The Southern football team has squeezed its 15 practices into the past three weeks and Saturday is the day Jaguars fans can get a sneak preview of the 2023 team in the Blue and Gold spring game set for 3 p.m. at A.W. Mumford Stadium.
Coach Eric Dooley wants to unleash his passing offense that sputtered during last year’s 7-5 season, although the Jaguars made it to the Southwestern Athletic Conference championship game.
“I want to see if we can throw the ball around,” Dooley said. “Some people say, ‘Well you can’t throw it 40 to 50 times.’ I want to throw it 40 to 50 times. I want to see how consistent and how effective we can be throwing the football.”
To do that, Dooley has to find a quarterback, and fourth-year junior Harold Blood has a slight lead in the competition ahead of transfers Noah Bodden (Grambling) and Dylan Mehrotra (UAB). Dooley wants to maximize the number of plays without taxing his team’s health too much. He’d like to go a little beyond the 65 plays from last Saturday’s scrimmage.
Dooley said he expects defensive end Darius Harry to return after missing the scrimmage to attend a funeral, but defensive tackle Tahj Brown is questionable. The rest of the squad is healthy, he said.
“I’m going to gauge it as we go, try to get more plays,” he said. “I want it to be like a game. In the spring, you don’t anticipate having as many bodies as you do. I think we have enough to get through a game. I’d like to have 65-75 plays.
“We want to simulate as close to playing a game as possible. I’m an 85-100 play guy, but we’re going to do what’s best for us. We won’t do live special teams. We’ll just to simulations to make sure everything is correct.”
For the players, it will be a blissful relief from the practice grind.
“You get out there with referees and the crowd, it’s like a game,” cornerback Kriston Davis said. “It will get us ready for the season, a great environment.”
Davis and fellow cornerback Rodney Johnson form a strong base for the secondary on a defense that has seven starters returning.
“It’s an opportunity to go full speed, put your talents on display, see everybody come together and play,” Johnson said. “We’ll have a crowd and an opportunity to show what we have for the upcoming season.”
Crawfish and football
There is no admission charge for the game but the school is asking for donations to help fund a renovation of the A.W. Mumford Stadium locker room. There will also be a crawfish boil with crawfish and drinks available for purchase starting at 11 a.m. and lasting throughout and after the game.
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