The Lincoln Blue Tiger offense struggled to move the chains last Saturday.
By the time Lincoln finally made a first down, the Quincy Hawks already had a 33-0 lead en route to a 40-14 victory.
The Blue Tigers were also held to negative yardage offensively in the first half, making it tougher to get that initial first down. Through three games, they have totaled 36 first downs and have only been in the red zone three times.
Lincoln will look to turn around that trend as it travels tonight to Kirksville to face the Truman State Bulldogs in a Great Lakes Valley Conference matchup. Kickoff is at 7 p.m. at Stokes Stadium.
"You don't want to play behind the chains," Jones said. "You want to be in second-and-7 or less, you want to be in third-and-5 or less. Now you got the option to run the ball instead of throwing the ball.
"First and second down is critical for us."
Jones said last week's loss was a letdown after the Blue Tigers had a good week of practice. He said more emphasis has been placed this week on carrying its practice habits into game day.
"We have good practices, we do a good job of executing during practice," Jones said. "What we don't do is we don't transition from practice field to game field. We start off a little too slow and we need to pick up the pace when we start."
The offense picked up against Quincy when Dennis Vinson was inserted into the game at quarterback. Vinson, who started in the season opener, finished with 202 yards passing, all in the second half, and threw two touchdowns. Andrew McIntyre took the starting role from Vinson in Week 2 after he suffered a knee injury, but now Vinson is listed as the starter on the depth chart for today's game against Truman State.
Both players have been neck-and-neck on the depth chart this season, but that's where their similarities end.
"You have to get used to the cadence of one guy to another, and the next thing is one of them is right-handed and one of them is left-handed, so the spin of the ball is different," Jones said. " But we have to do it because both guys are playing well enough that they deserve to play. Hopefully we can work out a good system to do it."
The Lincoln defense is allowing 32 points per game, which is just under the 32.7 points per game scored by the Truman State offense. The Bulldogs won their GLVC opener last Saturday at Missouri S&T 44-20.
The Bulldogs are led by Jaden Barr, a redshirt-freshman who was an all-state quarterback with the California Pintos in 2014. Barr has passed for 489 yards and six touchdowns - five of those came in a 35-3 win against Malone on Sept. 10 - and has also rushed for 97 yards and two scores.
Offensively, Truman State doesn't rely on one person to control its ground game.
"This team is a little bit different," Jones said. "They don't have a feature back. They have a bunch of guys that do a good job."
Barr is one of four different Bulldogs to compile 15 or more carries through the first three games. Leading the way in that category is freshman running back Jordan Salima, who has 52 carries for 152 yards and two touchdowns.
"When you watch them run the football, they have running backs that aren't 230 pounds. These guys are 205, 210 pounds, guys that are more quick than they are long striders," Jones said.
Truman State's defense is allowing 18 points per game. The Bulldogs are led by junior linebacker Ben Wellman with 21 tackles. Junior safety Jordan Brown is second on the team with 20 tackles, but six of them have been for a loss.
"They are very similar to Quincy in that they're not overly big, but they play extremely hard and extremely fast," Jones said of Truman State's defense.
While Jones has put an emphasis for the Lincoln offense to stay on the field more often, just as much weight has been placed on the defense to get off the field after third down. Last week, Quincy converted on 9-of-17 third downs, including two third-and-long situations on the opening drive that were a backbreaker for Lincoln.
"We haven't done a good job of getting off the field on third down (on defense), nor staying on the field on third down (on offense)," Jones said. "That has been our Achilles heel for the entire season. We can't sustain drives because we got off the field on third down, we can't minimize downs because they get the first down.
"We have to do a better job on third down."
Notes: Truman State won last year's meeting against Lincoln 31-14 in Jefferson City. The Bulldogs lead the overall series 21-4-1 against the Blue Tigers. Salima was named the GLVC Special Teams Player of the Week on Monday. He had four kickoff returns for 173 yards (43.2 avg.) against Missouri S&T, which ranks second all-time in GLVC single-game records. Jones said Christian Winston may not dress again today for the Blue Tigers. The junior offensive lineman has not played since suffering a lower leg injury just before halftime in the season opener Sept. 3.
Listen:
Lincoln Blue Tigers Football Podcast [Truman State preview, Sept. 24, 2016]