University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Blake Anderson Weekly News Conference – The Troy Game
9/29/2026 2:13:00 PM | Football
HATTIESBURG, Miss. – Southern Miss football coach Blake Anderson addressed the media on Tuesday, Sept. 29, in the Duff Athletic Center ahead of the Golden Eagles' road and Sun Belt contest opener at Troy, Tuesday, Oct. 6. Game time is set for 7 p.m., at Veterans Memorial Stadium.
Southern Miss (1-3) looks to snap a three-game losing streak when they meet the Trojans (2-2) in both team's league opener.
On the call for the ESPN2 will be Clay Matvick (Play-by-Play) and Rocky Boiman (Analyst), while the Southern Miss Sports Network's radio pregame show begins at 5:30 p.m. with the Voice of the Golden Eagles, John Cox, analyst Lee Roberts and sideline reporter Jason Baker on the call.
Fans can still purchase tickets for the four remaining home game this season by visiting SouthernMiss.com/Tickets.
Here is what Anderson had to say to the media Tuesday morning:
Opening Statement from Coach Anderson
"Real quick, want to make a quick statement, kind of before we get going. Haven't talked in a couple days. Obviously, there's been tons of frustration and noise, a lot of chatter over the last couple days. Response to the loss, and probably more importantly, responses to how I answered one of the questions the other night, and I've kind of addressed that, and didn't answer the question the way I wanted to, and just didn't communicate really well, but honestly, I think there's two things that have gotten lost in the midst of all that. One of those is how our guys played Saturday night. There's been very little conversation about just how well they played and how much different we looked Saturday night as compared to previous weeks. I said it the other night and it just really kind of got lost in the shuffle. I could not be more proud of what they looked like Saturday night. We did not look like that against Auburn. We did not look like that against UConn, and even in the midst of really not a lot of positive over a couple weeks, it was really their work and their attitudes and consistency that we kept getting better, and everybody got a chance to see what they're capable of on Saturday night, and what they did was put us into a position on the road against a good team to win a game, and that's just not where we were. We did not play well against Auburn. We did not play well against UConn and just didn't put ourselves in that position. In this particular game, the defense came out playing lights out and allowed the offense to get their feet underneath them. Our coverage units were phenomenal. We held one of the best return guys we're going to see all year to virtually no yardage, one yard of punt returns, and I think 13 yards of kick returns, and it was a challenge all week. And then little by little, our offense got going. It was tough early against a good defensive front, and little by little, we got going and actually had more explosive plays than they did, and actually put ourselves in a position to come from behind, get the lead, and be in a position. So, I could not be more proud of how they handled the last couple weeks, and what they did on game day. And so, I want to make sure that's heard. I told them that yesterday. I'm never okay with a close loss. I'm never okay with a loss, period. But I am very pleased and encouraged at what I saw. I've been saying this for a month. If we play our best ball, if we play the way we're capable of, we can play with anybody. And we showed that Saturday night. Now, that being said, the second thing I think that got lost in the mix of all this, is that there is one very clear standard in this building. I said it day one when I got the job. I will say it every day for as long as I'm the head coach. 10 minutes from now, 10 years from now, we have one standard and one standard only, and that is to find a way to win, regardless of who we play, where we play, when we play, injuries, weather. We can play them on the moon. It does not matter. It is my job as a coach inside this building and our staff's job to get our guys in a position to be able to win on Saturday. And in that, I make zero excuses. We have not done a good enough job. They got us into the fourth quarter the other night, against an opponent that we can beat and should have beat, we should have won the game, and it falls on me. I'm the one in the experience. They have very little. That's the first time they've been in that situation, and I've got to get them to the finish line. Take full responsibility for that. I take full responsibility for us being overwhelmed at Auburn. Take full responsibility for our execution against UConn, we have to be better, and it starts with me at the top. Our standard is to win in spite of, regardless of who, when, where, and how, and that means the formula is going to have to be different every week. But what we saw Saturday night was our formula works. All right, we were patient early on offense, our defense and special teams kept us in it. And as you watch the game go on, our execution, our effort, and our endurance, we started taking over the game late, and we should have won the game. And I take full responsibility for not helping them get to the finish line in our inexperience show. Hopefully, we learn a lot from it because I think we're going to be in a lot of games like that this season. And when we get there a week from now or two weeks from now, we've got to be able to capture that moment. Myself, our staff have to be able to calm them down, put them in better situations to finish, and then I want them to have the confidence to go finish. That moment, but I really think those two things have gotten lost. You know, my frustration, the comment I made, got everything else going, and in the middle, our guys, how they played, got lost. I am making zero excuses, and I will never make an excuse for a loss. Our job to find a way to win. My job as a head coach to get the most out of our team, and we just haven't done that at a high enough level yet, but I'm excited and encouraged as we move into conference play that if we can get that team week in and week out, there is nobody on our schedule that we can't play with, and we just have to take that next step and learn how to finish when we get there. So again, I'm going to move forward. I'm not going to live in the past, and I'm definitely not going to live on social media, that's for y'all can do all that y'all want to, but I want our guys to get the acknowledgement. Then I want it very clearly to our fan base. It's my job. I take responsibility, and if we don't win a game, then we failed at doing what we're supposed to do. No excuses. Period."
