Southern head coach Terrence Graves pushed back Monday during the SWAC’s weekly football coaches press conference on doubts about his team following a mistake-filled performance that ended in a 30-7 loss to Alabama State.
Asked to convince Jaguar Nation why the program should still be considered a good team despite drops, penalties and missed tackles, Graves leaned on effort and resilience.
“We are a good football team. We just have to keep working,” he said. “You can see the talent on the field. It doesn’t always equate to the points on the scoreboard, but turnovers and missed assignments for whatever reasons—guys press, they tend to press trying to make plays. Some guys are trying to do some things outside of the realm of what is being called. But the talent is there, the will is there, the effort is there.”
Graves admitted tackling broke down late, but said the defense held up for most of the game.
“The missed tackles got bad late in the ball game because, again, we had a sudden change and guys had to go out there and were pressing trying to make plays. We got worn down late in the ball game. But that’s something we improved on and worked on. For the most part, for the first three quarters, we played really well—well enough defensively.”
Special teams breakdowns also remain a sore spot.
“Field position-wise, giving up a big return right after a touchdown is unacceptable. And that happened in week one. It was almost a carbon copy, unfortunately, of how week zero and Saturday were. That’s disappointing,” he said.
Still, Graves said the Jaguars are not lacking for fight, despite falling to 1–2 on the season.
“At the end of the day, the guys fought. They continued to fight. And we’re going to continue to fight and improve,” he said. “As we met as a staff yesterday, we looked at everything. We went over personnel, we looked at what we’re doing, and we want to make sure we’re doing everything to give these guys a chance to be successful.”
