Marshall Faulk has been begging for consistency from Southern all year.

“One of the things that I told the guys was we hadn’t won back-to-back games all year,” the first-year coach said. “You know, we've been up, down, up, down. Like, let's see if we could put two games together.”

The Jaguars came through by dominating Bethune-Cookman 45-17 on Saturday at A.W. Mumford Stadium, earning back-to-back victories for the first time in two seasons. Last week, Southern (5-5, 3-3 SWAC) blew out Florida A&M 42-14 on the road and is fourth in the SWAC West, trailing three teams tied for first place at 4-2.

This was not just the first time Southern won consecutive games in the Faulk era, but the last time it won consecutive games was Nov. 30, 2024, when it defeated Grambling in the Bayou Classic after clinching the SWAC West title with a win over Arkansas-Pine Bluff the week before.

Faulk is seeing his run game destroy opposing defenses, averaging 346 yards over the last two games. He’s seeing his defense force turnovers as well, picking up two interceptions against FAMU and one versus Bethune Cookman (5-4, 3-3).

This is the steadiness that Southern’s staff has been trying to extract since the start of the year.

“It took us a while,” Faulk said. “I'm gonna take you guys back when we first started, and I was talking to you guys about practices. We have a good practice. We have a bad practice. We have good practice. That's how our season started. You have to learn how to stack practices, and what that does is it translates into wins. When you play a good game, the things you got to do to play another good game is you got to get better in the areas. You can't just be like, ‘Oh, we did this, we good.’ And we're learning how to do that. It's just, you know, I wish this would have happened a month ago, but I'm glad we're seeing it now.”

While the team’s play has been far better than it had been all year, Southern’s players don’t feel like they’re a brand-new team during this wave of success.

“I wouldn't say this is a completely different team because this is something that we've been (building),” said Trey Holly, who had 206 rushing yards and two touchdowns on 16 carries. It’s just we finally, you know, believe and put it all together, and we want to win. We all on the same page.”

Another reason Southern's star doesn't believe a drastic change has occurred is that the coaching staff has continued to instill confidence in the group.

Southern defensive back Ty Lee, who had 10 tackles, agreed.

“I don't think it's a brand new team,” the redshirt sophomore said. “I feel like the same stuff we've been preaching since Alabama State is the same stuff. But we just started to believe in it more. I feel like once the success came, people started to actually believe that it actually works out.”

The start of the success that made it begin to believe was the FAMU victory, Lee said. The newfound consistency after beating Bethune-Cookman has brought a lot of joy.”

“Everybody just getting close,” said freshman wide receiver Wydell Clark. “There's a lot more smiles and giggles out there. So we in the locker room, we just come together as one and be one.”

To keep that feeling, Southern will have to win another home game at 2 p.m. Saturday against Alcorn State (6-4, 4-2), the SWAC's highest-scoring team at 42.5 points per game.