Three takeaways from Jacksonville's State's spring game
JACKSONVILLE — Jacksonville State's players knew the stakes for Thursday’s night’s spring game at AmFirst Stadium: steak dinners for the winners, beanie weenies for the losers. The White team earned the better meal, holding off the Black team for a 17-13 victory. Senior safety Caleb Nix sealed the win with an interception on the game’s final play.
“Caleb made a really good play at the end of the game,” Jax State head coach Charles Kelly said. Here are three takeaways from Jax State’s spring game: Airing it out Redshirt junior Caden Creel, who started Jax State’s final nine games at quarterback last season, showed an improved deep ball Thursday. Creel threw two first-quarter touchdown passes.
The first was a 74-yard bomb to Murray State transfer Darius Cannon. Creel showed it was no fluke on the White team’s next drive, hitting redshirt freshman wide receiver Bryson Roullier in stride for a 55-yard score. Creel did the majority of his damage on the ground last season, finishing with 1,075 rushing yards compared to 1,514 passing yards.
He said the team put an emphasis on improving his deep-ball accuracy this spring. “It’s definitely something that we wanted to work on and really implement this offseason,” Creel said. “It has gotten better, but it’s still not where it needs to be.
So, we’ve got some work to do, but I was impressed with what we did today vertically. ” Creel wasn’t the only Jax State quarterback to throw a long touchdown pass Thursday. Redshirt freshman Jack Moran, who started for the Black team, connected with 6-foot-8 wide receiver Deondre Johnson for a 64-yard score.