Urban Meyer and Trevor Lawrence got their first win together on Sunday against the Cowboys, and while the game doesn’t count, a win is a win. Behind great play from Lawrence, Jacksonville defeated Dallas 34-14 at At&T Stadium in their preseason finale.
“A good feeling. A lot better feeling coming into the locker room today as opposed to this time last week,” Lawrence said. “So, just one step in the right direction. Gotta keep getting better. Now they are going to count for real. So, just putting everything we have, getting ready for Houston. It builds a lot of confidence going into the season. It’s nice to finish the preseason with a game like that.”
Although Jacksonville played against the Cowboys’ second-string defense, Lawrence was dealing. The number one overall pick was 11/12 for 139 yards and two touchdowns in a little over one quarter of action.
“It felt good just to be clean, execute, stay ahead of the chains, really had I think three drives,” Lawrence said. “The guys that came in after played great too. But we were two for three with touchdowns on those drives, and even the second drive, where we punted, we drove the ball pretty well. Third down, I probably could have made a better decision and got the first down, but we pinned them inside the 5. It was all about field position too.”
As a whole, Jaguars head coach Urban Meyer was happy with how Lawrence performed in the preseason. Lawrence was 31/44 for 323 yards in two touchdowns in the exhibition season.
“I’d be a half-empty guy, but I was kind of fearful that he might, “what if we go again?” One thing about Trevor is that he’s played decent all three games,” Meyer said. “Preseason’s fairly new to me, and I’ve learned along the way, so I would judge our preseason as a success right now. A lot of energy in the locker room.”
The Jaguars travel to Houston to battle the Texans in Week 1, and according to Lawrence, if the Jaguars can execute, they can compete with anybody.
“People game-planning for what you do well, what you don’t do well, and scheming you up,” Lawrence said. “Just gotta be ready for that. And then every week, too, their #1’s are going to be out there. At the end of the day, it is the same game. You gotta execute. Like I said, I feel confident that if we are prepared and we execute, we can play with anybody.”
Meyer added: “We’ve got two weeks to get the strongest version of ourselves. They’re going to have four days off this week. That’s also new, so we’ve got to be great. If you do those four days right, and I’m not talking laying on your butt, but get strong, and we can come back stronger than we were before training camp. My expectations are that.”
It was a good day for Jacksonville, and hopefully, for them, they can build off this performance.
