MOBILE, Ala. – At first glance, there are plenty of talented individuals ready to line up and tote the ball for the University of South Alabama football team in the fall. According to assistant coach Tommy Perry, that’s not just a luxury but a necessity.
“I’ve said it before, you can’t really compete at the Division I level with just one guy; it’s too difficult, they take too many shots,” he commented. “We plan on running the ball too much to have just one individual back there.”
Two redshirt freshmen look to be the foundation of Perry’s unit, though there are potentially a total of eight individuals who could contribute at some point during the season.
Heading into preseason camp, Kendall Houston sits atop the depth chart. The 5-foot-10, 215-pound Mobile resident is the team’s leading rusher from a year ago, as he carried 140 times for 891 yards and a team-best 10 touchdowns. He ran for 100-plus yards in five of the Jaguars’ 10 victories, ending the season with three straight games in triple figures as USA defeated Georgia State, Henderson (Ark.) State and Arkansas-Monticello. Houston also collected 166 yards in a victory at Lamar and posted 116 yards and two scores when the Jags beat Nicholls State for their first-ever win over an NCAA Football Championship Subdivision (formerly NCAA I-AA) member.
Demetre Baker — a 6-foot-1, 210-pound native of Orange Park, Fla. — began last season at Georgia but transferred to the program prior to the start of the spring semester. After demonstrating that he is capable of making an impact in the backfield with his performance in both practices and scrimmages, Baker joined the school’s track and field team for the outdoor season. By the end of the year, he earned all-Sun Belt Conference honors in the discus after placing third at the league championships, and had qualified for the preliminary round of the NCAA Championships in both the discus and the shot put.
“Right now we feel like we have two well-rounded guys in Kendall and Demetre. My expectations are for them to lead us,” stated Perry. “Kendall did a fantastic job last year after Brandon [Ross] went down, he was really a surprising guy. He’s a hard-working player who gives you his all. He has very good balance; Kendall is not a high-end speed guy, but he will move the chains. If Kendall Houston is your running back, you will make first downs.
“With Demetre, you have a big-play guy; he’s got the burners, he can go,” he added. “He is very strong physically, though he probably needs to settle down a little bit in everything he does, whether it be in the weight room, study hall or wherever. He goes a million miles an hour — a lot of times that’s good, but sometimes when you’re running the ball it isn’t.”
The fact that Baker is listed among the top three on the preseason depth chart despite not yet suiting up for the Jags in a game did not surprise Perry and the rest of the USA coaching staff. “I don’t think anyone was surprised by what we had in Demetre,” he said. “When we found out he was going to be heading to a different school, we were all familiar with the name; but, the day we discovered it was going to happen, I was on a plane to find out more about the kid. With as much attention as he got coming out of high school, for whatever those scouting services are worth they had him very highly touted so we did know what we were getting with him.
“We did know there would be a little bit of a learning curve with him coming from linebacker — he was only playing a little bit of running back for Georgia — but physically he was everything he was billed to be from a size and strength perspective.”
The return of Ross would only add to the perceived strength of the group. As a redshirt freshman in 2009, the 6-foot, 240-pound Memphis transfer paced the Jaguars with 594 yards and 13 touchdowns on only 75 carries while rushing for 100 yards three times; he reached the end zone in all seven games, accomplishing the feat on multiple occasions in five contests. Ross was again leading USA in rushing midway through last season with 274 yards on 36 attempts, but his campaign was cut short when he was injured while being tackled against Missouri S&T.
In two years, the resident of Tuskegee, Ala., has an average of 7.8 yards per rush with 18 touchdowns in 12 appearances.
“He has done everything that has been asked, and in talking with the surgeon he is very pleased with where Brandon is at,” observed Perry. “If there is a soft timetable he would be ahead of that, and we are hoping he comes back. If you can add Brandon to the mix, you are looking at a team whose running back situation is pretty much covered; we’re not going to play anybody with a better stable of running backs than those three guys.”
While the Jaguars wait to see if and when Ross fits into their plans, Perry can turn to a duo with two seasons of experience to help take the load off Houston and Baker. A 5-foot-10, 175-pound native of Tallahassee, Fla., Santuan McGee has gained 584 rushing yards and scored seven times in helping USA win each of its first 17 games; that included ranking third on the squad with 234 yards and three touchdowns on only 41 attempts in 2010. Ellis Hill — who is from Tuscaloosa, Ala., and stands 5-foot-9, 200 pounds — averaged better than five yards an attempt while picking up 139 yards last fall.
