MOBILE, Ala. – University of South Alabama head football coach Joey Jones announced Wednesday that a trio of junior-college transfers have signed National Letters-of-Intent and will enroll in school for the spring semester.
The three all have two years of eligibility remaining, beginning in the fall of 2012 when the Jaguars will compete in the Sun Belt Conference for the first time. Though USA will not be eligible to win the league title or go to a bowl game while completing the second of a two-year transition to the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly known as NCAA Division I-A) level, the Jaguars will take on both Mississippi State and North Carolina State prior to the start of conference play, face eight match-ups with SBC foes and end the 13-game campaign with a contest at Hawaii.
“First of all, we have needs defensively at cornerback and rush end. Those are critical areas where we are trying to fill voids,” stated Jones. “With that being the weaker part of our team heading into next season, we needed to add some older, more mature players to help shore up our team. As a coach, you always look at your team and try to find your strengths and weaknesses, and those were positions we identified as weaknesses and hope to address with this class.”
The signing class includes Pat Moore, a defensive end from Northeast Mississippi C.C., as well as cornerbacks Anthony Harris and Darrius Morrow.
Moore had 1½ sacks among his 30 tackles in 2011, and he also broke up four passes in his second season at NMCC. He posted five tackles as the Tigers shut out Holmes (Miss.) C.C., following up the next week with a season-high six stops in a game against Northwest Mississippi C.C. Moore — who is 6-foot-3 and 235 pounds — led the team his first season with 3½ sacks, recording five stops for loss while posting 43 total tackles. The Southaven, Miss., resident had a career-best 10 tackles in the season finale that fall against Copiah-Lincoln (Miss.) C.C., also collecting eight in a victory over East Central (Miss.) C.C. and nine the next game against Southwest Mississippi C.C.
A 6-foot-1, 175-pound Miami, Fla., native, Harris posted 20 tackles including 2½ behind the line of scrimmage, and he also defended three passes while helping El Camino (Calif.) C.C. go 8-3 overall after advancing to the Southern California Football Association playoffs. As a freshman at Mt. San Antonio (Calif.) C.C., Harris was part of a program that went 13-0 en route to the state championship, while he participated in the Miami-Dade High School All-Star Football Game following his senior season at Southridge High.
Morrow — a 5-foot-10, 170-pound native of Memphis, Tenn. — comes to USA from Hutchinson (Kan.) C.C. after the Blue Dragons posted a 9-3 mark and ended up ninth in the final National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) poll; HCC defeated 19th-ranked Lackawanna (Pa.) C.C. 70-20 in the Salt City Bowl to end the campaign. He appeared in one game the previous fall for El Camino C.C., breaking up a pass.
“We go from California to Texas to Kansas to Mississippi, all the junior colleges there, and basically uncover players,” Jones observed. “You try to put together a big pool first, then you get to meet the kids and evaluate them. It’s a honing-down process, where we check their academics, character and athletic ability, and if something doesn’t shake out in one of those areas we move on. And of course you have kids commit to other school, so you start off with a pool of 100-110 kids and end up with a handful.”
The Jaguars have compiled a 23-4 record in three seasons of competition, which included a 6-4 mark in the fall against a schedule that featured the first two NCAA FBS opponents in school history.
For more information about South Alabama athletics, check back with www.usajaguars.com. Season tickets for all Jaguar athletic events can be purchased by calling (251) 461-1USA (1872).
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