Exactly two weeks from the 2023 season-opener at Tulane, South Alabama did its best to simulate game-like conditions on Saturday night.

The Jaguars ran 116 plays under the lights at Hancock Whitney Stadium, conducting their second and final full scrimmage of preseason camp. After the offense largely dominated last week’s first scrimmage, the defense handled its business pretty well this time around.

“Every scrimmage you want to come out and be the best,” linebacker Quentin Wilfawn said. “We always want to beat offense, but when we do good it makes them better and when they do good it makes us better. So at the end of the day it’s good competition for everybody and we made each other better today for sure.”

The South Alabama defense held the offense out of the end zone until the second half of the scrimmage, and allowed just four touchdowns overall. The Jaguars’ “Swarm D” also totaled an unofficial* 13 tackles for loss, six sacks and forced five fumbles, recovering two of them.

* — stats compiled by AL.com

Defensive ends Brock Higdon and Nathan Rawlins-Kibonge each had two sacks for the South Alabama defense, while safety Yam Banks both forced and recovered a fumble. Linebacker Logan Lewis forced the other fumble, which was recovered by safety Cole Blaylock.

The South Alabama offense totaled 513 yards — 150 of that rushing — with 24 first downs. Four quarterbacks combined to complete 32 of 58 passes for 363 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions.

“I thought I saw some really good things up front,” head coach Kane Wommack said. “I think we’re running the football pretty effectively right now. You’ve got a defensive line and linebacking corps, a veteran group that they’re going against, but finding some ways to run the ball. I think they backs are running hard, guys are staying on their blocks for a longer period. I thought we did some really positive things in execution and timing in our passing game right now. Carter (Bradley) does not need a big window and he certainly showed that tonight.

“And then from a defensive perspective I thought there were some good third downs, there were some good things that we did from a pass rush standpoint, which is really encouraging to see and I thought those situational periods a lot of good things came up.”

The South Alabama offense had its moments, including a pair of long touchdown passes. Bradley hooked up with Devin Voisin on the first, a 35-yard breakaway down the seam.

The other long touchdown pass came from Desmond Trotter, who hit PJ Martin on a short pass in the flat. The freshman running back did the rest, racing for a 53-yard score.

Bradley completed 13 of 28 passes for 144 yards and the one touchdown, while Trotter — running the second-team offense — was 9-for-13 for 136 yards and two touchdowns. He also connected with Jay’Juan Townsend on a 12-yard scoring pass during red zone work.

Freshman Gio Lopez worked with both the second- and third-team offenses, and completed 6 of 10 passes for 44 yards while also rushing for 14 yards. Redshirt freshman Bishop Davenport, running the third-team offense, was 4-for-7 for 39 yards.

“It was good,” Bradley said. “Penalties hurt us a little bit, but I can help clean that up, I feel like. Guys were running hard. I think the whole quarterback collective group, I think our eyes are where they are supposed to be, guys are running hard and doing their job. There are always things that you can clean up.”

Freshman Jarvis Durr led all rushers with 43 yards on six carries, while Braylon McReynolds had 42 yards on seven attempts. McReynolds scored the day’s only rushing touchdown, a 19-yarder during red zone work.

Voisin led all receivers with 84 yards on four catches, including the touchdown. Jeremiah Webb added three catches for 36 yards and DJ Thomas-Jones three for 29, while Martin’s lone catch was his touchdown.

“I thought we were really physical today,” Voisin said. “Coach really wants the receivers to emphasize physicality, especially on the perimeter, and I thought we did that. The backs, we have a really good group this year, probably the deepest I’ve ever seen our running backs group. Overall, you see them making explosive plays, and with them making explosive plays it makes the defense have to focus on that and it opens things up for us.”

A handful of players did not scrimmage Saturday due to nagging injuries, including running back La’Damian Webb, wide receiver Anthony Eager, defensive lineman Ed Smith and cornerback Marquise Robinson. Townsend and linebacker Ke’Shun Brown, among others, were back Saturday after missing last week’s scrimmage.

South Alabama takes Sunday off before returning to the practice field on Monday, with by then only 12 days remaining before the opener vs. Tulane. The Jaguars did their full pre-game warm-up routine prior to Saturday’s scrimmage, given them a chance to do so in a “live” situation.

“I’m talking to them in the locker room, ‘look, two weeks from this exact moment, we’ll be doing the same thing in terms of preparation in New Orleans,’” Wommack said. “I think it brings it home. I think it makes it real. This was the last live simulation of game day that we could provide for our guys between now and Sept. 2 so those things are really important. I think it just hits a little bit different when you are under the lights at night.”