SU football open spring practice

Pete Richardson and his team of Jaguars gathered Wednesday, March 6, at 3 p.m. for their first spring practice, in preparation for the upcoming season.
This will be the Jaguars, who finished with a 7-4, tenth season under Richardson’s direction. In all of his years at Southern, Richardson has never had a losing season, going 13-10 since winning their last Southwestern Athletic Conference title in 1999.
The Jaguars begin preparing for the new season, with a new outlook on winning and a new offensive coordinator, David Oliver.
David Oliver comes to Southern from Tulane University. In his capacity at Tulane, Oliver served as the tight ends coach. Former offensive coordinator Mark Orlando, left Southern to take to the position of offensive coordinator at Texas Southern University.
“The first thing is going to be learning the different terminology,” Oliver said. “We had to change all the signals and language. But there’ll be a lot of carryover … The change is going to be in there’s a different personality calling the plays and there’s a different group of players.”
Although the Jaguars are only losing two starters on the offensive side of the ball, the team feels the defense, who lost seven starters, will be the big producers for the Jaguars. Due to last season’s myriad of injuries inflicted upon the offensive, the defensive line was the part of the team taking up the slack.
“We want to see how far the maturity level has evolved,” Richardson said. “A lot had an opportunity to play last year because of injuries.”
Returnees Quincy Richard and Anthony Fisher are both set to compete for the starting quarterback position. Premiere running back Carl Singleton will be out the season due to a knee injury. Bo Jackson, also a running back, will see limited playing time, because of a shoulder injury.
Not returning for the Jaguars are standout wide receiver Michael Hayes, Troy Williams and Haywood Gallien, who were to expected to return for another season were denied medical redshirts by the NCAA.
The Jaguars are set to complete 15 practice sessions before the semesters ends.
“I’m excited to get out there and take a look,” Oliver said. “I’ve reviewed all the tapes and seen what they can do. But there’s a lot of unknown for me: seeing these kids live and seeing how they fit into the system … I am just ready to get things started.”