Schiefelbein: Not much SU upside

• By JOSEPH SCHIEFELBEIN
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Sep 1, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Looking for a bright spot in Southern’s 55-3 debacle of an opener at the University of Houston?

At least, Southern was able to have its first replay challenge in school history Saturday night.

The good part for Southern is, the season-opening loss doesn’t have any effect on Southern in the Southwestern Athletic Conference championship race. The Jaguars won’t play a SWAC game until Sept. 27.

They knew going in, this game never was only going to be a matter of learning and pride. It was going to be a good go out of the gate, a test against a program in a higher subdivision of Division I. If Southern won, great. If Southern lost, the Jaguars were decided underdogs, anyway.

“It was an experience we had to go through,” Southern coach Pete Richardson said. “Now, it’s a matter of hanging together. Our goal is to get to the championship. We knew this would be a challenging situation for us.”

Southern, 8-3 last season, was startlingly ineffective on both sides of the ball.

The offense, going 2-for-12 on third downs, didn’t help out the defense and the defense, with Houston converting 9 of its first 11 third downs, didn’t help out itself. And so Houston methodically rolled over Southern.

“This is a Division I-A opponent (Bowl Subdivision),” SU strong safety Glenn Bell said. “We wanted to come out and see where we stood. They’re a great team. But we also have the makings of a great team. We just have to go back and sharpen up, work on the little things.”

So, here’s where the veteran leadership will have to take hold. Southern’s got a tough one, against Tennessee State on Saturday in Nashville, Tenn., after what will be a week of hurricane-related disruptions and distractions.

“We just have to let the young players know it’s just the first game and we have to finish strong,” defensive end Vince Lands said. “We stayed together. We finished the game. We didn’t just give up. We stayed together as a team.”

Hang tough, stay together. That sounds like advice for all these days.