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MOBILE, Ala. – For the second year in a row, the University of South Alabama opened its football season falling on a last-second field goal.

Colton Cook connected from 28 yards out with no time remaining Thursday, lifting Southern Utah to a 22-21 non-conference win over the Jaguars at Ladd-Peebles Stadium.  Last fall, Texas-San Antonio made a 51-yard field with 16 seconds to go to pull out a two-point victory over USA.

"I want to congratulate Southern Utah for winning the ballgame," said Jag head coach Joey Jones afterward.  "We didn't have a ton of mistakes, but they made the plays in the fourth quarter when they had to and ended up beating us; my hat's off to them."

The Thunderbirds (1-0) rallied from an eight-point deficit in the final six-plus minutes.  The comeback started when a Tommy Collet, Jr. interception — the only takeaway of the night by either defense — gave SUU the ball at the USA-43 with eight-and-a-half minutes left in the contest.  A Maleki Harris sack pushed the Thunderbirds back to midfield, but on the next play Aaron Cantu found Griff McNabb for a 44-yard gain down the right sideline.  Cantu would hit Anthony Norris for a two-yard touchdown with 6:13 left, but when the two-point conversion attempt failed the Jaguars led 21-19.

A three-and-out from the SUU defense gave the Thunderbirds the ball back on their own 35-yard line with four minutes and 43 seconds remaining, and the Jags wouldn't see the ball again.  Raysean Martin picked up one first down on a nine-yard run, and McNabb followed with another on a 16-yard reception to move into field-goal territory.  A 13-yard Malik Brown rush put the ball on the USA-9 in the last minute.

"We had a couple of missed assignments," Alex Page explained.  "I know there was somebody wide open, and we've got to communicate better; that shouldn't happen."

Cantu completed 13-of-24 attempts for 183 yards, while McNabb and Norris caught four passes each for 77 and 20 yards, respectively.  Martin posted a game-best 107 yards on 23 carries, while Brown carried another nine times for 40 more.  One-hundred and 10 of the Thunderbirds' 317 yards came over the final 15 minutes.

The Jags were trailing 13-7 when they began their first possession of the second half, but responded with a seven-play, 73-yard march before taking their first lead of the contest with midway through the quarter when Ross Metheny found Jeremé Jones on a six-yard scoring pass on third-and-goal.  The key play of the drive came on second-and-eight from the USA-39, when Jay Jones broke loose for a 57-yard yard run that put the ball on the SUU four-yard line.  Two drives later, Metheny once again took the Jaguars down the field, and on the second play of the fourth quarter he found Danny Woodson II for a 20-yard score on third-and-10 that extended the edge to 21-13.  It concluded a possession that covered 64 yards in seven snaps and one minute, 36 seconds.

"I think we slowed up in the fourth quarter when we got that lead," Metheny, who completed 12-of-17 attempts for 112 yards, observed.  "We'll go back and learn from that and use that as a learning experience.  We'll just get back on the grind and keep working."

"I think that we kind of got into a mentality in the fourth quarter when we were up eight (points), and probably didn't put the foot on the accelerator enough when we should have," Joey Jones added.

USA appeared to stop the opening Thunderbird possession of the second half, but punter Brock Miller rushed for 26 yards on a fake punt with SUU facing fourth-and-two, leading to a 37-yard field goal from Cook that extended the advantage to 13-7 with 11:15 remaining in the third quarter.

The Thunderbirds took a 3-0 lead after their opening drive, which covered 61 yards in six plays and took just over six minutes off the clock; Cook connected on a 33-yard attempt with 5:52 to go in the first quarter.  After a missed Jaguar field goal, Cantu found Chandler Allphin for a 54-yard gain — his only reception of the night — down to the USA-8, and SUU made the score 10-0 with just over a minute to go in the period on the second of two consecutive Martin runs, this one from one-yard out.

The Jags were still trailing by 10 midway through the second quarter when Enrique Williams' sack and forced fumble of Cantu resulted in a loss of 27 yards and led to a third-and-44 situation for the Thunderbirds.  When USA got the ball back at its own 28-yard line after a punt, Brandon Bridge — playing his second series of the game — led the Jaguars on their first scoring drive of the year.  Facing third-and-five, he hit Woodson II for a pickup of 10 yards, and after a 13-yard pass to Shavarez Smith Bridge broke up the middle untouched reach the end zone from 40 yards out.

Bridge was 6-of-11 passing for 36 yards, but he finished with 92 yards of total offense after carrying seven times for 56 more.  Jay Jones paced the USA ground attack — which collected a total of 187 yards while averaging 5.5 yards per attempt — nine rushes for 92 yards, with Smith and Jeremé Jones pacing the receiving corps with five catches apiece.  Woodson II recorded 63 yards on three catches, and Smith finished with 52.

The Jags posted 335 yards of offense overall, averaging nearly 5.5 yards per snap.

Williams led USA with 12 tackles — his sixth career outing with a double-figure total — and also broke up a pass.  Charles Watson was credited with eight stops, while Harris added seven including 2½ behind the line, and both Qudarius Ford and Montell Garner supplied six; each was a career-high figure for the quarter.  Clifton Crews made six stops as well — breaking up a pair of passes — and Page posted five, with two of those for loss.

Matt Holley's 13 stops led all individuals, with Zak Browning and James Cowser adding a dozen each to pace the Thunderbird defense.  Holley had three tackles for loss, with Cowser credited with two.

The Jaguars will face Tulane on Saturday, Sept. 7, at 2:30 p.m. at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in their first road contest of the season.

"It's a big disappointment.  Any time you lose it's a disappointment," said Joey Jones.  "There's nothing I can say in there (locker room) to make them or myself feel any better.  We lost a very important ballgame tonight.  We're a better team, but we have to look at ourselves and evaluate what we're doing.  We're going to have to win some close games to have a good year, and that was one we let slip by."

"We're a better football team than that," Metheny stated.  "We're going to put a better product on the field, and like I said, we'll just go back and learn.  There's two things we can do with this — we can either use it, learn from it and go forward, or we can tuck our tails and not benefit from it.  I promise you that number two is not an option."

For more information about South Alabama athletics, check back with www.usajaguars.com, and follow the Jaguars at www.twitter.com/USAJaguarSports. Season tickets for all Jaguar athletic events can be purchased by calling (251) 461-1USA (1872).

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