Q: Like you said on Saturday that you challenged the team. In between the UConn and Tulane game, what about this team allowed them to respond the way that they did?
"We just have a great culture in this building. I think Matt Shadeed and the strength staff, and how they handle these guys when we're not around. How our staff and the relationships they've built in a very short period of time. This group of guys in this locker room are very unselfish, very willing to try to give us what we want. They have bought into the culture, the DNA of being unselfish, being selfless, tough and accountable. We talked, like, guys, I get it. You have to drown out the negative and the frustration of losing. I mean, we have a proud fan base. I want to win every time, as do they. And you just have to give the kids credit because our practices have gotten better. Our energy, our meetings and our walkthroughs have gotten better. I've been challenging them, but that's extremely hard when you're not seeing immediate gratification, and we've not seen that. And it's hard in a loss because, man, they're gutted. They know we had it right there, and they feel responsible for the loss. It's my responsibility to help them pass that, but it just comes back to culture. It comes back to the day-to-day environment, and you have to give the kids credit because we could have splintered at any point. I mean, we went three or four three-and-outs. Not one defensive player bitched at the offense. Matter of fact, they did the exact opposite. "We got you guys." It would've been very easy in that moment to splinter, and there's been plenty of opportunities between the beginning of the season and now to do the same. And these guys, they're doing an amazing job. I really couldn't be more proud. The results will come. They'll come if they'll just keep doing what they're doing. The results will come."
Q: You kind of mentioned it in your statement, but how much of Saturday, what happened in the fourth quarter, do you think was the team playing with the lead for the first time this season?
"Well, I mean, we haven't been there, and I do think for a lot of these guys, that's the first time they've been there. Clearly, the first time we've been there together. And there's just some nerve, some tightness. I got to do a better job. I've been there a bunch. You know, we've won those games before, and myself and our staff, we've got to help those guys in that. And I just don't think—I mean, I've second-guessed every call. We've watched it all. I haven't slept. I acknowledge way more over the losses than I celebrate the wins, and, you know, that's the nature of it. We've got to speed that curve up, but there's just some inexperience there that shows, and it's our job to help them get beyond that, get around it, get through it and still get to the finish line. So, I mean, they gave us everything they could, and we'll get better because of it."
Q: Coach, you mentioned it on Saturday night. You've been in this position before, where you haven't really done the best in non-conference play, but then you're able to turn it around in conference play. What did you see specifically on both sides of the ball that gives you confidence this team can?
"Yeah, I mean, that's—I've been in the same boat before. We talked about it yesterday. 1-3, 0-4, with tough starts, played good people, made mistakes, didn't play our best, but the guys continued to grow. To watch all three phases play and lean on each other—the defense hold them off early, our coverage units be elite, like literally. We challenged them. And to see our offense not get frustrated and quit, and we stay patient. We continue to chip away, and little by little, our culture, our effort, our attitude and our endurance changed that game. And we owned those guys. That's why I went for the tie late. I thought, "We get these dudes in overtime. There's no way these guys are scoring. There's no way they're going to beat us." But just visibly seeing it on the field, and then watching it on a day-to-day basis, how these guys have worked, it just gives me a tremendous amount of hope that we can play with anybody in the league. Now, that being said, I think every game is going to come down to a field goal, a last drive, either holding them off or going to win it. The league's too good to expect things are going to—ain't nothing going to be easy. But what we saw Saturday night should encourage everybody that cares about Southern Miss football. Like, that is who we've been trying to be. We take the next step and finish, and I think we'll be a really, really tough team to beat in conference play. So, you know, it's very similar to what I've seen in other teams as they grew and figured it out, and I'm hoping that that was the catalyst that gets us to that point. I mean, that's my hope and prayer. We work really hard at it, and I'm hoping this next week as we go to Troy, we can find a way to finish and get 1-0 in the league. I mean, that's where all our focus is, on those guys."
