Tsu Football Schedule

Keeping the bags packed

BATON ROUGE — Heading into its second season under Stump Mitchell, the Southern football team was picked to finish last in the Southwestern Athletic Conference Western Division.

Lest anyone forget, the Jaguars went 2-9 last season.

The NCAA hit them with a postseason ban, along with scholarship and practice limitations.

Facing all this, the team gets its season under way at 6 p.m. Saturday in Nashville, Tenn., against Tennessee State in the John Merritt Classic.

As kickoff approaches, is there any chance Mitchell might play the good old us-against-the-world card?

No. Not with the kind of fan support Southern still receives.

"I can't ever use us-against-the-world, because the (Jaguar) Nation is going to be there," he said.

"We're taking a lot to Nashville, in terms of money to that city, people traveling. So we deserve to win, if we just go play the type of game we're capable of playing."

If the Jaguars do win, this trip could serve as a handy blueprint for the rest of the season.

Southern plays only four games at A.W. Mumford Stadium this season, beginning with the Sept. 10 conference opener against Alabama A&M.

The other seven games are away from Baton Rouge.

Four games are on rival campuses, and three are at neutral sites (Saturday's opener is technically a neutral-site game; though it's happening in TSU's hometown of Nashville, it's at LP Field, the Tennessee Titans' stadium).

"In order for us to be successful - especially with the schedule we have this year - we have to be successful on the road," Mitchell said.

That might not be all bad. As the second-year coach astutely noted, he and his staff have a chance to monitor players more closely on road trips, with the ability to enforce curfews and hold study sessions.

"Right now, if you're playing a home game and you're in the FCS, you cannot stay off campus at this point in time," Mitchell said.

Senior receiver Jared Green, who missed parts of training camp with a groin injury, should be ready to play Saturday - and play relatively well.

RedRaiderSports.com - FIVE: Tech-TSU storylines

. Seth Doege has started one game -- against Kansas in 2009 -- since his sophomore year of high school. That all will change on Saturday, as he'll open the 2011 season as Texas Tech's starting quarterback against Texas State. Even though the Red Raider offense still has some questions, Doege is not expected to be seriously challenged by the Bobcats. The biggest question this weekend will not be whether or not Doege can lead Tech to a win -- that seems almost assured given the opponent -- but how he looks in the process. . Chad Glasgow is the Red Raiders' third defensive coordinator and third defensive scheme in three years. From a statistical standpoint, the last two seasons have been, depending on the week, somewhere between average and terrible. Truth be told, Tech's roster is much better suited to Glasgow's 4-2-5 than the 3-4 and even 4-3 that they've run over the past two seasons. Given the team's schedule, and the high-powered nature of the Big 12, it's probably too much to expect the Red Raiders to post a top 50 defense in 2011, but even a top 75 unit would be a huge improvement. . Tech's two-deep on both sides of the ball is dominated by freshmen and sophomores. A young team can be exciting to watch because fans can see them develop and improve week after week, but that same youth will also be a source of frustration at times because of inexperience. Red Raider fans will need to take the good with the bad this fall, but can expect Tommy Tuberville 's team to be vastly improved at the end of the season.

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