RUSTON, La. – Louisiana Tech held a one-point advantage entering the fourth quarter of Saturday night's non-conference football game against the University of South Alabama, and with 17 points in the final 15 minutes closed out a 34-16 victory over the Jaguars at Joe Aillet Stadium.

J'Mar Smith was 24-of-39 passing for 317 yards and three touchdowns, guiding the Bulldogs (3-2) to 479 yards of total offense in the first-ever meeting between the two schools.

Cole Garvin — making his first start in three weeks — provided the Jags (1-4) with a 7-0 lead just over five minutes into the contest when he found Jamarius Way for a 29-yard score.  After LA Tech responded with 17 unanswered points, Gavin Patterson kicked three field goals with the last drawing South within one point, 17-16, with just over five minutes to go in the third quarter.

Louisiana Tech 34, South Alabama 16 (final stats)
South Alabama/Louisiana Tech photo gallery

GAME FACTS
-The Bulldogs recorded 212 yards of total offense in the opening quarter, building a 17-7 lead after Jonathan Barnes kicked a field goal on the first play of the second period.
-USA's defense responded by giving up 78 yards over the next two quarters while closing the deficit to one point.
-After Patterson's third field goal, the Jaguars next two drives began in LA Tech territory but the Bulldog defense managed to force a pair of three-and-outs.
-South converted 5-of-15 third downs while allowing the Bulldogs to make a first down on only 2-of-11 opportunities.
-The Jags held the ball for nearly 11-and-a-half minutes in the second quarter, but just 16-and-a-half minutes the rest of the game as LA Tech had possession for an opponent season-high 32 minutes and six seconds.

NOTES
-This was the first of a home-and-home agreement between the two schools.
-It was the first time the Jaguars played a Conference USA school since defeating Tulane in September 2013.
-Garvin completed a career-high 21-of-45 pass attempts for a season-best 235 yards in his first appearance since the opening series of the Jags' match-up against Oklahoma State on Sept. 8.
-It was the third time in five games this season that Patterson has connected on multiple field goals, a feat he accomplished on three occasions all last year.
-Nigel Lawrence paced USA with eight stops, the first time in his career that the junior has accomplished the feat.
-Jamarius Way shared the team lead with a career-high-tying five receptions for 67 yards, the most posted by a Jaguar on the night.
-Sam Harris (5 catches for 59 yards) and Malik Stanley (4 for 38) both ended up with career highs in receptions and receiving yards.
-Jimmie Gipson III's third-quarter sack — the first of three, all in the third quarter, recorded by the Jaguars in the contest — was his first since he collected one in a win over Texas State on Nov. 15, 2014, a victory that helped South earn the program's first-ever postseason bowl bid at the end of the year.
-Xavier Johnson led South's rushing attack for the second straight outing with 89 yards on 12 carries, including a 47-yard run on the play prior to Way's touchdown catch that was the longest by a Jag this year.
-Although Jeremy Reaves did not lead USA in tackles for the first time this season, he was credited with multiple passes broken up for the second time in as many games after finishing the night with two.
-In addition to recording the Jaguars' only takeaway of the night with fumble recovery that ended LA Tech's opening possession, Malcolm Buggs had a career-high six tackles and also broke up a pass.
-Finessé Middleton was one stop shy of equaling his career-high total set last week against Idaho after posting five against the Bulldogs, with two of those assists behind the line of scrimmage.

THEY SAID IT
South Alabama head coach Joey Jones
On the game: "I was happy with the way we competed early on.  We went in at halftime in a close ball game and it was nip-and-tuck and back-and-forth in the third quarter.  The defense gave us the ball a couple of times inside the 50; we just didn't cash in on those opportunities.  In the fourth quarter, [Louisiana Tech] had some long drives and iced the game.  They are a very good football team and are probably going to win Conference USA.  There's no moral victories here for us tonight, but our kids are playing well.  Going back to the offense, I think that once coach [Richard] Owens and our quarterbacks get together and understand exactly what he wants they'll be fine.  There were some things that went on out there tonight that didn't exactly gel because he only had four days with them.  I liked what we did offensively and I thought we did some good things especially in the first half.  I really like where we're going.  We have seven straight conference games coming up starting with Troy and we're excited for the opportunity to see what we can do in our conference."
On what South needs to do to turn it around: "Some of it is to just play in our league.  We've played Ole Miss, Oklahoma State and Louisiana Tech who are three pretty good football teams.  We were asked to play that schedule and we played it, but we have our conference schedule coming up and this is when it counts and where we make our money."
On Cole Garvin: "We have a few things to fix and we will, but I thought [Cole] played well.  He's got a good arm and he made some really good throws.  He's a guy that can really win in our conference."
On South's next opponent, Troy: "We're going to take off tomorrow and get back to work Monday.  We'll start preparing for Troy because it's a big game for us and we're excited about the opportunity to play those guys.  Troy's very well coached and they have a great thing.  Beating LSU tonight was a big win for them.  We're excited to get back to conference play and see what we can do."