Q: Coach can you talk about now that you have watched the film, can you kind of go over that last sequence down there we needed to score on that last sequence specifically that little whip route into the boundary with 2 over 1?
"Well, the whip route was not the primary. The primary was the route on the back of the goal line that's wide open. But we had a bust up front in protection, and he had to get rid of the ball. We were trying to bait them. We beat our defense on that play. It was built exactly for their coverage. If you go back and watch the tape, we couldn't get a guy more open. It's a great design. We busted the protection. We had several of those throughout the night. That was a critical time that we can't have it. Miscommunication up front, and I think that's a product of, again, five guys still trying to figure each other out. The call got relayed incorrectly, and we turned a guy loose. And if you watch the tape, Liddy felt the pressure and got rid of the ball so as not to take the sack. But Mario Sanders is walking untouched on the back line, and we score a touchdown. We had that play dialed up exactly for that scenario, in that range of the field. They played it exactly how we thought they would, and they've got a good D-line, and we didn't block it correctly. So it's just one of those moments we got to learn from. We had to make a really big, critical decision. At that point, analytics were basically 50-50. It's a gut feeling. If they would've been playing with their starting quarterback, I'd have gone for the win. We'd have hammered the ball there on third down, you know, see where we were on fourth down. But I felt like with where they were, with their quarterback situation and where things were in the game and how they were trying to really bottle up and manage their offense at that point, we get that game in overtime. I have zero doubts we win the game, and so it never crossed my mind that we don't make that field goal. Never crossed my mind that it gets blocked. I just—you can't think that way. You know, hindsight, I always would've just hammered the ball at them and tried to win the game right there. But, you know, I never called a game in my life that I didn't have something I wanted back."
Q: Can you talk about maybe your conversations with Creighton Wilbanks after the game?
"Yeah, I told him the same thing: 'Dude, you're gonna have to make a game-winner next week, man. Move on.' You know, I told him last night, Champ Lewis gave up a post route the first quarter, and that dude turned right. He came off. I said, "Hey, next play, that's all that matters. You cannot live in the past. You can't worry about it. You can't fix it. Move on." And he went on and played a great game. We may need Creighton to kick a game-winner next week. Like, he's our field-goal kicker. He's our best answer at field-goal kicker. He's more than talented. And then we need the protection to do their job, too. So there's breakdowns. He kicked a good ball in the last one. I mean, our protection broke down. I need him to have confidence to go out and make the kick when it comes time, and we're not fixing to replace him. He's our guy. He's earned that right, and so we're going to ride with him, and he'll get better. He, like all these dudes, man, they're critical. They want to do well for themselves, for the team and for the fan base. Like, they want to perform well. He's disappointed, but he's a fighter. He'll go fight."
Q: Speaking of earning the right Lyddy—his first start of the year looked pretty great. What did you think of his performance?
"He did a great job. There's a couple plays he'd like back. I mean, he's devastated over the placement on the fade ball there late with Davis. We loved the matchup there, and obviously, you know, he had a great game. But when you watch the tape, I think—I even have him—you go back in slow motion and rewind it. How many times he got hit as he was releasing the ball? Just took a six-inch step and slid away from pressure and delivered some of the windows he threw the ball into, and the anticipation he used. I thought he did a great job and gained a lot of confidence in himself, but really, our teammates in him, especially watching just how many times he took licks and stood in the pocket. The corner route that he threw to Mario early in the game, I mean, he sat in the pocket, and that was a developing, long-developing route. And he got licked when he let it loose. I think anytime your teammates see you do that, I mean, they got tremendous respect for you. And so I love where we're headed moving forward with him. It took us longer to get to that point, and it took circumstances that were unique. But he's gonna take it and run with it, and I feel like we all come out of it feeling like we got a quarterback that we can lean on."
Q: So now that you see both of them, and I know Ethan, of course, with the hand injury, but watching it felt like he kind of could administered Cefalo's offense maybe with his skill set a little bit better than Hampton was able to the first few weeks.
"I don't know, I mean, I think there's so many factors that are even outside of Ethan's control. I don't want to pile it all on him. Now you got to give you know you got to give Liddy some credit. I mean, he's been in this offense for a year, like he was in my room every day, and we have not really changed the system. So he's got a year head start on Ethan. But when you watch the tape, you find out there are a lot of issues that happened that were outside of Ethan's control that you know he gets he gets the credit, but he also gets the blame at times. I don't want to be critical of him. He did a great job for us, and his attitude's been phenomenal. It is what it is. We got to this point from a really competitive competition. Even Liddy will tell you, man. He didn't handle the competition well. He was way too nice. He didn't compete near enough. You saw the Liddy that I knew was there on Saturday, but we really didn't see that. He was really, you know, just too agreeable during the whole process. And Ethan was just he went and got it, so he earned the job. And by circumstance, it's Liddy's, and then he took it and he did everything that you could ask him to do in the moment against a good defense, and put us in a position to win. And you know, I was pissed off when I left the field because I knew I left one out there that we should have won, and that that falls on me, man. That's my job to get him to the finish line. I hate that we got that close and didn't finish, and we'll learn from it, and I'll do better. But he did everything he needed to do. Did not turn the ball over, threw the ball on time, took lick after lick, moved the chains with his feet. We can win games with him doing that. We need to keep him healthy, and he'll just get better as we go."
Q: Before the season, leadership was a big point of discussion, what does leadership look like in the locker room?
"It's developing really well, and I think again we talked earlier how we have gotten to this point? Those guys are doing a good job. You know, Kobi Albert, Nasim Cairo, Laquan Robinson, Landon Sylvie-all those guys are on defense, and there's probably some other voices that are starting to step up offensively. You know, I think Greg Nunnery and Aloali'i Maui don't say a lot, but they've kind of stabilized kind of what's going on up front. Joe Rounds, at center, has been steady and doesn't say a lot. Again, just a presence. You know, Ethan did the best job he could in leading, and then you know I thought Liddy really this week picked it up and ran with it. It's been good to see these guys. A guy that typically is kind of strange to be a leader is your punter, but Dusty Zimmer is just this presence of work ethic. He may be one of the hardest lifters in the weight room of anybody I've ever seen at any position. The way he works and takes pride in his work and no nonsense. Like there's just there's a lot of guys that are stepping up into those roles little by little and gaining confidence. And it's been really good to get Jahmir Davis back too. There's a presence there, a veteran presence. You know, not afraid of the moment. Wants to be the guy. You call his number, and like you saw Saturday night man. There wasn't nobody afraid of that moment. We did not execute great down the stretch, but those guys felt like we belonged there. We did, and I think that that comes back to the culture, and the guys in the room that are growing and getting more and more comfortable and confident in their in their roles, you know, on a weekly basis."
Q: Can you touch on Briggs?
"Yeah, Briggs should be back. You know, we're going to test him today. We've got a really light practice today. It looks as if everything goes well, that he would be 100 percent for this game, and he'll be back. Jeffrey Rush he dislocated a big toe twice, twice in the game. Popped it back in, played through it, nasty. Hoping that we'll see that you know it's not anything that'll keep him out for a significant period of time. But he's going to be really sore for a while, inside that game, really bumps and bruises mainly a physical game. You know, there's a lot of banging going on in physical game, but other than that, I think mostly we should be okay, and hopefully, as I said, we'll get a couple back. Laquan Robinson went down with an ankle. It's lateral. It's not high. It's going to kind of be pain tolerance. He's already out of a boot walking. With the extra time, I'm encouraged that we'll get him back, but we'll have to see how he responds to treatment in the next few days but nothing that would keep somebody out for an extended period of time, unless Jeff needs surgery on the foot, which we'll find out probably later today tomorrow."
Q: Speak to how this Tuesday game changes up your schedule.
"Yeah, it really creates a good opportunity for us right now after four games to kind of reassess. It's not the same as an open game. I mean, it's really just have an extended time, way easier than a Thursday. So we get we're going to get an introductory practice on Troy tonight. We'll get a solid extra day on them tomorrow than we would normally get in a normal game week, we'll take Thursday off and let guys heal up, and then we'll get a normal game week cycle starting Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, leading into game time. So it's weird to play on a Tuesday, but it's also you know you don't have a short week, which we'll have a Thursday later in the season, which will be completely different. I think it comes at a good time. We get some guys back, a chance to get some guys healthy, really analyze our offense and defensive calls and tendencies, and what are we best at? What do we need to get away from? And really build off the momentum of this game. So I, I like how it comes. I wish it was here at home. We had to go on the road and find a way to win on the road. But I think the timing of it and the and the structure of it's not a bad thing for us. Hardest part is on Tuesday you got to figure out what to do with yourself all day when there's no game day on and no games on. Like it's a long, long Tuesday, but we'll figure out what to do with that."
Q: Preparing for Coach Parker's team, I remember that battle last year. What do you remember about that game and team?
