Date: 3/17
Time: 9:30-11:30 a.m. (CDT)
Place: James A. and Frances H. Yance Football Practice Facility
Practice attire: Full pads
Offensive Player of the Day: Davyn Flenord, Fr., WR, Lineville, Ala.
-Offensive coordinator Kenny Edenfield on Flenord: "I noticed Davyn a little bit on Thursday. I noticed him a lot today in one-on-ones and skelly, and then he made a big play in the team setting. I think he is getting better every day, if he'll keep pressing he will be a good player for us."
Defensive Player of the Day: Nick Mobley, Fr., LB, Alabaster, Ala.
-Defensive coordinator Greg Stewart on Mobley: "When we were on the goal line, that was dealing with some adversity and we could've shut it down. But we didn't because Nick rose up to make a good tackle and get his head on the ball to knock it out and change the momentum."
Play of the Day: On the opening possession of a mini-scrimmage to conclude practice, junior WR Jamarius Way made a one-handed reception down the sideline on a pass from Dallas Davis for a 41-yard gain, setting up a touchdown for the offense on the next snap.
Team period highlights: Prior to the mini-scrimmage, the Jaguars went through four five-minute team periods, with the first two focusing primarily on passing plays and the last two a mix of runs and passes.
Miscellaneous Notes
-The mini-scrimmage to wrap up practice included five drives by the Jaguar offense, lasting just under 30 minutes.
-Following Way's reception, Tra Minter reached the end zone from four yards out for the first of two scores of the morning.
-The other touchdown of the mini-scrimmage came when Flenord made a move after catching a short pass from Cephus Johnson to take it 67 yards to the end zone.
-In between South's defense forced two three-and-outs, with Rocel McWilliams ending the first drive with a sack on third down and Riley Cole adding a sack on second down of the ensuing possession to force the offense into a third-and-nine play.
-On the final drive of the day Maurice Mayo broke loose for a 56-yard run to move the Jag offense into the red zone, however, on second-and-goal from the one-yard line Mobley forced a fumble that was recovered by Jeffrey Whatley to end the threat.
-Roy Yancey paced the Jaguar defense with five stops while Bull Barge recorded four tackles in the mini-scrimmage.
-Cole and McWilliams also had sacks for the unit during the first two team periods, with the former forcing a fumble with his play.
-Davis was 9-of-14 passing in all periods the second half of practice to lead the offense, while both Johnson and Evan Orth completed 5-of-7 attempts.
-Way added a touchdown reception on the final snap of the last team period of the morning, with Malik Stanley catching back-to-back passes on the initial two plays of the mini-scrimmage.
-The Jaguar football program held its annual Junior Day on Saturday, with over 200 prospective recruits taking part in the day.
Head coach Steve Campbell
-On his thoughts on the day's practice: "I was very pleased, I thought the guys flew around. From an offensive standpoint I was pleased to see us able to move the football, we made some plays down the field and were able to put together some stuff in the run game. We've handcuffed the defense a little bit, we haven't been allowing them to do a ton of different stuff; they'll put a little more in as we progress through the spring. After five days I am pleased with where we are at, we still have a long, long way to go but I am definitely seeing progress. We have to keep working on our conditioning, we have to get in better shape and finish down on the goal line. Our goal is to get better from one day to the next, and I really believe through five days we've done that."
-On the program's Junior Day: "Hopefully they [the prospects] saw good energy and enthusiasm out here at practice, today we will showcase our facilities and our campus. I've been a lot of places as a head or assistant coach and I haven't been to one campus yet that has an engineering school and a medical school, that has the biggest indoor facility in the state of Alabama and is 30 minutes from the Gulf of Mexico. We're going to try and showcase all of those things along with big-time [NCAA] Division I college football. At this point we really want to introduce ourselves to them and let them know that we are going to be recruiting them over the next eight months. It appears to be a really good turnout."
Junior LB Bull Barge
-On the defense in the mini-scrimmage: "It was fun today. It was a little rough on defense, it was our first day officially tackling — our coaches preach about taking care of our guys so we've been tagging off — so it probably didn't look the best."
-On the defensive scheme of the new coaching staff: "We're loving it, everybody is on board. Everyone has caught on with the new coaches, they love the new energy. Everybody is putting their pride aside and thinking about the team, we are coming together as one because we all feel the same way."
Junior QB Dallas Davis
-On how the offense performance on Saturday: "I feel like it went alright, we still had a few mistakes but the tempo was good. We have to take care of the football better, there were too many balls on the ground and too many bad decisions."
-On big plays in the mini-scrimmage: "It feels good seeing those guys make big plays like that, even if the ball is behind them or underthrown you have guys who can go and get it and make you look good. When good things happen like that it just helps the offense out."
Up next: USA is off on Sunday before returning to practice Monday at 3:30 p.m. in the first of back-to-back workouts to open the week.
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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—USA—
