Jags Will Face South Alabama’s First Offensive Coordinator Les Koenning In Starkville
When Coach Joey Jones was hired to start the football program at the University of South Alabama, his first hires was his offensive and defensive coordinators. He hired former Prattville High head coach Bill Clark as his defensive coordinator. But Jones also hired Les Koenning as his offensive coordinator.
I remember seeing Coach Jones and Coach Koenning around campus before their first signing class and before they even had the football fieldhouse. Koenning was hired exactly two weeks after Coach Jones was hired.
But Koenning wouldn’t be at South long. Sylvester Croom had resigned after five seasons at the head coach of Mississippi State. They then hired Dan Mullen, who was serving as the offensive coordinator at Florida under Urban Meyer at the time.
In December of 2008, Mullen hired Koenning away from South to be the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Mississippi State. Koenning previously coached at Mississippi State during the late 80s as a receivers coach. He was replaced by eventual MSU head coach Jackie Sherrill after the 1990 season.
Coach Jones then hired Coach Greg Gregory prior to the Jaguars first spring practice in 2009.
Though Coach Jones is familiar with Koenning and his style of play-calling, but he does not think it will be an advantage for his team in Saturday’s game in Starkville. “I don’t think it will help because a lot of what he is doing now with coach Mullen they have tweaked some things more toward the Florida philosophy. I wouldn’t think there would be anything we could take from that,” Jones said. “They are doing things differently than when he was here.”
Saturday’s game in Starkville will be the first of a three game series between the Jags and the Bulldogs. The Jags will host the Bulldogs in Mobile for a game on September 13, 2014 as the Jags first SEC opponent in Mobile. Then the Jags will travel to Starkville a second time for a September 10, 2016 game.
Jags have four other SEC teams on their future schedules. Next season the Jags travel to Knoxville to play Tennessee, then in 2014 they play at Georgia, at LSU in 2016 and at Ole Miss in 2017.