For the first time this season, a Southern quarterback played an entire football game. That player was Czavian Teasett. He didn’t just survive the entire game, but he absolutely thrived.
There are a lot of takeaways from Southern’s 25-20 victory over the Alabama A&M Bulldogs, but that was the key one – the Jags finally had genuinely great quarterback play for the majority of a game, and it is what made the difference in a game that came down to the very end. Teasett went 24/37 for 294 yards and a 3-0 TD-INT ratio, the best individual performance from any Southern QB the entire season.
It wasn’t too bad on the defensive side of things either, which comes as no surprise at this point. The Jags ended up allowing some yards, but they were opportunistic in coming up with big plays in high leverage situations. They held AAMU to being 1/11 on 3rd down, and came up with important stops in the red zone and at the end of the game to bring home the win. They also generated big negative plays, with Herman Brister III coming up with a pick, and Ckelby Givens coming up with a sack.
The game began looking pretty bleak for the Jags. Southern’s first four drives had 3 punts and a missed field goal from Joshua Griffin, resulting in 0 points. There seemed to be very little to hope for on the offensive side of the ball. In a week where the QB situation seemed murky, Zae Teasett wasn’t inspiring much confidence as the starter at this point. Things became clear before the game as Noah Bodden was ruled out of the game with some kind of injury, leaving Teasett as the obvious option to start the game.
The defense had some struggles early in the game too, as Alabama A&M found a quick TD drive early in the game, and then an additional field goal on a short field in the 2nd quarter. A quarter and a half into the game, Southern was down 10-0, staring down the barrel of yet another depressing and stagnant day on offense with yet another early hole to dig.
Then, all of a sudden, on the next drive, everything started clicking for the Southern offense. Zae Teasett was finding chunk plays through the air, as every Jags receiver was getting the ball and making things happen in space. Teasett led two great drives deep into Bulldog territory, scoring 9 points and gathering momentum as the game went into halftime 10-9. First it was a touchdown drive with a great catch and run from Teasett to Darren Morris (with a missed PAT from Griffin), and then a successful 2 minute drive capped off by a Josh Griffin field goal.
The Jags picked up right where they left off in the 2nd half, having a completely dominant 3rd quarter where they outscored AAMU 10-0 and outgained the Bulldogs by over 150 yards. Teasett took the lead with another great connection with Darren Morris, their 2nd touchdown of the game, then led another drive that seemed unstoppable but was ruled inches short of the line to gain, leading to another Joshua Griffin field goal, giving Southern a 19-10 lead and completing a run where the Jags scored 19 unanswered points.
On the last Southern field goal, the play was originally ruled a first down with the chains moving. Then, upon replay review, the call was reversed, turning the situation into 4th and inches. Then on 2 of the Jags’ next 3 drives, they were ruled just short and were forced to punt. The offense was still doing fine, but the Bulldogs were managing to get off the field by just the skin of their teeth, giving the AAMU offense a chance to get back into the game.
The Bulldogs took that opportunity and ran with it – literally. The #1 passing offense in the SWAC had been largely stymied by the stout Jags defense, holding star QB Xavier Lankford to just 123 passing yards to that point in the game. However, the AAMU rushing offense found their footing in the 4th quarter, with both Lankford and RB Donovan Eaglin finding chunk plays on the ground, gaining 93 and 77 rushing yards respectively. First they got a field goal to cut the lead to 6, then Lankford found the endzone on the ground for his 2nd rushing TD of the game to give the Bulldogs the lead 20-19 with 4 minutes left to go.
With 3:42 left in the game and needing any points to win it, Zae Teasett was electric, finishing the game off in style. He led a 10 play, 75 yard TD drive in 2:30 to give the Jags a 25-20 lead with just 1:12 left in the game (after a failed 2 pt conversion), ending with an impressive one-handed catch by Dupree Fuller.
Lankford and company gave the Jags a scare in the final 72 seconds of the game, converting a 4th and 17 as well as their only 3rd down conversion of the game. However, the final drive came up short, as a deep pass in the final seconds from the Jags 30 yard line was broken up, and the Jags walked off the field with a huge victory.
Southern still controls their own destiny in the SWAC West, moving to 4-1 in conference play. They return back home next week with a divisional matchup against Bethune-Cookman. That game will be at 2:00 PM next Saturday afternoon.
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