On Wednesday morning the South Alabama Jaguars opened up spring practice with a 90-minute workout session. When all was said and done the new kid in the FBS got through a physical workout before the sun reached through the morning sky.
South Alabama head coach Joey Jones, a former Alabama Crimson Tide wide receiver, called the first workout session an introductory session for players and coaches.
“That’s really what it was,” Jones said. “The defense needed it, but since they pretty much understand what they’re doing, it was the offense that really needed it.”
South Alabama is expected to move to a spread offense, which has proven to be successful throughout college football over the years with the right kind of talent, and there is plenty of talent to try and lure in Alabama and around the southern region.
“I thought the effort and attitude was extremely good,” Jones continued. “Now, offensively we probably made 400 mistakes, but that was to be expected; the deal from here is to keep chipping away at those. Their heads were swimming. We were calling formations and plays, and they were looking around trying to find out what they were supposed to do. We expected that."
South Alabama went 6-4 last season playing a mix-and-match schedule of FCS programs from coast to coast, including Cal Poly and Georgia State as well as a couple of FBS schools, Kent State and North Carolina State. After going 17-0 in their first two seasons fielding a team, playing whomever they could get on a schedule it seemed from FCS, Division 2 and NAIA, the bar is clearly being set as a program.
“I’m really pleased with the effort and attitude they came out with today,” Jones said.
South Alabama will move up from FCS to FBS in 2012, and is set to join the Sun Belt Conference as a full conference member in 2013 after a transition year. Just four years ago South Alabama had no football team. The decision to field a football program came in 2007 when the school's board of trustees approved the decision to put a program together.
In 2012 South Alabama will play another program making the same kind of transition, the University of Texas at San Antonio. The UTSA Roadrunners will officially join the WAC this season, along with the Texas State Bobcats. For South Alabama it will be a good opportunity to set the tone against another FBS newcomer. The Jaguars also make trips to N.C. State and Mississippi State as well in September.
Building a football program will not be easy in the state of Alabama, where the past three BCS champions have come from Alabama (twice) and Auburn. Nobody is expecting South Alabama to stun the world any time soon in that kind of capacity, but can South Alabama win some recruiting battles against in-state opponents like the University of Alabama-Birmingham and Troy, a Sun Belt rival? That is where the Jaguars will need to focus in their first few years as an official FBS program.
Kevin McGuire is a national college football writer for Examiner.com and the host of the No 2-Minute Warning podcast. He can be reached at cfbexaminer@gmail.com.
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