Enter Mumford and Beware; Southern dominates Jackson State

Southern University crushed rivals in heavily awaited home game this Saturday night at A.W Mumford Stadium, beating Jackson State 50-31.
“Everyone wants to beat Jackson State,” said running back, Malcolm Crockett
What’s better than a win for the first home game of the season?
The match-up brought many surprises to not only the fans but to the opponents as well. The Jaguar players and coaching staff both knew that this was going to be a tough game but yet it looked as though it came so easily both offensively and defensively.
Sophomore quarterback, Austin Howard threw a career high, completing 21-32 passes for 395 yards and two touchdowns in which he showed his dual threat roles in the snap. He proved the term, “sophomore slump” to be a fluke.
Howard said that he saw his old coach in his dreams and they were reminiscing and on that afternoon, dreams came to fruition.
Packed to a capacity crowd of 30,194 fans, the Jaguars truly outdid themselves with the performance that they gave against Jackson State.
“We want to reward them for having faith in us,” said quarterback Austin Howard.
The game was intense from beginning to end for both teams. JSU’s main focus was to keep the ball out of 5’5 senior wide receiver FCS player of the week Willie Quinn’s hands.
In the previous week’s the other teams kicked the ball down the field and allowed Quinn to reach the end zone in swift style, even against a team such as Louisiana Tech. After a 90 yard punt return and trick play the week before against conference opponents, Mississippi Valley, Jackson State strategically had to make amends.
Jackson State’s kicker, Ryan Delsing, purposefully made squib kicks for Quinn not to touch the ball.
“The coaches told me that the ball wasn’t coming to me at all,” said Quinn.
Even though he couldn’t sequester a kick or punt return touchdown, he scored his first career touchdown of a 43 yard pass by Howard. It seems harder than it sounds and although the Tigers tried their hardest, it was completely inevitable.
Although he only had one touchdown he managed to receive a total of 121 yards.
“I did what I do best,” finished Quinn.
An extremely versatile running back, Lenard Tillery added 135 rushing with two touchdowns of 4 and 11 yards. Second running back proving his overall duty to the Jaguars was Malcolm Crockett with two touchdowns as well as scoring from 1 and 13 yards.
“Today we showed that we were very versatile,” said Crockett, “We can pass the ball, run, and do great on defense.”
Southern showed just that early in the game.
Southern scored twice within 2:28 minutes to give Jackson State a fifteen point deficit in the first quarter.
“When we score fast like that,” said Crockett, “It shows the other team that we mean business.”
Jackson State finally put points on the board when Dan Williams caught a 24 yard pass from quarterback, La Montiez Ivy.
At halftime, Southern obliterated Jackson State in the first half gaining 405 yards and including 336 passing yards to take a 29-7 lead. JSU on the next drive threw a pass to Jairius Moll for 21 yards and gained a touchdown 29-14.
Tillery exploded out of the gate with another touchdown with an 11 yard run for another 1:12 drive to open the extend the drive, 36-14.
Ivy showed his spunk at being a dual threat when he ran 5 yards into the end zone to extend the dog fight and a sneaky squib kick to return the possession ended with a 30 yard field goal by Delising, 36-21.
Crockett extended that lead when busting through the defensive line for a 13 yard touchdown in the beginning of the fourth quarter with 13:40 left with 43-24.
Howard completed the scoring for the night after a 10 yard run which busted the score to 50-24 then he took a bow and left the rest to backup, Jarrod Hayes.
JSU scored the last touchdown of the night when Ivy gave Williams a 9 yard pass to lessen the deficit but they still fell 50-31.
Southern did more than reward the fans on Saturday night, they rewarded each other, the staff and the proud Southern Alumni.
The Jaguars are now set to play next Saturday on September 26 at 11 am against the University of Georgia, in Athens Georgia at Sanford Stadium.