor Appreciation Day was a very good event, but if you ask about the practice itself, you might get a slightly different answer. In coach Gregory’s opinion, Wednesday was one of the worst offensive days since the beginning of practice. They were plagued with interceptions and fumbles throughout the afternoon.
However, it was not all bad. Courtney Smith made several good catches and the running backs showed that they could make some nice cuts and make the defense miss.
It was clear that the defense had a pretty good day causing fumbles and falling on the ball and defensive backs intercepting passes. Tim Harvey was guarding a slant pattern when the quarterback overthrew his receiver. Harvey, with his hands outstretched, managed to haul in the pass one handed much to the jubilation of the defense.
But the defensive backs have definitely been tested over the course of spring practice. They show their competitiveness when they have a bad play or get beat one-on-one, it clearly bothers them. But they realize that it was just one play and they are able to move on.
It also helps that they are physical and can hit too. With Coach Clark’s aggressive defensive schemes, they can’t sit around and only be cover guys. They have to be able to come up and make a play too. The safeties have to be able to come up to the line of scrimmage and be able to fill holes around the defensive line and linebackers.
But Coach Walker admits they have to work on defending the pass better, in particular deep passes. With so many teams running the spread offense similar to what USA will be running, completions will happen and occasionally a big play is going to occur. But as Coach Walker said, they will have to learn how to let it roll off their back and get focused on the next play.
All of the coaches like how well the players have progressed this spring. Some are more impressed that they are as farther along then they anticipated. But each coach was also very excited about the incoming players this fall. Implying that if you like what you see now, just wait to see what they have in store in the near future.
The Jags will have Thursday off from the practice field to gear up for the scrimmage on Friday evening. Gates will open at 4:30 and the scrimmage begins at 5:30pm at Ladd-Peebles Stadium. They will start with drills and end with a half of play, offense vs defense. They don’t have enough players in several spots to have a team on team scrimmage like you would you will see from Alabama or Auburn. So the scoring will be different with the defense getting points for turnovers and such.
So make plans to join the Jaguar Nation at Ladd-Peebles Stadium on Friday evening for this historic event. Wear red to show your support and to give the players and coaches a taste of what is to come from the Jaguar Nation. Also they will finally introduce the Jaguar uniform for the first time to the public.
Go Jags!
A “Red Out” At Ladd-Peebles For Scrimmage
After writing about the scrimmage taking place on Friday, April 10th an idea came to me. The USA Outlaws typically wear their red shirts to events and red is now the primary color for USA sports. So we challenge Thunderjags.com readers to help spread the word to everyone. Wear red to Ladd on Friday to support the Jags.
These guys are working their tails off trying to secure a spot on the team going into Fall practice (only 85 can be brought in at this time). That means some of these kids who worked out all semester for these three weeks of spring practice to try to win them a spot on the team, will have to go. Walk-ons and non-scholarship players are what will determine the face of this team for the next year or two while they build up the number of scholarships to Division-I levels.
Lets spread the word to wear red or as the other slogan goes, lets “Bleed it Red” for South Alabama. We want these guys to look up into the stands when they take the field at 5:30pm and actually feel like they are a part of something special. We want them to know we support them. We want the coaches to know we support them. We want the players to get a taste of what Ladd-Peebles Stadium is going to look like when September 5th, 2009 finally arrives. We want them to see a sea of red in the stands.
So help to spread the word to everyone you know, “Wear red to Ladd, lets Bleed It Red”.
Go Jags! Bleed it Red!
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