JACKSONVILLE --- When you’re not a well-established football power, whether you like it or not, growing pains are just part of the process. Those pains have been played out to a 4-16 record at Jacksonville for the past two seasons. But don’t look now, those pains could be about to pay off for the Golden Eagles.
Last season many of those players taking their lumps are back.
Eight players --- all now sophomores --- are back on each side of the ball.
With a year of experience in coach Roland Houston’s tried-and-true system, improvement can easily be expected.
While those returners were going throw growing pains, one of their comrades was going through real pain.
And the excitement with that player is just as much as with such a strong number of experienced players.
Quarterback Matt Thompson, a senior, is back to do what he was primed to do last season before gridiron tragedy struck.
At a summer passing camp at nearby Jacksonville State, Thompson broke his collarbone.
Despite being on the injured reserve, the field general battled his way back to break back in by the season-opener.
And that was when tragedy struck again. Thompson was re-injured and didn’t play again in 2007.
Now he’s back, and Houston couldn’t be more happy.
“He’s been around for a while,” Houston told The Star.
“He knows what to do. He doesn’t have as much playing experience, but he’s an older guy and he understands the offense.”
Houston likes what he’s seen out of Thompson through the spring and says he could be the perfect fit for now-uncommon, Jacksonville double slot-back formation.
“He’s a guy that can throw and run,” Houston said. “That’s what we need in a quarterback.”
Running and throwing, Thompson will guide an option attack that is characteristic of Houston’s previous stops at Weaver and even the Jacksonville State teams that Houston was a part of in the Gamecocks’ glory days.
Behind Thompson, backs Jackson Pearson and Omar Bowie will likely get the bulk of the carries with the fullback role vacated by Blake Cypress being taken care of in a committee format.
Jacksonville also returns some beef with players like Knox Newell, Jake Smith and Stephen Waters, all juniors, rumbling around in the trenches.
And the key word among that trio is beef: Newell is listed at 6-foot, 270 pounds, Waters at 6-0, 235 and Smith at 6-4, 305.
Punter Grant Hill, free safety Jack Whaley and senior cornerback Quinn Hall are back to anchor the special teams and the defense.
But with all those players, it’s not always the talent that you have that can win you ballgames.
Houston, with years of experience, knows this as well as anyone.
That’s why he has taken this offseason to implement a new offseason-conditioning program.