Malcolm Buggs
On the game: "We came out and played well early on like coach said; it was a close ball game.  One thing we've got to focus on going into the 'Battle for the Belt' against Troy is to just stay the course and finish games.  We made some fundamental errors on defense; I know I had two or three myself.  Offensively, our guys came out and did what we thought they would do throwing the ball well.  The new offense is going to take a little time to start gelling, but I feel like we are going down the right path.  We just have to come together and learn to finish close game."
On second-half adjustments allowing the defense to get more pressure early on: "In the first half, we played a lot of zone, but in the second half we wanted to turn the pressure up a little bit.  We started the third quarter with some zone, but then switched to man to allow our linebackers and defensive ends to get up the field.  Coach [Kane] Wommack does a good job getting a game plan together for us."

Cole Garvin
On the game: "This one hurt a lot and you can tell that from the reaction of our players; we expected to win this game.  We felt good in the first half and going into halftime, but just flattened out in the second half and that hurt us."
On if Louisiana Tech made any second-half adjustments: "They didn't come out any different in the second half, we just didn't execute as well in the second half."
On having the conference schedule ahead of them: "We still have everything ahead of us and that's what we got to look at.  We have seven games to win, so we still have a long season to go and we can finish well."

Louisiana Tech head coach Skip Holtz
On the game: "It is a 'W.'  The thing that was just, it was frustrating offensively tonight.  We really got kind of out of a rhythm.  It seemed like we started off so well and we were really, we started fast, we were rolling along, and then we had the fumble in the red zone.  In the second half, especially the third quarter, it felt like we were on the edge of a cliff on our own goal line most of the third quarter.  And we were, most of those third downs were probably 15-plus.  So penalties, dropped balls, it certainly wasn't a very clean game offensively."
On changing the tempo in the fourth quarter: "I didn't think we were very physical in the first half in being able to run the ball.  You'd run the ball and then it's second and seven, and then throw it and it's incomplete and then you're in third and long again.  But you we started going a little bit more tempo in the fourth quarter.  They play a lot of defensive linemen, but we felt if we could start speeding things up we would stop some of their substitutions and we would be able to run the ball a little bit more efficiently, which proved accurate.  I thought Boston Scott did a great job of hitting it tonight.  I know he didn't have a million carries, but I thought, from a running standpoint, I think he only had six yards or six carries, but he averaged about 12 and a half.  I thought he hit it really hard.  I thought he was explosive, he was electric.  He did a really nice job of coming back last week when he was really hampered and only rushed for about three yards a carry and was kind of nursing that shoulder a little, but he came back full speed tonight."
On South Alabama's offense: "Their starting quarterback was back.  He had played, they had really played two quarterbacks this year and the one that played tonight was the one that started the season.  He got a nick in the Oklahoma State game, sat two games, and then he was back for tonight.  So they pretty much ran what they did.  There was a couple small wrinkles, but it was pretty much what we had, what we prepared for, what we expected.  They do a nice job.  I thought the quarterback threw the ball really accurate for them and we got to do a better job, especially in our man coverage, getting inside and taking away some of these slants because that was their bread and butter, that was something they went to all night and really, outside of probably about eight or 10 drops tonight by them, I mean, we really got saved defensively a little bit by some of the balls that hit the ground.  But it certainly wasn't because we covered on a handful of those.  So we got lucky with it, and I know, I said this before, South Alabama is a good program, they have done a good job."

Up next: The Jags will be off until Wednesday, Oct. 11, when they return to Sun Belt Conference with a visit to Troy; the "Battle For The Belt" will be televised nationally on ESPN2, with kickoff set for 7 p.m. (CDT)

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).

Join the Jaguar Athletic Fund (JAF) Priority Fund, the unrestricted giving option of the University of South Alabama Athletics.  Contributions to the Priority Fund directly support all 17 sports in addition to various support programming. For more information on how you can join visit: http://jaguarathleticfund.com/priorityfund

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