South Alabama Jaguars
The Ole Miss season opener with South Alabama will kickoff from Vaught-Hemingway Stadium September 2, 2017 at 6:30pm. The South Alabama Jaguars from Mobile, Alabama are members of the Sun Belt Conference. 2017 will be the ninth season for the young South Alabama football program.
The Jaguars averaged scoring 24.5 points per game while allowing 27.5 a game in 2016. However, head coach and former Alabama WR Joey Jones has shown an improvement in both the talent and tenacity levels of his team. Ole Miss can expect them to be far better than the team which robbed a win from Miss State last season.
On offense South Alabama is loaded with talented play-makers. Sophomore QB Cole Garvin is the projected starter and had a good spring. Garvin was 15-25 for 202 yards and 2 TDs in the Jaguars spring game. However they are a young quarterback staff. Two more sophomores and a true freshman make up the depth chart.
On defense the Jags are very aggressive and have worked in the off-season to improve upon takeaways. It showed in the South Alabama spring game as the defense had three takeaways for scores in the first 1:21 in the inter-squad contest.
Prediction
My prediction for this game is Ole Miss will score and score often. We know exactly what you expect from the new Phil Longo offense. The question for Ole Miss football fans is when will the defense show up? USA is not the type of team you want to allow to hang around. We saw that in Starkville last season. Ole Miss defense bends but doesn’t break.
Ole Miss 49
South Alabama 21
Ole Miss Rebels (1-0)