by Jeff Clark, Staff Writer

MOBILE (GG) — In the game of football, teams will play in games of great importance; one game will be the best they play. It can come on any given Saturday in college football. Unfortunately, one of the games a team plays will also be its worst. Let’s hope that the South Alabama Jaguars have played their worst and the best is yet to come.

Coastal Carolina came to Hancock Whitney Stadium in Mobile on Saturday and left with an 18-point win, 38-20, over South and a 1-0 record in the Sun Belt Conference. The Jaguars fell to 1-3 on the season, losing their third consecutive game in a contest marred by turnovers and penalties. Although the Jaguars played Tulane to the wire in a two-point loss and kept Auburn from covering the spread in a loss on the Plains, Saturday’s loss was by no means a “moral victory.”

It was a thumping by a Coastal Carolina team that was shut out by East Carolina just the week prior.

“I felt like we were playing some really good football the last two weeks, even though it didn’t show in the win column,” said South Alabama Head Coach Major Applewhite. “We just did not play with the same style of play. I thought we did defensively. I know there are some things we’ve got to work on, but I was very pleased with the way the defense continued to battle.”

South Alabama led the night in total yards of offense, with 420 to Coastal Carolina’s 294. In fact, the Jags led in most of the categories offensively, but they couldn’t find a way to keep drives alive, especially on third-down and fourth-down conversion attempts, where they went 1-3. Coastal Carolina was 4-4 in scoring from the red zone, while the Jaguars were 2-3.

“We played some timely defense and kept serving it back on a platter to the offense for them to go score and create some momentum, and we never got it going offensively,” Applewhite said. “We weren’t very good on third down, and then obviously when you get in the red zone, you’ve got to score. Being eight of 18 on third down, that’s not going to get it done. And then you look down in the red zone and we’re two of three, but one of those is a field goal, so we’ve got to score touchdowns in the red area. That’s really what it was, was continuity and finishing drives on offense.”

The Jaguars didn’t get on the scoreboard until halfway through the second quarter when Anthony Eager punched it in from the goal line. Columbia native and Ole Miss transfer Kentrel Bullock scored his fourth touchdown of the year at the end of the first half on a 2-yard run.

NOTES

  • Tight end Rod Gibbs recorded the second reception of his career and his first of the season on a 14-yard, third-down conversion during South’s first drive of the game.
  • Anthony Eager jumped on a fumble in the end zone to score South Alabama’s first touchdown of the night. The Jaguars scored on a similar play last season when Devin Voisin fumbled the ball at the one-yard line and Jamaal Pritchett recovered it in the end zone for a touchdown.
  • Mississippi native Kentrel Bullock’s rushing touchdown at the end of the first half was his fourth of the season.
  • Keenan Phillips’ 54-yard rush in the second quarter became the longest rushing play of the season for the Jaguars, and the second-longest offensive play.
  • Voisin’s 48-yard catch in the fourth quarter was his sixth explosive receiving play of the season and his third catch of more than 30 yards.
  • DiBoyan’s 47-yard field goal set a new career long for the redshirt sophomore

South Alabama (1-3) will travel to North Texas (4-0) on Sept. 27. The Jaguars and Mean Green will play at 11 a.m. The game will be televised on ESPNU.

(Front Photo:  Aimee Cronan/The Gazebo Gazette via Associated Press.  Inside Photo submitted by South Alabama athletics)