MOBILE, Ala. – University of South Alabama football head coach Joey Jones along with defensive lineman Zach Befort and offensive lineman Harrison Louden met with the media Monday to preview Saturday's Homecoming game against Louisiana-Monroe and recap last week's win at Troy.

Head coach Joey Jones
On importance of win at Troy: "Obviously a big win, but I told our team yesterday that we're not going to talk about it anymore moving forward. I'll answer your questions, but I feel like we have to move forward. I think our guys played well. I knew we had a good team and we kind of showed out the other night. The challenge for us is can we do it again, can we do it again, can we do it again. That's the challenge for us, and that's what we have to get to."

On what to do to make that type of win happen again: "I think just focus on becoming a better football team. Obviously, I think we had a great night defensively the other night. There are areas we can improve on certainly. Anytime you watch film you find things that aren't necessarily the way you want them to be. Offensively, I think we all know we're trying to find ourselves somewhat, and we have to be able to get better there, in my opinion, to achieve the goals we want to achieve. We're working hard there. It's really just about going out and being a better football team. If we work hard in practice to be that football team we can get there. I have full faith in these guys. I've always had faith in these guys since day one. That's never going to change. I think we have a shot, we just have to keep working."

On the quarterbacks: "We're going to let them battle it out. I think that is the fair way to do it. We have two guys that are very, very close. So it's nice in some ways, not so nice in other ways, like making the decision on who's going to start. We have two good ones, and we're just going to go from there each week and see who practices the best. I thought Dallas [Davis] had a really good week last week, and he came out in the game and showed it. We're going to reward the guys for practicing well."

On homecoming game: "It's special because year in, year out, every year that goes by, there's not only more alumni but more Jag fans out there. I think the number of kids that are fans is growing. It's good to see everybody come back. It's good to see former players come back and former alumni come back. It just makes you feel like we're getting some tradition here. That's what's special about it. As far as the game goes, I don't know if it makes any difference who we are playing and what we're going to do on the field. It's just a nice weekend, and our university puts on a great show. We're excited about having everybody back."

On Louisiana-Monroe: "Obviously, they're good on offense, averaging I think 39 points a game. They're doing very well offensively. Defensively they blitz you a lot, move their front a lot and try to disrupt you. They play with two quarterbacks, similar to what we are, and they have played two [in the same game] at times throughout the season. It's going to be a great challenge. I told our guys the other day, last year is last year and this year is this year. We're a better football team, and we have to go out there and show that."

Zach Befort
On last week's win over Troy and moving forward into Saturday: "The win was great. The season didn't start off exactly how we wanted it to, but getting that rivalry win was a really good for us to get back on track. The break was awesome. It was definitely needed to get our bodies back in the swing of things. Coming up with ULM, I think everyone is really focused after the time off and ready to get after it."

On mentality right now: "After a big win teams will get complacent or have a bad week of practice. We just need to jump back into it, have another good week of practice and perform the best we can against ULM."

On loss at ULM last year: "I just remember it being a very poor showing defensively. That's in the hearts of all the defensive guys, I know. We've already talked about it. I don't want to say it's personal, but it definitely weighs on our hearts from last year, so we're ready to get this one back."

On the defense's confidence after win at Troy: "We felt like we've been playing good ball, but haven't been able to put it all together. In the Troy victory, I think we were able to put everything together and really play defense the way we want to play it and to the standard we have set for ourselves."

Harrison Louden
On last week's win over Troy and moving forward into Saturday: "Like [Zach] Befort said, the win was a great turning point for us to get us back on track, but that's all in the past for us. We've been focused on ULM since the day after the game. The break has been good to us for sure. Now we're just ready to get back to practice this week."

On the mentality right now: "We just have to carry into the next week what we did this past week and keep the ball rolling forward."

On the drive coming out of the half at Troy and how to do it more often: "We just have to pick out the good points from it, keep working on it and capitalize on it each time we can."

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