"They're extremely well coached. I have a tremendous amount of respect. I watched them a ton of tape going into that game, and they didn't make mistakes. Like they made you earn it. Their intensity that they play with, effort in all three phases. Like, they cover kicks hard. You always find guys that maybe aren't playing on offense and defense that show up in special teams, there's some chaos on defense. We're going to have to handle. They'll bring them all. They'll bail them all. They'll move the front, and we didn't do a good job of that last year. Felt we were a little bit handcuffed with Braylon being hurt in that game a year ago, and we felt very you know we felt very handcuffed in terms of what we could do, and they sense that, and it took us a long time to get going. They will run the ball, they have a physical nature about them offensively. So I think it's going to be a great game. I think it's you know I expect it like every week to be a toe-to-toe slugfest, and if we can play and build off what we did, I love our opportunity to go win and find a way to be one and zero, but it'll be it'll be a great challenge, and we're going to have to finish it. I expect it to be 60 minutes of getting after each other."
Q: Maybe you're not thinking of it this way, but the fact that this game is a national spotlight, ESPN, just I mean, how can that kind of help program a little bit, or maybe?
"Well, I mean, anytime you go on national TV and you represent your logo well. I mean, I think that's got to be helpful. Recruiting-it's in our footprint. We recruit against each other every day. There, there's some residual benefits, but beyond that, man, it's still the same football. We've got to get better. We got to improve. I got to get them to that finish line, and we got to find a way to fight the one and zero on TV or not. I think that's just an added benefit for the kids. They enjoy it. People get to watch them that wouldn't normally get to come, and then obviously the fan base and the recruiting base. If you go play well, it helps in some conversations."
Southern Miss (1-3) looks to snap a three-game losing streak when they meet the Trojans (2-2) in both team's league opener.
On the call for the ESPN2 will be Clay Matvick (Play-by-Play) and Rocky Boiman (Analyst), while the Southern Miss Sports Network's radio pregame show begins at 5:30 p.m. with the Voice of the Golden Eagles, John Cox, analyst Lee Roberts and sideline reporter Jason Baker on the call.
Fans can still purchase tickets for the four remaining home game this season by visiting SouthernMiss.com/Tickets.
Here is what Anderson had to say to the media Tuesday morning:
Opening Statement from Coach Anderson
"Real quick, want to make a quick statement, kind of before we get going. Haven't talked in a couple days. Obviously, there's been tons of frustration and noise, a lot of chatter over the last couple days. Response to the loss, and probably more importantly, responses to how I answered one of the questions the other night, and I've kind of addressed that, and didn't answer the question the way I wanted to, and just didn't communicate really well, but honestly, I think there's two things that have gotten lost in the midst of all that. One of those is how our guys played Saturday night. There's been very little conversation about just how well they played and how much different we looked Saturday night as compared to previous weeks. I said it the other night and it just really kind of got lost in the shuffle. I could not be more proud of what they looked like Saturday night. We did not look like that against Auburn. We did not look like that against UConn, and even in the midst of really not a lot of positive over a couple weeks, it was really their work and their attitudes and consistency that we kept getting better, and everybody got a chance to see what they're capable of on Saturday night, and what they did was put us into a position on the road against a good team to win a game, and that's just not where we were. We did not play well against Auburn. We did not play well against UConn and just didn't put ourselves in that position. In this particular game, the defense came out playing lights out and allowed the offense to get their feet underneath them. Our coverage units were phenomenal. We held one of the best return guys we're going to see all year to virtually no yardage, one yard of punt returns, and I think 13 yards of kick returns, and it was a challenge all week. And then little by little, our offense got going. It was tough early against a good defensive front, and little by little, we got going and actually had more explosive plays than they did, and actually put ourselves in a position to come from behind, get the lead, and be in a position. So, I could not be more proud of how they handled the last couple weeks, and what they did on game day. And so, I want to make sure that's heard. I told them that yesterday. I'm never okay with a close loss. I'm never okay with a loss, period. But I am very pleased and encouraged at what I saw. I've been saying this for a month. If we play our best ball, if we play the way we're capable of, we can play with anybody. And we showed that Saturday night. Now, that being said, the second thing I think that got lost in the mix of all this, is that there is one very clear standard in this building. I said it day one when I got the job. I will say it every day for as long as I'm the head coach. 