Jaguars took over Fairhope on Thursday, July 11, as South Alabama head football coach Major Applewhite sat center stage for the USA by the Bay Eastern Shore Speaker Series.

Applewhite was recently named the fourth head coach in South Alabama football history after spending three years revitalizing the offense as an offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach under Kane Wommack, whose departure for a defensive coordinator role at the University of Alabama left the position vacant. During his playing career, the Baton Rouge, Louisiana, native earned Big 12 Freshman of the Year and Co-Offensive Player of the Year (1999) honors as a quarterback for the University of Texas, where he received a bachelor's degree in sport management.

"When this evaluation process navigated to its end, and it went fast, I slept really dang good that night," USA Director of Athletics Joel Erdmann said. "We knew who our leader was."

Before making the move to Mobile, Applewhite previously served as a quarterbacks coach at Syracuse University, offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Rice University, head coach at the University of Houston and analyst under Nick Saban at Alabama, in addition to a number of roles at his alma mater.

"There's a lot of great coaches and great players here," Applewhite said, providing Jaguars insight into his philosophy on recruiting the area. "We know that all across the Gulf Coast, off of I-10, you're going to find some of the best players in the country. But for us, what we do in our evaluation process, first thing's first — I tell our coaches if it's like a sports car without any gas, if they don't have academics, do not bring them in here. Don't waste time. Who wants to practice recruiting? (...) Don't get seduced by the physical. Do not get seduced by a stopwatch or measuring tape. That burns us all. Just find out at the end, do I like the guy? There's a lot of damn good football players around here, so we don't have to take a kid just because we feel like we need to."

The new-look South Alabama Jaguars, with Applewhite now at the helm, are set to open the 2024 regular season with a home matchup against North Texas (4 p.m.) on Saturday, Aug. 31.