SU class to have Florida flavor, with an in-state kick
Elvis Joseph didn’t lie.
Digging through his native New Orleans in search of hidden-gem recruits, Joseph, an assistant football coach at Southern, already knew his school needed a reliable place-kicker and punter. He and the Jaguars coaching staff had watched in frustration last season as so many games slipped away because of shaky special teams.
At some point, Joseph stumbled onto Greg Pittman at Helen Cox High School. The young man had been kicking footballs since third grade.
Joseph alerted his boss, Stump Mitchell, and together, the two coaches made their pitch. They didn’t lie. They said Southern really, really needed a kicker.
“It’s funny,” Pittman said. “I hadn’t talked to anyone from Southern. ... Within three minutes, they said they were willing to offer a scholarship. I was definitely interested.”
He committed. On Wednesday, Pittman plans to send his national letter of intent.
It’s not often that college programs view a kicker as one of its most important commitments.
Then again, it’s not often that a team staggers through the kind of year Southern had in 2011.
Although the Jaguars went 4-7 in their second season under Mitchell, four of their losses were by five or fewer points — and three of them would’ve been sure Southern victories, if only the team had been blessed with a reliable kicking game.
Only one year earlier, the Jaguars seemed set when Mitchell brought in freshman sensation William Griswold. He was 15-for-20 on field-goal attempts, arguably the brightest light in an otherwise murky 2-9 season. But when Griswold left school and gave up football, Southern found itself in serious trouble.
“They said a kicker like him was a ‘must,’ ” Helen Cox coach Willie Brooks said.
Last season, Pittman made 7 of 9 field-goal attempts, including one from 49 yards against Edna Karr. Pittman also had 21 touchbacks on kickoffs, and he averaged 42.6 yards per punt. Southern pounced.
“I felt it was a perfect fit for both parties,” Pittman said.
Evidently, he is only one of a few perfect fits within a two-hour drive of Baton Rouge.
Although Southern offered other in-state athletes, as Wednesday neared, only one other local player — McKinley running back Lenard Tillery, a first-team All-District 5-5A selection — was a solid commitment.
Schools like Northwestern State, Alcorn State and Arkansas-Pine Bluff started to pick up on Tillery last summer, and at first, he was inclined to leave Louisiana for college.
“As I got closer and closer to my senior year, I didn’t want to go somewhere else and not like it,” Tillery said. “Southern has a strong tradition ... and I like what they’re doing there. They’re bringing the program back slowly.”
The small number of local commitments will likely draw criticism from factions of the Jaguar Nation who want homegrown talent.
But perhaps the Southern staff decided it had to make a fresh start.
From 2008-11, a period covering Pete Richardson’s final two classes and Mitchell’s first two classes, Southern got letters of intent from 95 players on signing day (or shortly thereafter).
Of those 95 players, only one — Griswold — made the All-Southwestern Athletic Conference first team. And Griswold is gone.
Though that number doesn’t include players like linebacker Jamie Payton, who made the All-SWAC team after he transferred from Lambuth, it became obvious that in recent years, SU recruited more misses than hits.
Rather than concentrating on well-worn spots like Houston and north Louisiana, Mitchell and his assistants hit the land of sand and palms.
They dove into south Florida.
The new approach was egged on, in part, by Alonzo Boykin, who played at Southern in the 1980s under coaches Otis Washington and Marino Casem.
Boykin — now an assistant athletic director at Jackson High School, located in the heart of Miami — was disappointed that Southern’s ties to the region had all but dried up.
Boykin contacted Mitchell last year, and the coach promised he’d come down for a visit (It also didn’t hurt that second-year receivers coach Jorge Baez is a Miami native).
Before long, the SU staff got commitments from two athletes at Jackson High: mighty mite receiver Willie Quinn and cornerback Ernest Felton.
Generously listed at 5-foot-8, he had 499 receiving yards and eight touchdowns, landing a spot on the Miami Herald’s All-Dade first team. Rivals.com and Scout.com rated Felton as a two-star prospect.
Southern also got a big commitment from Willie Paisley of Miramar, Fla., a defensive tackle who filled a definite hole on the roster.
Southern was already thin at defensive tackle last season, and next year’s team figures to include only two scholarship veterans (in other words, SU still needs more defensive tackles).
The SU staff also landed another two-star commitment from cornerback Sony Sanon of nearby Hialeah.
Described by his coach, Mark Berman, as “a leader” and “a role model,” Sanon excelled in man-to-man coverage and blocked several kicks, but other schools might have been scared away by his 5-foot-9 frame.
Nonetheless, Sanon almost instantly grabbed the attention of Mitchell, who offered a scholarship and left his business card.
Sanon pounced.
“Anywhere they put me (on the field), that’s where I’ll go,” he said. “I’m glad to be part of the Jaguars family. I feel like I’m part of it already.”
The family will take all the help it can get.