Southern Blessed
9/15/02 

Southern University dodged a bullet Saturday night at Pumphrey Stadium. Southern dominated the game but the doesn’t show it. Missed opportunities by the Jags kept UAPB in the game until the final minutes of the game.

"It wasn't pretty, but we had to play hard for 60 minutes”, said coach Pete Richardson.  

The Jags and had to wait and watch to see if UAPB could make a game winning field goal.  The field goal went wide right and the Jags began to celebrate as they record their first win and open SWAC play 1-0.

The bright spot during the game was the play of the offensive line. The o-line rebounded from allowing 13 sacks in two games to giving up no sacks against UAPB.  The main difference was the fact Southern ran the ball more with 46 attemps, for 239 yards. Tailback Victor Ike had a slow start in the first half rushing for only 23 yards on 8 carries.  After Ike went out of the game with heat exhaustion opportunistic Kenneth Peoples stepped up to perform. Peoples rushed for 98 yards on 17 carries.

"They told me at the beginning to get ready,” said Peoples. “I was thinking I was going to get one or two touches but I ended up getting more than that."

Bottom line is that special teams won the game for the Jags. A blocked pat in the third quarter proved to be the deciding factor in the game. 

Special Teams, Special Teams, Special Teams