JACKSONVILLE — After seven games in seven weeks, Jacksonville State got a break.
When the Gamecocks (5-2, 3-0 CUSA) kick off Wednesday at New Mexico State (3-4, 2-1), that'll be their first game in 15 days. Jax State coach Charles Kelly said his team put the extra preparation time to good use.
"I think our guys have had a good week," Kelly said at his regular weekly news conference Friday. "Our focus has been to work on us to make sure we get better fundamentally from stance, alignment, where we put our eyes, technique — because that's what wins football games.
"It's not about schemes and all those kinds of things; it's being able to execute and do your job for basically six seconds at a time."
If nothing else, Jax State could use the rest. Those seven games in seven weeks weren't easy. Four of them were decided by four points or less.
The Gamecocks' two losses came on the road to North Dakota (6-1) and Ohio (5-2), who have a combined three defeats.
"We started the last week of July," Kelly said. "We played Week Zero, and we've played some really good football teams. Even the games we've lost … they were very competitive games, and they were very physical games. Every game that we've played in the conference has been very competitive, very physical."
Three Jax State players are out for the season: linebackers Walker O'Steen and Mac Sanders and running back Andrew Paul. Everyone else got a bit of a break.
"I feel like we could have kept on playing, but it's more about us recovering and preparing for the long run," linebacker Jameson McCullough said. "Right now, we're not anywhere near done as far as our goal. Our goal is to win the conference, be the best Conference USA team, and make a push for a playoff run."
Kelly said he still wanted the starters to get their practice time.
"We can't not get reps because you lose your edge," Kelly said. "So Caden (Creel) practiced, but we got all the other quarterbacks a lot of practice. Same thing with our offensive line. You know, we got a lot of those young guys work, but our guys that have been playing have to get reps because what you don't want to do on an open date is lose that edge that you have."