Jags Score 25 Unanswered Points To Defeat Texas State 41-31
Head coach Steve Campbell huddles his team on the field before going to the locker room for halftime trailing Texas State 24-16. South Alabama would go on to win 41-31.
Through three quarters, the Jaguars looked pretty terrible and played pretty terrible. Most of the students left early and quite a number of home-stands patrons had funneled out by the time the fourth quarter had started.
While the Jags rushed for 116 yards in the game, they had 15 penalties for 143 yards. That’s more than half the Jags passing yardage total of 266 for the game.
The spark came in the third quarter when Jalen Thompson’s 55-yard interception return for a touchdown cut the deficit to 31-23 with about six minutes left in the third quarter.
The Jags drew within five points when Gavin Patterson tied a career-long with a 47-yard field goal early in the fourth quarter.
With 2:02 left in the game, Orth found Jordan McCray for a 23 yard touchdown. Then a two-point conversion was converted with Orth throwing to Deonta Moore slipping out of the backfield to the right and was wide open to take the first lead of the season 34-31.
Willie Jones III had his ups and downs in the game for the Bobcats. He had a 50 yard touchdown run right through the middle of the Jaguar defense. He missed some game time with some injuries and had been sacked a few times in the game. But after two incomplete passes he threw a pass to the left side which Thompson broke on again and very nearly had a second pick-six of the game, but he was ruled out at the 4 yard line.
The Jaguar offense just could not punch the ball in on the ground. On 4th and goal from the 3, a touchdown pass to Collier Smith was negated by offensive pass interference. Then on 4th and 18 with :39 seconds on the clock, Orth tossed the ball up to the left boundy and Jamarius Way fought and came down with it for the touchdown making South Alabama’s lead 41-31.
Orth, who got the start after Cole Garvin was indefinitely suspended from the team after being arrested for public intoxication, went 24-of-33 for 266 yards and two touchdowns.
Way caught 11 passes for 173 yards and a touchdown. Jordan McCray caught 4 passes for 31 yards and a touchdown.
Tra Minter rushed nine times for 61 yards and two touchdowns. Orth was the next closest rusher with 21 yards on three attempts.
Willie Jones III went 16-of-30 for 205 yards, two touchdowns and an interceptions. Tyler Vitt went 1-of-2 for nine yards and an interception.
Javen Banks had two catches for 82 yards and a touchdown whiel Hutch White also added two catches for 46 yards and a touchdown. Six other receivers each had two catches each.
Jones III had 17 carries for 58 yards with the 50 yard touchdown run, he lost 37 yards mostly in sacks. Anthony Taylor carried 14 times for 44 yards.
Head coach Steve Campbell said after the game that “There were a lot of things that went against us tonight, a lot of them were from our own doing.”
Before going into the locker room for halftime, coach Campbell huddled the team on the field. This is what he had to say about that after the game: “We talked about that we had muffed punts, their coach had gone for it on fourth and one with us backed up and didn’t get it, we’d fumbled, given up deep balls, had an extra-point blocked; done just about anything bad that could have happened to us and it was still just an eight-point ball game. We needed to get focused and go win the game.”
South Alabama will travel to Memphis (3-0) to take on the Tigers who played Georgia State on Friday night to a 59-22 win. Kickoff is scheduled for 7pm and the game will be broadcast on ESPN3.
The Numbers Game:
Garvin Indefinitely Suspended From Team After Arrest
Well, the South Alabama quarterback competition got a bit simpler for the time being as senior quarterback Cole Garvin has been suspended from the team until further notice for a “violation of team rules” according to USA’s Director of Athletics Joel Erdmann.
Garvin was arrested for public intoxication in the early hours of Friday morning and was released on bond.
Garvin started a number of games for the Jags, he led the team to the programs first win over a ranked opponent to visit Ladd-Peebles Stadium in San Diego State. He also started the first game of the season against Louisiana Tech and got some playing time last weekend against Oklahoma State after fellow senior Evan Orth got his first career start.
Expect Orth to get the start again today against Texas State as Cephus Johnson has not seen that much game time and has gone 0-for-5 passing in his two game appearances.
Jags Host Bobcats To Open Sun Belt Conference Play
Saturday evening the Jaguars will open Sun Belt Conference play when they host Texas State at Ladd-Peebles Stadium starting at 6pm.
The Steve Campbell led Jaguars come in 0-2 with a four-point loss to a talented Louisiana Tech team and a blow-out loss to the high-flying Oklahoma State Cowboys on the road.
One reason Campbell was to improve the Jags standing in conference play. That starts this weekend.
All indications points to yet another week of quarterback rotation with seniors Evan Orth and Cole Garvin and redshirt freshman Cephus Johnson. So far Garvin (La. Tech) and Orth (OSU) have started a game, but I wouldn’t make it three-for-three with Johnson starting, at least not yet.
Campbell stated in his weekly radio show that he and offensive coordinator Kenny Edenfield is looking for one of the three to step forward and separate themselves from the other two quarterbacks and becomes “the guy.” So far the USA offense is averaging 113.5 passing yards per game. But the Bobcats has a reputation of allowing big plays in the secondary.
The Jags defense has allowed over a thousand yards of offense in their first two games. Their opponents average almost 200 yards per game rushing and over 300 yards per game passing. They give up a healthy 4.3 yards per rush and 14.7 yards per completion. But the numbers are a little misleading with the huge numbers put up by the Cowboys last weekend.
Offensively the Jags are averaging a decent 3.7 yards per rush and 8.1 yards per pass completion.
One of the concerns the Jags will have on Saturday is sophomore quarterback Willie Jones III. While it was against an FCS opponent, he completed 62% of his passes and rushed for 107 yards for his first win as a starter. But the Bobcat offense is still searching for consistency.
These two teams have not met since 2015 when the Jags fell in San Marcos 36-18 in a soggy Texas night when TSU scored 19 unanswered points in the second quarter to take command and cruise to victory.
Two key injuries from last weekend, both are likely gone for the season. Long snapper Andrew Zink tore his ACL and linebacker Roy Yancey suffered a broken leg.
Both teams come in struggling and both teams want to start off their conference schedule with a win. The old adage of ‘whoever wants it more will win’ comes to mind. USA made the Louisiana Tech game quite interesting late and beat the spread. Now the Jags are a 10.5 point favorite at home. I’d love for the Jags to cover but you never know what you’re going to get in a cat fight. I think the Jags will win, but the Bobcats will keep it a little closer than the spread.
Go Jags!
Big Stats: