Southern entered the season with championship aspirations under first-year coach Marshall Faulk.

With four games remaining, the Jaguars are 3-5 overall and 1-3 in the Southwestern Athletic Conference, tied for last place in the West division. If you ask any player or coach whether the title aspirations remain, they will answer in the affirmative.

To inch closer to that goal, the Jaguars must be focused on beating SWAC East division foe Florida A&M (2-6, 1-3) at 2 p.m. Saturday at Bragg Memorial Stadium in Tallahassee, Florida.

Faulk hasn’t explicitly discussed Southern’s spot in the SWAC West with his players.

“No, I don't address standings at all,” he said. “We go out, we practice, play by play, series by series, quarter by quarter, half by half, game by game. We're still in the business of just those small wins.”

He said he’ll probably talk to his team about how its chances of winning the division are shrinking after its 24-21 loss to Texas Southern last week.

“One thing I did say last week was the good part about the situation that we were in last week was we had control of our future, and you always want control of your future,” Faulk said. “What I'll probably tell them tomorrow is we're not anymore, but we still get to play hard.”

The four teams in the SWAC West ahead of Southern have two losses, including reigning conference champion Prairie View (4-5, 3-2), which lost to the Jaguars 28-14.

Southern players know their situation and monitor the results of conference games.

“I always keep up with it,” Southern safety Herman Brister said Oct. 20. “We know what's at stake, and we know it's up for grabs for anybody.”

Freshman Hunter Schnakenberg said said he doesn’t fixate on it.

“We don't really pay attention to that,” he said Tuesday. “We kind of just want to play our brand of football and do what we do … and wherever that leaves us, then that's where we're going to be in the standings. But I know we're lower on the totem pole, but we know what we can be, and we're going to work to execute who we are.”

Ckelby Givens, who had six tackles in his return after missing the previous two games because of a concussion, said he’ll do his part to make sure his team doesn’t assume anything is decided yet.

“We know that we still got a chance because teams lose,” he said last Saturday. “The SWAC's kinda crazy, so we still got a chance, you know. So we just taking it one week at a time.”

Linebacker Tay James, who is fourth in the SWAC with 59 tackles, agreed with Givens about the volatility of the conference

“People losing every week in the SWAC,” he said. “SWAC is up and down, so the only thing we can do at this point is finish strong.”

Offensive lineman Raul Aguilar said the team’s attitude at practice Tuesday didn’t resemble what some may expect after losing on a game-winning field goal three days earlier. He said the team rule is that after 24 hours, the last game takes a backseat to the next week.

Aguilar also shared how team leaders, such as running back Trey Holly, have stepped up vocally.

“You can’t be down,” Aguilar said. “We have four weeks left. We can’t be down because we still got to win those. I believe we still have a chance if we just win all these four. So Trey Holly today, he was very positive. In our little huddle, he's like, ‘You know, come on, y'all keep doing y'all thing. Keep going. Yes, we lost, but, OK, on to the next.’ ”