Football Returns Home to Meet Old Conference USA Foe Marshall Saturday Afternoon

HATTIESBURG, Miss. – Southern Miss football welcomes an old foe to The Rock this weekend when they play host to Marshall for the first time since both schools became members of the Sun Belt Conference prior to the 2022 season.

The Golden Eagles (1-7, 0-4 Sun Belt Conference) face off with the Thundering Herd (5-3, 3-1) at 2 p.m., Saturday at Carlisle-Faulkner Field at M.M. Roberts Stadium. The game will be telecasted via ESPN+, as well as broadcasted by the Southern Miss Sports Network and through SouthernMiss.com.

The two schools, which met for the first time in 2005 with the outcome decided on a 34-yard Darren McCaleb game-winning field goal in overtime, started a series which saw the Golden Eagles win the first three meetings as well as five of the first six. Southern Miss leads the series 8-6 overall, which includes a current three-game winning streak over The Herd heading into this contest.

In the 14 previous meetings – all as members of Conference USA - the two teams shared a bunch of close affairs, including a 26-24 decision for Southern Miss the last time these two programs met during the 2018 campaign. Six games in the series have been decided by seven or fewer points and the Golden Eagles are 4-2 in those contests.

Heading into this game, the Golden Eagles look to snap a current six-game losing streak. Coming off a bye week, Southern Miss played toe-to-toe with James Madison two weeks ago but mistakes by the Golden Eagles helped the Dukes pull away in the contest.

"We did a lot of great things, especially defensively, and we did some good things offensively, too," said Southern Miss interim head coach Reed Stringer when he addressed the media earlier this week. "We've been talking about how we need to keep getting better at what we do and quit having costly penalties and mistakes that are huge deals in the game. We're going to take the momentum of some of the things we did well and really talk about the things we didn't do well to try to get fixed and try to play more of a complete game. For us to win a football game, especially these last four, we're going to have to play a complete game in all three phases and not beat ourselves."

Leading the way for the Golden Eagles is sophomore quarterback Ethan Crawford, who looks to make his fourth-straight start in the game. Crawford has thrown for 772 yards this season and ran for another 206 and will be looked upon to make the offense go this weekend.

He will be joined in the ground game by both Dreke Clark that has a team-best 341 yards rushing this season, along with Kenyon Clay who has 281 yards with a team-best six touchdowns. Clay has scored at least one rushing touchdown in each of the last four games.

In the air, Larry Simmons leads the Golden Eagle receivers with 307 receiving yards, while Ti Mims leads in catches with 22.

On defense, graduate transfer Tre' Pinkney leads the defense with 53 tackles, while freshman Chris Jones ranks second at 38 and senior Dylan Lawrences ranks third at 36.

Tickets for all Southern Miss football games can be purchased by going online at SouthernMissTickets.com, by calling 1-800-844-TICK (8425) or by visiting the Pat Ferlise Ticket Office at the corner of 4th Street and Golden Eagle Way weekdays between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.

Football Returns Home to Meet Old Conference USA Foe Marshall Saturday Afternoon

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Players Mentioned

Kenyon Clay

Ethan Crawford

Chris Jones

Dylan Lawrence

Larry Simmons