Following a successful season as a first-time head coach, Jackson State's T.C. Taylor spoke about their current football roster and recruitment progress, along with some insights into their spring training regiment. The Jackson State football X account posted a video of Taylor in a press conference giving updates on the program's current situation. He started the video talking about their areas of need.
“If you look at it right now,” he said, “we're missing probably about 15-20 guys. We've got six more [offensive linemen] coming in here, probably about three receivers coming in here. We're definitely looking to add depth at the quarterback position. We've got some official visits going on now. We've got a couple linebackers in town. The offensive linemen, we're pretty excited about. Hopefully we can announce them during the next couple days. We're still building a football team.”
Taylor's emphasis on the offensive line is not without warrant. Jackson State's offensive front is integral to their offensive scheme as one of the higher-octane passing attacks in the SWAC. JSU finished second behind Florida A&M in passing attempts with 364. They also threw the least amount of interceptions and retained quarterback Jacobian Morgan who won the starting job from Jason Brown in the latter half of the season. Morgan threw just one interception in over 120 passing attempts. Despite the low interception rate, Jackson State ranked fifth in the conference in sacks taken. Though Brown took five more sacks in six starts compared to Morgan's four, improving the offensive line is always a necessity.
The new recruits can also help JSU stay dominant in the run game. Despite finishing seventh in total attempts, the Tigers wound up in the top five of total rushing yards and ended third in yards per carry. As Jackson State gears up for its spring game against Alabama State, Taylor expounded upon the importance of the spring practices.
“The spring is just about developing what you have on campus,” he said. “I think the good thing for us is we had about 90-something, 95 plus guys on campus to try to see who could help us in the fall. Like I told the guys at the beginning of the spring, this is JSU versus JSU. We've been going back and forth all spring; defense whoops us one day, offense gets going another day, it's been going back and forth. We're still building this roster. We still got a few key pieces that we're looking forward to getting here going into the summer.”
In the wake of Deion Sanders' and the exodus of his recruits, T.C. Taylor more than stepped up to the plate in his first year. Jackson State finished the season with a 7-4 overall record and tied for second in the SWAC East division with Alabama State at 5-3. The Tigers had some bumps, particularly against Florida A&M (28-10) and an end-of-the-season loss to Alcorn State (28-24). On the other side, though, JSU had some big wins over Southern (27-14), Alabama A&M (45-30) and Arkansas-Pine Bluff (40-14).
Follow Us
Subscribe