SU holds off Grambling to win Classic

 
NEW ORLEANS – The Southern Jaguars snapped a four-year losing stint to rival Grambling State, defeating the Tigers 38-33 in the 39^th annual State Farm Bayou Classic.
Southern 4-7 (3-6 Southwestern Athletic Conference) came off back-to-back one point losses to Alabama A&M and Alabama State.
While Grambling State (1-10, 0-9 SWAC) on the other hand, dealt with the worst record in its school history.
It would appear that this would be the best and easiest opportunity for the Jaguars to get a much needed win to cap a disappointing season.
That wasn’t the case …
On Southern’s first two possessions their drives ended on a fumble in their own territory that led to sophomore quarterback D.J. Williams connecting with receivers Anthony McGhee and Musa Mahmud to give the Tigers an early 14-0 lead.
But the Jaguars who had a bad habit of starting slow got into gear when linebacker Corry Roy forced a fumble giving the Jaguars the ball inside the GSU 30 yard-line.
On SU’s fourth possession Dray Joseph connected on a 13-yard pass to Jerry Joseph (no relation), and from that score led a 38-6 run.
“We needed to just settle down, I think that’s been the biggest problem for us we get to anxious at the start of the game and being anxious enables you to just do to much which makes you mess up,” Joseph said.
Joseph tied former SU quarterback Quincy Richard five-touchdown mark for the most touchdown passes in the Bayou Classic by a Southern quarterback.
“The whole week I envisioned it. I just came out and tried to do my best the line just gave me a lot of time to execute the plays. The receivers caught some balls and they dropped some but its all apart of the game,” Joseph said.
Joseph finished the game with 284 yards passing along with his five scores and was named Bayou Classic MVP, and SWAC player of the week for his performance.
Also New Orleans natives and St. Augustine alums Charles Hawkins and Lee Doss both had good games for 179 yards combined receiving and four touchdowns.
Hawkins a former walk on playing in his final game in a Southern uniform had a career day score of three touchdowns.
“This isn’t nothing new, we do this all day everyday at practice we hang together; me Lee, Mike Berry and Dray we do this every day its just another game,” Hawkins said.
Although there were many career highs in the game, Grambling still had the opportunity to spoil it for Southern.
With the score 38-33 in Southern’s favor the Tigers had the ball at their own 16-yard line with 1:23 left in the game.
At this point junior backup quarterback Frank Rivers led the Tigers into SU territory.
With the ball on the 42-yard line freshman defensive end Donald Phillips sacked and forced Rivers to fumble and junior linebacker Franchot West recovered sealing the win for Southern.
The 2012 edition of the Southern Jaguar football team faced the reassignment of their head coach and a number of close losses in their season.
Of the Jaguars seven losses, four of them were by six points or less.
“These guys have been through a lot and we played in a lot of games like this and it just goes to show you that the future looks bright for the Southern Jaguars,” interim head coach Dawson Odums said.