Coach Jay Hopson Media Conference Transcript (Nov. 12, 2018)

HATTIESBURG, Miss. -- Southern Miss football coach Jay Hopson held his weekly news conference at the Duff Athletic Center, Monday, as the Golden Eagles get ready for Senior Day this weekend when they entertain longtime rival Louisiana Tech.

The Golden Eagles and Bulldogs play at 2:30 p.m. CT and the game can be viewed on Stadium, as well as be heard on one of the affiliates of the Southern Miss IMG Sports Network.

Here are some of things Hopson said during his news conference:

Opening Statement
"Tough loss -- it was a heartbreaker. If you were there, then you know what I'm talking about. Bottom line, it's a heartbreaking loss. It really was, but we'll go back to work. I know this football team will come out fighting. It's life, it's adversity and we just have to continue to press on."

Hopson on end of regulation
"This is the problem... Parker actually strained his groin. He came to me and said he can't make it unless we get to the 25. We tried to throw an out-route on that first one to try to get inside the 25... We threw the pass and it was incomplete. Now you're down to 10 seconds. If we complete it and stay inbounds, time runs out. It was just kind of what Alabama did to Georgia and we thought me might take a quick shot. If it's incomplete, then we still have another play to try something else. We knew we weren't in field goal range at that moment. That was our dilemma. If he had been healthy, we would have just run it down to two seconds and see if he could kick the 54-yarder."

Update on Jack Abraham
"I'm hoping he's ready to roll. I keep saying that every week and he is getting better. He did just about everything with us. They're telling me he's ready, so we're going to get him out there today and see how he's doing."

On possible twelfth game
"Don't know yet. We're not counting on that. We're going to take it one week at a time and get ready for this week and get ready for next week."

On getting Darius Maberry back
"It was good to see him back there. He had some good runs and we know he's a talented young man. He's going to be an outstanding player. When you look at some of those young tailbacks, they're going to be really good football players. He got his brace off last week and we got him running. It's been almost a year now, so he's back to 100 percent healthy."

On LA Tech
"They're another tough Conference USA opponent. We know they have our utmost respect and we know it's going to be 60-minute battle like it is every week. We know we've got a really good football team coming to town and it is Conference USA play. They're good in all phases of the game."

On Southern Miss senior class
"Those guys are soldiers. They keep fighting. The reality is we've just got to play hard and keep fighting and competing like we're doing. That's one thing I love about this football team, these guys are fighting. There's no quit in these guys. They continue to battle back. Everything was going wrong in the third quarter that could go wrong [on Saturday] and then you look up in the fourth quarter to see it tied up. We had an opportunity there late. We fought in overtime. Again, that's something about this football team. You go back to the Charlotte game, Auburn and it doesn't matter, they keep fighting."

On Tate Whatley
"He's tough as nails. Tate's a tough guy, he really is. He's got a lot of grit and to be as young as he is with the things he does, he's going to be a special football player in time. I love him to death and I love his spirit. That tough spirit is Southern Miss spirit. You could tell Tate was a competitor and tough guy [when we recruited him]."

Coach Jay Hopson Media Conference Transcript (Nov. 12, 2018)

Players Mentioned

Jack Abraham

Darius Maberry

Tate Whatley

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