MOBILE, Ala. – Tennessee-Martin came into Saturday’s football game with the University of South Alabama leading the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision in scoring and total offense. After committing two turnovers and being held to a season-low 325 yards of total offense, the Skyhawks left Mobile with another defeat.
B.J. Scott recorded 10 tackles and broke up two passes, Gabe Loper had seven and an interception, and Alex Page forced and recovered a fumble to help lead the Jaguars to a 33-30 victory over UTM at Ladd-Peebles Stadium.
Kendall Houston posted a game-high 85 yards and two touchdowns while C.J. Bennett threw for 179 yards as the Jags scored 27 points in the second and third quarters to improve to 4-2 on the season. Quentin Sims scored three times on passes from Derek Carr, but it was not enough to prevent the Skyhawks from falling to 3-3.
USA trailed 7-6 with six minutes to go in the opening first half, but the Jags scored the final 10 points before the break then broke open the contest in the third quarter with three short scoring drives.
On the Skyhawks’ first possession after the intermission, Bryson James and Scott tipped a Carr pass into the hands of Loper, who returned the interception 27 yards. On the very next snap, Houston reached the end zone for 16-point USA lead at the 9:40 mark. After UTM closed the gap to 23-13 on a 10-yard scoring pass from Carr to Sims, the Jags took advantage of another short field leading to Houston’s second touchdown of the day. The Skyhawks were called for an excessive celebration penalty following the play that was enforced on the ensuing kickoff, which Jeremé Jones ran back to the UTM-47; an offside penalty was also called, moving the ball to the 42-yard line. After a 40-yard pass from Bennett to Corey Besteda, Houston was able to score from one yard out.
Page stripped the ball from Tevin Barksdale on the next Skyhawk drive, recovering the ball at the 22-yard line to set up Jordan Means’ 32-yard field goal one-and-a-half minutes before the end of the quarter and make the score 33-13.
“Our guys were really physically and mentally ready to play, and I thought we had a great game plan. The coaching staff did a great job — offensively, defensively and special teams,” said Jaguar head coach Joey Jones. “We played really good football for three quarters. Had we not done that, we would have lost the ball game. There were a lot of positives in this game, so I was real proud of the way we came out ready to play.
“When we are ready to play, we’re a good football team.”
Jake Johnson was credited with six stops, while Logan Bennett and Charles Harris each posted five tackles. In holding the Skyhawks to their lowest output of the season — the fewest yards UTM had gained entering play was 434 — USA surrendered just 64 yards in the first half and 144 through three quarters.
Houston’s two scores marked the first time since a season-opening victory over West Alabama that he has recorded multiple touchdowns, while it was the first occasion since the Jags’ contest at North Carolina State that he has paced the team in rushing after he carried the ball 16 times on the day. Demetre Baker added 51 yards on 12 attempts, while Bennett was 12-of-19 passing. Besteda led the Jaguars with three catches for 64 yards, while Lamontis Gardner added three receptions for 40. Kevin Helms and Jones also posted multiple catches as USA finished with 325 yards of total offense also.
UTM would score 17 unanswered points in the fourth quarter, beginning with a 38-yard Cody Sandlin field goal with 12-and-a-half minutes left in the game. Sims caught a two-yard touchdown pass from Carr with 3:54 to go, while DJ McNeil scored on a one-yard rush up the middle in the final minute.
Carr finished 18-of-32 passing for 177 yards, with Sims catching six passes for 78 yards. Stephen Shiver paced the Skyhawks with 96 yards on seven receptions.
But, UTM — which entered play averaging nearly 230 yards per game on the ground — rushed for just 114; McNeil paced the squad with 40 yards on eight attempts, Jason McNair carried seven times for 37 yards and Barksdale posted 34 on fvie rushes.
Ben Johnson’s 11 tackles led all players, with TR Drakeford recording nine stops and Jonathan Utley eight for UTM.
“That is a really good football team,” Jones explained. “After the first three quarters, people watching might not have thought so because we were playing so well. But you saw what they could do in the fourth quarter. They are very well-coached and they never quit.”
“It was just a matter of it being too little, too late,” Jason Simpson, coach of the Skyhawks, said. “We played a good football team today. You can look at the tape of their games versus North Carolina State and Kent State and tell that they are a good football team; we knew that coming in. Give South Alabama credit, they punched us in the mouth and made the plays. They are a very physical football team.”
After the Jag defense forced a quick three-and-out to open the day, the offense marched 63 yards in nine plays — taking nearly six minutes off the clock — before posting the game’s first points. After two running plays netted just two yards, Bennett found Jones for an 11-yard gain. The Jaguars picked up another first down after back-to-back offside calls on the Skyhawks, and another after Bennett gained two yards on third-and-one. Houston moved the Jags into the red zone with a 19-yard gain on his first carry of the contest, and after he rushed for two more yards Bennett found Besteda for an eight-yard touchdown pass. Karlos Jones blocked the extra-point attempt to keep the score 6-0 in favor of USA.
The touchdown catch was Besteda’s first since USA defeated Army Prep on Sept. 26, 2009, the program’s second-ever contest.
Another five-minute-plus possession midway through the second quarter helped the Jags regain the lead 13-7, with USA taking a 16-7 lead to the locker room after Means converted a 21-yard field goal as time expired in the opening half. The first drive — which covered 80 yards in nine snaps — ended with Baker carrying the final three plays for gains of two, seven and seven yards before reaching the end zone with just under six minutes to go in the period; in addition to rushing plays for 10 or more yards from Baker, Houston and Myles Gibbon on the first five plays of the march, Bennett found Helms for a 27-yard pickup down the right sideline once the Jags crossed midfield.
It’s the fifth straight game that Baker has reached the end zone, the second-longest streak in school history.
UTM did not record a first down and after the punt, Bennett guided USA 62 yards in 12 plays to run the final four-and-a-half minutes off the clock in the first half. In addition to moving the chains with completions of 16 yards to Corey Waldon and seven to Jones, the quarterback picked up a first down with a 13-yard carry. He would go 4-of-6 on the drive for 54 yards.
The Jaguars outgained the Skyhawks 239-64 in the first half, holding the ball for 21-and-a-half minutes in the process.
The Skyhawks’ first score was set up by special teams play. Carr’s 48-yard punt left USA on its own one-yard line, and after the Jaguars failed to pick up a first down and an 11-yard punt return from CJ Estelle, UTM took the lead with just under four minutes to go in the opening quarter. Carr threw a lateral to Shiver, who completed a 34-yard touchdown pass to Sims down the right sideline on the Skyhawks’ first play of the ensuing drive.
The Jaguars’ 38 minutes and two seconds of possession time in the contest were the most in the program’s two-plus season of competition, while the offense also scored on all six trips to the red zone. The USA defense held the Skyhawks to just 2-of-11 third-down conversions as well.
USA will play its final road contest of 2011 Saturday when the Jaguars and Georgia State kick off at 2 p.m. Central in Atlanta.
For more information about South Alabama athletics, check back with www.usajaguars.com. Season tickets for all Jaguar athletic events can be purchased by calling (251) 461-1USA (1872).
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