Jaguars' Smith miss nursing rib injury

• By JOSEPH SCHIEFELBEIN
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Oct 14, 2008 - UPDATED: 6:35 a.m.

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Southern’s top rusher, running back Kendrick Smith, did not practice Monday and may not play Saturday because of a rib injury.

Smith missed some practice time last week but was able to run 13 times for 69 yards Saturday in a 45-14 rout of Texas Southern.

If Smith (81 rushes for 389 yards and two touchdowns and 10 catches for 94 yards) can’t go, SU will turn to sophomore Silas Gibbs (30 rushes for 215 yards and one TD), who has come on in recent weeks, or junior Brian Threat (22 rushes for 103 yards and two touchdowns), who returned Saturday after missing two games with an ankle injury. Freshman Jerry Joseph (nine carries for 18 yards) is also an option.

“(Smith) played, but he’s only about 80 percent and he got nicked up again,” SU coach Pete Richardson said.

“We’ll see how he comes. Threat looks like he’s ready to go. And Gibbs and Joseph can play.

“If we can get through this game, without really utilizing him, if he’s still injured … if he can go, fine, but we’ve got to be ready to go, down the stretch, in our conference, because that’s what we’re shooting for.”

Florida A&M’s marching band, the “Marching 100,” will not play Saturday, Southern sports information director Kevin Manns said FAMU officials had told him.

Travel costs for the band, which has 420 members (according to a recent article in The FAMUAN) and travels in nine buses, are considerable and prohibitive.

According to the contract, the visiting team in the series gets paid $50,000.

Saturday’s game finally begins a four-game contract between the two schools, who played the longest-running nonconference series in black college football history from the 1940s through 2001. However, the next time the schools will play, in Tallahassee, Fla., as well as the other two dates, has yet to be determined.

Because of expansion of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference and other contracts, FAMU does not have an open date for next season.