10 minutes from now, 10 years from now, we have one standard and one standard only, and that is to find a way to win, regardless of who we play, where we play, when we play, injuries, weather. We can play them on the moon. It does not matter. It is my job as a coach inside this building and our staff's job to get our guys in a position to be able to win on Saturday. And in that, I make zero excuses. We have not done a good enough job. They got us into the fourth quarter the other night, against an opponent that we can beat and should have beat, we should have won the game, and it falls on me. I'm the one in the experience. They have very little. That's the first time they've been in that situation, and I've got to get them to the finish line. Take full responsibility for that. I take full responsibility for us being overwhelmed at Auburn. Take full responsibility for our execution against UConn, we have to be better, and it starts with me at the top. Our standard is to win in spite of, regardless of who, when, where, and how, and that means the formula is going to have to be different every week. But what we saw Saturday night was our formula works. All right, we were patient early on offense, our defense and special teams kept us in it. And as you watch the game go on, our execution, our effort, and our endurance, we started taking over the game late, and we should have won the game. And I take full responsibility for not helping them get to the finish line in our inexperience show. Hopefully, we learn a lot from it because I think we're going to be in a lot of games like that this season. And when we get there a week from now or two weeks from now, we've got to be able to capture that moment. Myself, our staff have to be able to calm them down, put them in better situations to finish, and then I want them to have the confidence to go finish. That moment, but I really think those two things have gotten lost. You know, my frustration, the comment I made, got everything else going, and in the middle, our guys, how they played, got lost. I am making zero excuses, and I will never make an excuse for a loss. Our job to find a way to win. My job as a head coach to get the most out of our team, and we just haven't done that at a high enough level yet, but I'm excited and encouraged as we move into conference play that if we can get that team week in and week out, there is nobody on our schedule that we can't play with, and we just have to take that next step and learn how to finish when we get there. So again, I'm going to move forward. I'm not going to live in the past, and I'm definitely not going to live on social media, that's for y'all can do all that y'all want to, but I want our guys to get the acknowledgement. Then I want it very clearly to our fan base. It's my job. I take responsibility, and if we don't win a game, then we failed at doing what we're supposed to do. No excuses. Period."
Q: Like you said on Saturday that you challenged the team. In between the UConn and Tulane game, what about this team allowed them to respond the way that they did?
"We just have a great culture in this building. I think Matt Shadeed and the strength staff, and how they handle these guys when we're not around. How our staff and the relationships they've built in a very short period of time. This group of guys in this locker room are very unselfish, very willing to try to give us what we want. They have bought into the culture, the DNA of being unselfish, being selfless, tough and accountable. We talked, like, guys, I get it. You have to drown out the negative and the frustration of losing. I mean, we have a proud fan base. I want to win every time, as do they. And you just have to give the kids credit because our practices have gotten better. Our energy, our meetings and our walkthroughs have gotten better. I've been challenging them, but that's extremely hard when you're not seeing immediate gratification, and we've not seen that. And it's hard in a loss because, man, they're gutted. They know we had it right there, and they feel responsible for the loss. It's my responsibility to help them pass that, but it just comes back to culture. It comes back to the day-to-day environment, and you have to give the kids credit because we could have splintered at any point. I mean, we went three or four three-and-outs. Not one defensive player bitched at the offense. Matter of fact, they did the exact opposite. "We got you guys." It would've been very easy in that moment to splinter, and there's been plenty of opportunities between the beginning of the season and now to do the same. And these guys, they're doing an amazing job. I really couldn't be more proud. The results will come. They'll come if they'll just keep doing what they're doing. The results will come."
Q: You kind of mentioned it in your statement, but how much of Saturday, what happened in the fourth quarter, do you think was the team playing with the lead for the first time this season?
"Well, I mean, we haven't been there, and I do think for a lot of these guys, that's the first time they've been there. Clearly, the first time we've been there together. And there's just some nerve, some tightness. I got to do a better job. I've been there a bunch. You know, we've won those games before, and myself and our staff, we've got to help those guys in that. And I just don't think—I mean, I've second-guessed every call. We've watched it all. I haven't slept. I acknowledge way more over the losses than I celebrate the wins, and, you know, that's the nature of it. We've got to speed that curve up, but there's just some inexperience there that shows, and it's our job to help them get beyond that, get around it, get through it and still get to the finish line. So, I mean, they gave us everything they could, and we'll get better because of it."
Q: Coach, you mentioned it on Saturday night. You've been in this position before, where you haven't really done the best in non-conference play, but then you're able to turn it around in conference play. What did you see specifically on both sides of the ball that gives you confidence this team can?
