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BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - The season opener for the Southern Jaguars Saturday, Sept. 2 against Alabama State didn’t turn out in favor of the Jags.

Southern fell to Alabama with a final score of 14-10.

Jags fall in season opener on the road against Alabama State

Southern almost got by with subpar offense.

The unit scored 7 points and totaled 134 yards in the first quarter. But over the next 3 quarters, the Jags offense scored 3 points while totaling a combined 101 yards.

Turnovers and missed big plays played a huge role, but so did yellow flags.

Head coach Eric Dooley talked about the loss during his weekly press conference held on Tuesday, Sept. 5.

“When I look at ... what happened, penalties. You can’t allow penalties to stop the drive, to break your momentum. We had some things going and then when we get them going we have a penalty that hurts us. So some things we got to correct as well. Some things they did well but I think we helped them to do it as well,” said Southern head coach Eric Dooley.

In the absence of former head coach, Deion Sanders, Jackson State University will make its way to the Bluff this weekend to take on Southern for a non-conference game.

“The disappointment didn’t last long. We understand the magnitude of this season and of this conference. We had to put that behind us, make the corrections, and move forward for this challenging weekend versus Jackson State.”

Three SWAC schools and 3 sets of Tigers will be in Baton Rouge on Saturday, Sept. 9.

The Boombox Classic kicks off at 6 p.m. in A.W. Mumford Stadium and will air on ESPN+.

Thirty minutes later, Grambling and LSU will square off on the football field for the first time ever.

The Jaguars will open up Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) play versus Alabama A&M on Sept. 16.

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