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Southern is one win away from winning the SWAC West, but they're trying to do so with a complete game
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BATON ROUGE - The Southern Jaguars currently hold first place in the SWAC West. They could win the division with a victory over the University of Arkansas Pine-Bluff on Saturday.
The Jags hosting the Golden Lions for their final home game of the season and a chance to send themselves to the conference championship.
In order to get the win on Saturday, Southern will need to play a lot cleaner than they did against Bethune-Cookman.
The Jags found a way to win, but it wasn't pretty and it took five overtime periods to get the victory.
Southern's offense was sluggish through the first three quarters of regulation. Their first points didn't come until early in the fourth quarter when quarterback Jalen Woods connected with wide receiver Chandler Whitfield in the end zone.
Southern head coach Terrence Graves and his team knows they did not play their best game, and he says the issues with the offense was simple.
"Execution, the lack of execution. When we execute, we're pretty good. We ran the ball well, ran the ball well. Just thought we put the ball in the end zone. And like I said, I thought the second play of the game, we had the big run, and we had that holding call. I think that's unfortunate, because I think that's what slowed us down, brought us down because we didn't get anything out of it, we go in and score, and then we get on track to do what we need to do. I just thought that our guys looked past those guys. And so you can't get caught up to stats. Can't get caught up to records and all that stuff. You have to respect your opponent and play the opponent that you're playing, because on any given day, anybody can be beat," Graves said.
Southern may have looked over the Wildcats, but a win will be hard to come by if they have that mindset against Arkansas Pine-Bluff. The Golden Lions have the fourth best total offense and third best passing offense in the SWAC. They also have the conference's leading receiver in JaVonnie Gibson who has over 1,000 receiving yards and 8 touchdowns this season. The Golden Lions' quarterback is second in the SWAC in passing yards with over 2,200 yards and 16 touchdowns.
Sometimes, close games and overtime victories can be thrilling, and the Jags will take the wins however they can get them, but they're wanting more.
"I don't know what it is with us and close games. I don't know why we like close games. I feel I ask ourselves all the time. You know, we try to get out there. Everybody's expectation is to go out there and beat a team by 40-50, points. But I feel like we need, we need a game we could come out there and dominate. We haven't had our best game yet on all three phases of the ball," senior linebacker Derrick Williams said.
With post season implications at stake on Saturday, Coach Graves and the staff are doing their best to make sure the team stays locked in on the task at hand and not worried about what could come after.
"All the outside noise, all those things are what's at stake and all that, you know, I told them, You can't listen. You can't get caught up into that, because what you do, you put undue pressure on yourselves to do something other than what you need to do," Graves said.
Southern and Arkansas Pine-Bluff kick off at 2 p.m. Saturday at A.W. Mumford Stadium. The game will be on the Jaguar Sports Network.
From there, Southern will have next week off as they prepare for the 51st annual Bayou Classic where they'll face Grambling State on Nov. 30 at Caesars Superdome.
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