"Yeah, I mean, that's—I've been in the same boat before. We talked about it yesterday. 1-3, 0-4, with tough starts, played good people, made mistakes, didn't play our best, but the guys continued to grow. To watch all three phases play and lean on each other—the defense hold them off early, our coverage units be elite, like literally. We challenged them. And to see our offense not get frustrated and quit, and we stay patient. We continue to chip away, and little by little, our culture, our effort, our attitude and our endurance changed that game. And we owned those guys. That's why I went for the tie late. I thought, "We get these dudes in overtime. There's no way these guys are scoring. There's no way they're going to beat us." But just visibly seeing it on the field, and then watching it on a day-to-day basis, how these guys have worked, it just gives me a tremendous amount of hope that we can play with anybody in the league. Now, that being said, I think every game is going to come down to a field goal, a last drive, either holding them off or going to win it. The league's too good to expect things are going to—ain't nothing going to be easy. But what we saw Saturday night should encourage everybody that cares about Southern Miss football. Like, that is who we've been trying to be. We take the next step and finish, and I think we'll be a really, really tough team to beat in conference play. So, you know, it's very similar to what I've seen in other teams as they grew and figured it out, and I'm hoping that that was the catalyst that gets us to that point. I mean, that's my hope and prayer. We work really hard at it, and I'm hoping this next week as we go to Troy, we can find a way to finish and get 1-0 in the league. I mean, that's where all our focus is, on those guys."
Q: Coach can you talk about now that you have watched the film, can you kind of go over that last sequence down there we needed to score on that last sequence specifically that little whip route into the boundary with 2 over 1?
"Well, the whip route was not the primary. The primary was the route on the back of the goal line that's wide open. But we had a bust up front in protection, and he had to get rid of the ball. We were trying to bait them. We beat our defense on that play. It was built exactly for their coverage. If you go back and watch the tape, we couldn't get a guy more open. It's a great design. We busted the protection. We had several of those throughout the night. That was a critical time that we can't have it. Miscommunication up front, and I think that's a product of, again, five guys still trying to figure each other out. The call got relayed incorrectly, and we turned a guy loose. And if you watch the tape, Liddy felt the pressure and got rid of the ball so as not to take the sack. But Mario Sanders is walking untouched on the back line, and we score a touchdown. We had that play dialed up exactly for that scenario, in that range of the field. They played it exactly how we thought they would, and they've got a good D-line, and we didn't block it correctly. So it's just one of those moments we got to learn from. We had to make a really big, critical decision. At that point, analytics were basically 50-50. It's a gut feeling. If they would've been playing with their starting quarterback, I'd have gone for the win. We'd have hammered the ball there on third down, you know, see where we were on fourth down. But I felt like with where they were, with their quarterback situation and where things were in the game and how they were trying to really bottle up and manage their offense at that point, we get that game in overtime. I have zero doubts we win the game, and so it never crossed my mind that we don't make that field goal. Never crossed my mind that it gets blocked. I just—you can't think that way. You know, hindsight, I always would've just hammered the ball at them and tried to win the game right there. But, you know, I never called a game in my life that I didn't have something I wanted back."
Q: Can you talk about maybe your conversations with Creighton Wilbanks after the game?
"Yeah, I told him the same thing: 'Dude, you're gonna have to make a game-winner next week, man. Move on.' You know, I told him last night, Champ Lewis gave up a post route the first quarter, and that dude turned right. He came off. I said, "Hey, next play, that's all that matters. You cannot live in the past. You can't worry about it. You can't fix it. Move on." And he went on and played a great game. We may need Creighton to kick a game-winner next week. Like, he's our field-goal kicker. He's our best answer at field-goal kicker. He's more than talented. And then we need the protection to do their job, too. So there's breakdowns. He kicked a good ball in the last one. I mean, our protection broke down. I need him to have confidence to go out and make the kick when it comes time, and we're not fixing to replace him. He's our guy. He's earned that right, and so we're going to ride with him, and he'll get better. He, like all these dudes, man, they're critical. They want to do well for themselves, for the team and for the fan base. Like, they want to perform well. He's disappointed, but he's a fighter. He'll go fight."
Q: Speaking of earning the right Lyddy—his first start of the year looked pretty great. What did you think of his performance?