“I’ve got to have Santuan and Ellis. They might not be two of the leaders on the depth chart, but they are the vocal leaders of our group,” Perry explained. “They lead by example, and they lead by word of mouth. They are two of the leaders of our Student-Athlete Advisory Committee. They bring a level of maturity to my room that I don’t have. Anthony Mostella was certainly that guy, and when he was no longer with us I really challenged everybody in that room to try as best they could to take over that leadership mantle that he provided, and those two guys stepped up more than anybody.
“I can’t go through a practice or get through a meeting without those two.”
One other returning individual Perry hopes will make a contribution is Ryan Scott, a 5-foot-7, 170-pound junior from Lucedale, Miss. In the program’s first two years, Scott has rushed 32 times for 186 yards and four touchdowns, an average of nearly six yards per carry — he had 40 of those and a score in the Jags’ win over Edward Waters (Fla.), his best performance a season ago.
“Ryan is somebody I pull for a lot, and I know the staff is tired of hearing me talk about him,” Perry said. “He’s gotten much bigger. I certainly hope he is a contributor, he really deserves it. He does all the things you ask him to do, and he is very difficult to bring down in space. There is a role for Ryan on this team, one that is left up to us as coaches to try and find.
“It’s tough when there is one running back on the field and he is looking at guys a lot more physically gifted than more than 90 percent of the country at the spot — you just don’t find that quality of guys back there.”
There is the potential that either of two freshmen — J.J Keels and Devin Robinson — could find their way into the rotation at running back this fall. Keels, who is 5-foot-10 and 175 pounds, rushed for 1,211 yards and 14 scores last season at Florida Air Academy in Melbourne, Fla.; he received three stars from ESPN.com and was considered by the organization to be among the top 10 running backs in the Sunshine State. Despite missing three games in ’10, the 6-foot-1, 215-pound Robinson recorded 806 yards and scored 12 touchdowns for East Limestone High School. The resident of Madison, Ala., was ranked the second-best running back in Alabama by ESPN.com and was a three-start prospect according to Rivals.com.
“Devin has blown us all away with his work ethic, and his output in the weight room and on the field. He is one of the people that [strength and conditioning] coach [Justin] Schwind always talks very highly about, and that means a lot to me,” commented Perry. “He was recruited at Middle Tennessee as a wide receiver, at Southern Miss as a linebacker and here as a tailback; he can probably play any of those three spots. I know as a special teams coordinator I can’t wait to get him on the field.
“We’d love to redshirt him if we could — we’d love to redshirt all of our freshmen — but, I don’t know that if Devin is starting on special teams that we could afford to. You’d like to think he could play some running back too. He’s very big and strong, and a very good straight-down-the-line runner.
“J.J. is an explosive guy who is very, very fast. He’s going to get some looks as a returner as well,” he continued. “But there is a maturation process with all freshmen, you don’t know what you’ve got — more so with running backs than at any other position — until they put the pads on and carry the rock where they have to get that first down or the ball in the end zone. I’ll have a much better idea with those guys a week or so into camp, but I have high hopes for both of them.”
No matter who carries the ball for the Jaguars this fall, Perry is thrilled with where his unit is entering preseason camp. While he might not be ready to compare the group to any other backfield in the country, USA supporters should know that he is more than pleased with who will suit up in the backfield for the Jaguars in 2011.
“We don’t watch other running backs unless they are playing one of our opponents, so it’s hard to tell something like that. I know I tell them this all the time — I wouldn’t trade any of my guys for anybody else,” he stated. “We’ve got a certain cohesiveness, especially among the older guys. The first couple of years were difficult trying to get to that point and that maturity level, but I am to the point now where I don’t want to give any of them up for another player.
“They’re tough, they’re smart, they run the ball with violence, all those things that we really preach,” Perry added. “We’ve got a ways to go running our offense and continuing to make that next level of decisions; we’ve gotten to the point where we are finally beyond the elementary stuff — the steps, the initial reads and the footwork — and now we are looking to see how we can make really good plays into great ones.
“But I feel really fortunate to go to work every day with these running backs.”
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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