South Alabama has secured a postseason future in 2024, but the Jaguars aren’t satisfied with merely going bowling this year.

South Alabama (6-5, 5-2 Sun Belt Conference) hosts Texas State (6-5, 4-3) for its regular-season finale on Friday at Hancock Whitney Stadium, which may or may not be its last game in Mobile in 2024. The Jaguars remain alive for the Sun Belt West Division championship, needing a win over the Bobcats and a loss Saturday by Louisiana against Louisiana-Monroe to earn a spot in the Dec. 7 conference title game.

“We’ve been going on the right track these last couple of games, so I feel good going into (Friday) and I’m just ready to go out there and have fun and just give it my all,” South Alabama wide receiver Jamaal Pritchett said. “We know we’ve got to handle our business and just let everything else take care of itself. So we’re just going to focus on Texas State and whatever happens, happens.”

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South Alabama’s postseason destination remains extremely fluid, with projections ranging from the Salute to Veterans Bowl in Montgomery on Dec. 14 to the Frisco Bowl in the Dallas area on Dec. 17. There could also be a return engagement with Mobile’s own 68 Ventures Bowl, which the Jaguars won 59-10 over Eastern Michigan last December to secure the first postseason victory in program history.

But most of those bowl projections are assuming South Alabama is not the Sun Belt champion. Playing in or winning the conference title game could open up several other postseason possibilities for the Jaguars.

Head coach Major Applewhite said Monday he’s not even worrying about that yet, though he acknowledged the volatile reality of the situation. He said his mind went to his playing days at Texas, when the Longhorns found themselves in the Big 12 championship game after Oklahoma lost to Oklahoma State on the final Saturday of the regular season.

“I started having flashbacks when I started seeing the schedule and the way it all laid out, because I remember being at my apartment in 2001 and people calling on their little Nokia cell phones and saying, ‘hey, tune in, tune in, tune in. Oklahoma State’s got Oklahoma on the ropes,’” Applewhite said. “You see (Oklahoma State’s) Rashaun Woods catch a pass in the end zone, and then your whole next month just changed in terms of a conference championship game and all that.

“But I still have kind of the same approach that I did then at 23 years of age. I’ve got other things going on. You’re going to have to catch me on my cell phone. I’m focused on South Alabama and my family. I’m not tuned in to other people’s games or point spreads or things like that that’s irrelevant. That doesn’t help me in anything that I’ve got to do today.”

Indeed, South Alabama is likely to have its hands full with Texas State, which was the preseason West favorite but has underachieved somewhat in 2024. The Bobcats lost 52-44 at home to last-place Georgia State last week in one of the more shocking results in the Sun Belt this season.

Nevertheless, Texas State is a dangerous team, leading the Sun Belt in scoring (36.4 points per game) and total offense (469.3 yards per game) and ranking third in all four major defensive categories. Bobcats quarterback Jordan McCloud — who threw for three touchdowns in a 31-23 victory over the Jaguars in 2023 while he was at James Madison — has thrown for 2,672 yards and a a Sun Belt-best 28 touchdowns this season.

“He’s a dynamic player,” defensive coordinator Will Windham said, “a really good quarterback who does a great job, even when things start to break down in the pocket. He does a great job of keeping his eyes downfield and being able to step up and step through and it’s not always a step up and scramble — which he can definitely hurt you with his legs — but a lot of times he’ll step up and still throw the ball.

“And so we’ve got to do a great job of discipline and staying in coverage and understanding what all those things look like, even though he’s stepping forward, it may not necessarily be a scramble situation.”

South Alabama has won four of its last five games following a 2-4 start, including an upset of Louisiana on Nov. 9. The Jaguars secured bowl-eligibility for the third straight year by beating Southern Miss 35-14 in Hattiesburg last weekend.

Though a 34-30 loss to Georgia Southern on Oct. 26 in which it blew a 16-point fourth-quarter lead put a dent in South Alabama’s conference title hopes, the Jaguars have been playing at a consistently excellent level since early October. Applewhite said his team has simply gotten incrementally better as the season has gone along.

“I wish I could say there was some magical, silver bullet speech or there was some defining moment, but I think to have marked improvement, everybody has to feel like they have areas to improve … just all taking ownership over where we’re weak and where we need to get stronger and addressing it and not being afraid of it,” Applewhite said. “Then you have to also understand you have to have a little bit of patience.

“… The issues that we had against Georgia Southern are still there, and we’ve got to continue to fix them, regardless of whether we’ve won our last two ball games. It’s just human nature to overlook things when you’re successful, but that’s not what we need to do as a staff. We need to continue to find the things that we need to get better at.”

Kickoff for Saturday’s South Alabama-Texas State game is set for 2:30 p.m. Friday at Hancock Whitney Stadium. The game will stream live via ESPN+.