Southern Miss Football vs. Marshall Notes

Oct. 29, 2016

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Southern Miss Captains: 12 â€" D'Nerius Antoine, 69 â€" Wil Freeman, 75 â€" Oliver Bates

Team Notes: Southern Miss won the toss and chose to receive.

• The Golden Eagles snapped a two-game overall losing streak and five-game string to Marshall.
• Head coach Jay Hopson is now tied for the seventh-most victories (five) for a first-year Southern Miss coach along with B.B. O'Mara (1920) and P.W. Underwood (1969).
• Southern Miss picked up its third C-USA win of the year, having previously beaten UTEP (34-7) and Rice (44-28) back-to-back.
• The Golden Eagles have also won consecutive homecomings as well as 12 over the past 16 seasons.
• The squad is now one win away from bowl eligibility.

Offensive Notes:

• Nick Mullens is now the all-time passing leader at Southern Miss with 11,057 yards, passing Austin Davis (2008-11). Mullens has now thrown for 200 yards in 33 games to set the all-time record for most such performances.
• Mullens even extended his school record of 300-yard games to 16.
• The Golden Eagles' opening drive of 75 yards in 15 plays ties a season-high for most plays during a scoring drive. The LSU game's first drive was also a 15-play, 75-yard march that ended in a short Ito Smith TD run.
• Ten of the past 12 Southern Miss scoring drives have been double-digit plays.
• Ito Smith has scored a touchdown in 13 straight games.
• Smith has rushed for 100 yards five times this season and 13 in his career. One more game over the century mark will tie him with Derrick Nix for third all-time at Southern Miss (1998-00, 2002).
• Smith is still the team's third-leading receiver after having four for 43 yards out of the backfield.
• Allenzae Staggers has a team-high six touchdown receptions on the year. He finished with seven catches for 99 yards, and those seven tie for the most by a Golden Eagle this season.

Defensive Notes:

• Southern Miss gave up just 226 yards, the fewest by an FBS opponent since Rice had 214 in 2015.
• Southern Miss allowed just 60 rushing yards, its best showing since giving up 11 to Savannah State in the home opener. That number was also the lowest by an FBS team against the Golden Eagles since Louisiana Tech had negative-2 in 2015.
• Marshall converted just one of its 13 third-downs, the third time an opponent had just a single success against Southern Miss (Savannah State and UTEP).
• The 7.7 percent third-down conversion percentage was the best defensive showing since at least 2004.
• The 11 first downs allowed marked the third-fewest this season, behind 3 against Savannah State and 10 by UTEP.
• Dylan Bradley extended his team-lead to 6.5 sacks after leading everyone with 1.5 tonight. Ja'Boree Poole, Darian Yancey and Elijah Parker also had a half-sack as well.
• Cornell Armstrong's eight tackles (six solo) tied for a game-high.
• D'Nerius Antoine and Picasso Nelson each broke up two passes.

Special Team Notes:

• Parker Shaunfield made his first field goal of the night, extending his streak to 12 on the year. That was tied for third-most in the country before his second attempt was wide.

University of Southern Mississippi Athletics