JSU football: Offense hopes for improvements with opened up passing game
Sep. 9—CONWAY, S.C. — While Jacksonville State's quarterback room may have even more questions after the team's 30-16 loss to Coastal Carolina, the Gamecocks left Conway with a sliver of hope about the team's future deep-threat abilities.
The staff and quarterbacks' efforts in trying to take deeper shots proved to come to fruition on Saturday night, with Rodriguez noting that he tried to have both Zion Webb and Logan Smothers air it out more to create opportunities.
The 30-16 loss to Coastal Carolina marks the first this season the Gamecocks had a 50-yard receiver, and they had two of them in Perry Carter and Quinton Lane. Carter finished with 77 receiving yards and Lane finished with 50.
"It definitely feels good, because that's just going to make us better if we can run the ball and pass the ball," Carter said. "It's going to be harder for the defense to stop us, so that feels good. We wanted to come out with the win. I felt like we definitely should have won. We've got a lot more to work on."
After Zion Webb, who finished 9-for-18 with 150 passing yards, was pulled in favor of Logan Smothers, the Nebraska transfer finished 7-for-10 with 57 passing yards.
Webb logged his longest pass of the season with a 30-yard toss to Lane in the first quarter, following it up with passes of 35 and 42 yards to Carter in the second and third quarter.s Smothers' longest pass of the night came on a 16-yard toss to Lane, which was his first pass of the game.
Rodriguez said there are still a lot of questions in the quarterback room and that both quarterbacks competed. He also noticed that Smothers has improved with every snap.
"Logan competed. He'll get better every game," Rodriguez said. "I don't know. We'll figure out the quarterback situation. We've got to play better there on a consistent basis, too."
In addition to his 57 passing yards, Smothers racked up 54 rushing yards, highlighted by his 19-yard touchdown run.
"Once I see him now get into open field, I know he's going to score," Carter said. "He's faster than what people think. Seven's fast, he's got some speed on him, and he's getting his confidence. He's going to continue to get better every week."
Carter noted that his internal timer switches when the quarterbacks change in games, with Webb and Smothers both seeing time in all three of Jacksonville State's games this season.
"They're both different players, so they're going to throw the ball differently," Carter said. "I kind of know what type of ball it's going to be or when it's going to come, so it's different timing with both of them. I feel like we got it down, we've just got to keep working on it."
Carter said that while it would've been that much sweeter if the Gamecocks came out with the win, he was "hyped up" by his 42-yard catch from Webb and expects communication in the passing game to improve over the bye week.
"Most of them hit. The ones that didn't, I'd just say timing," Carter said. "We've got a bye week coming up this week, so we're going to get timing down, quarterbacks and receivers. In two weeks, we will come back for our homecoming game. It's going to be good."
Sports Writer Thomas Ashworth: 256-236-1551. On Twitter: @ThomasAshworth0.
