How Southern football moves on after loss to No. 22 Houston | Colleges

HOUSTON — Marshall Faulk sat down, placed his glasses on the table and didn’t sugarcoat what he saw.

“That was awful,” Southern’s coach said. “That wasn’t really a game. That was a kind of a preseason crash dummy test for Houston to work on all their good plays. And yeah, we didn’t show up.”

Those were the first words Faulk shared after his team lost 77-6 to No. 22 Houston at TDECU Stadium on Saturday. While Faulk was unhappy with the performance, he said the effort level showed “for the most part.”

“Our guys that’s going to play, I feel like they gave the effort,” Faulk said. “But let’s just be real, okay. Like they’re better than us. All right, they’re better than us. They’re ranked what, 22nd? We’re FCS. Everybody know what this is. Let it be what it is. We’re going to get better. We’re gonna lick our wounds and get ready to play some football.”

Southern was paid $450,000 by Houston, according to the game contract obtained by The Advocate.

The Jaguars hoped to find the end zone more than once in the contest. The game was off the rails from the first quarter as they trailed 28-0. When there was a glimmer of hope in manageable third downs, the Jaguars were bullied at the line of scrimmage or lost possession. The first of three turnovers was a strip sack of starting quarterback Christian Johnson with 7:36 left in the first quarter.

The 6-foot, 206-pound junior was replaced by Ashton Strother at the 10:50 mark of the second period. Johnson, who had a couple of solid deliveries dropped, completed 5 of 12 passes for 29 yards.

“To the naked eye, it wasn’t how I wanted him to play,” Faulk said. “But a lot of times we judge quarterbacks, and like I got to see what the receiver did. I got to make sure that the right line call was made. So you got to you got to be careful, like on the sideline critiquing your quarterback before you watch the plays. Because I don’t want to take anything away from him. This is just this this is just a really good, well-coached team.”

Strother was 3 of 5 for 13 yards with an interception and third-stringer Wyatt McCauley was 2 of 3 for 85 yards. The sophomore, who entered with 9:38 left in the third period, threw a lovely deep ball to Wydell Clark for 79 yards and a touchdown. The team finished with 127 passing yards.

The first part of flushing this putrid result occurred midgame as Faulk wanted to ensure as many of his rotation players left unscathed as starters stayed longer on the sidelines.

“I took my guys out,” the rookie coach said. “I wanted to make sure that we were healthy. You know, we got SWAC play coming up in two weeks. And as much as winning this game, you know, seemed important as it started, but with the start that we had, I just needed to ensure that we got out of this game as healthy as possible.”

The ulterior motive of preserving starters and role players is to allow depth pieces who don’t ordinarily play some experience that could benefit them in the future.

“We played a bunch of our young players,” Faulk said. “You guys saw the second half. We played a bunch of our guys, and we needed to see (them) on the field. And you know we found out a lot about guys.”

Even still, the taste of beatdown on the gridiron is hard to look past even with development being prioritized.

“In today’s landscape, like we don’t have the budget to compete against them, we just don’t,” the Pro Football Hall of Fame running back said.

Part of the emphasis on keeping players healthy came when the coaches agreed to shorten the final period to eight minutes. An NCAA rule allows quarters to be shortened if agreed by the coaches and the referee.

“You gotta know when to say uncle,” Faulk said. “Enough was enough.

Southern’s coach said he “set my pride aside,” and no longer worry about the game that was being played as his team faced an insurmountable deficit.

“I got to make sure I get these kids out of this game, you know, with their health,” Faulk said. “Obviously, their feelings are hurt, they’re down, you know. We felt like we were better than this.”

When Southern returns home and rests, it will rewatch the film to see what went wrong execution-wise. After that, the team must not let this contest consume them mentally going forward as it looks ahead to facing Louisiana Christian University, an NAIA program, at 6 p.m. Saturday at A.W. Mumford Stadium.

“We just have to take this game for what it is, learn from it,” Faulk said. “Now as a coaching staff, we got to figure out how we convince them to continue moving towards our goals. You know, a game like this can really set you back.”