"He did a great job. There's a couple plays he'd like back. I mean, he's devastated over the placement on the fade ball there late with Davis. We loved the matchup there, and obviously, you know, he had a great game. But when you watch the tape, I think—I even have him—you go back in slow motion and rewind it. How many times he got hit as he was releasing the ball? Just took a six-inch step and slid away from pressure and delivered some of the windows he threw the ball into, and the anticipation he used. I thought he did a great job and gained a lot of confidence in himself, but really, our teammates in him, especially watching just how many times he took licks and stood in the pocket. The corner route that he threw to Mario early in the game, I mean, he sat in the pocket, and that was a developing, long-developing route. And he got licked when he let it loose. I think anytime your teammates see you do that, I mean, they got tremendous respect for you. And so I love where we're headed moving forward with him. It took us longer to get to that point, and it took circumstances that were unique. But he's gonna take it and run with it, and I feel like we all come out of it feeling like we got a quarterback that we can lean on."
Q: So now that you see both of them, and I know Ethan, of course, with the hand injury, but watching it felt like he kind of could administered Cefalo's offense maybe with his skill set a little bit better than Hampton was able to the first few weeks.
"I don't know, I mean, I think there's so many factors that are even outside of Ethan's control. I don't want to pile it all on him. Now you got to give you know you got to give Liddy some credit. I mean, he's been in this offense for a year, like he was in my room every day, and we have not really changed the system. So he's got a year head start on Ethan. But when you watch the tape, you find out there are a lot of issues that happened that were outside of Ethan's control that you know he gets he gets the credit, but he also gets the blame at times. I don't want to be critical of him. He did a great job for us, and his attitude's been phenomenal. It is what it is. We got to this point from a really competitive competition. Even Liddy will tell you, man. He didn't handle the competition well. He was way too nice. He didn't compete near enough. You saw the Liddy that I knew was there on Saturday, but we really didn't see that. He was really, you know, just too agreeable during the whole process. And Ethan was just he went and got it, so he earned the job. And by circumstance, it's Liddy's, and then he took it and he did everything that you could ask him to do in the moment against a good defense, and put us in a position to win. And you know, I was pissed off when I left the field because I knew I left one out there that we should have won, and that that falls on me, man. That's my job to get him to the finish line. I hate that we got that close and didn't finish, and we'll learn from it, and I'll do better. But he did everything he needed to do. Did not turn the ball over, threw the ball on time, took lick after lick, moved the chains with his feet. We can win games with him doing that. We need to keep him healthy, and he'll just get better as we go."
Q: Before the season, leadership was a big point of discussion, what does leadership look like in the locker room?
"It's developing really well, and I think again we talked earlier how we have gotten to this point? Those guys are doing a good job. You know, Kobi Albert, Nasim Cairo, Laquan Robinson, Landon Sylvie-all those guys are on defense, and there's probably some other voices that are starting to step up offensively. You know, I think Greg Nunnery and Aloali'i Maui don't say a lot, but they've kind of stabilized kind of what's going on up front. Joe Rounds, at center, has been steady and doesn't say a lot. Again, just a presence. You know, Ethan did the best job he could in leading, and then you know I thought Liddy really this week picked it up and ran with it. It's been good to see these guys. A guy that typically is kind of strange to be a leader is your punter, but Dusty Zimmer is just this presence of work ethic. He may be one of the hardest lifters in the weight room of anybody I've ever seen at any position. The way he works and takes pride in his work and no nonsense. Like there's just there's a lot of guys that are stepping up into those roles little by little and gaining confidence. And it's been really good to get Jahmir Davis back too. There's a presence there, a veteran presence. You know, not afraid of the moment. Wants to be the guy. You call his number, and like you saw Saturday night man. There wasn't nobody afraid of that moment. We did not execute great down the stretch, but those guys felt like we belonged there. We did, and I think that that comes back to the culture, and the guys in the room that are growing and getting more and more comfortable and confident in their in their roles, you know, on a weekly basis."
Q: Can you touch on Briggs?
"Yeah, Briggs should be back. You know, we're going to test him today. We've got a really light practice today. It looks as if everything goes well, that he would be 100 percent for this game, and he'll be back. Jeffrey Rush he dislocated a big toe twice, twice in the game. Popped it back in, played through it, nasty. Hoping that we'll see that you know it's not anything that'll keep him out for a significant period of time. But he's going to be really sore for a while, inside that game, really bumps and bruises mainly a physical game. You know, there's a lot of banging going on in physical game, but other than that, I think mostly we should be okay, and hopefully, as I said, we'll get a couple back. Laquan Robinson went down with an ankle. It's lateral. It's not high. It's going to kind of be pain tolerance. He's already out of a boot walking. With the extra time, I'm encouraged that we'll get him back, but we'll have to see how he responds to treatment in the next few days but nothing that would keep somebody out for an extended period of time, unless Jeff needs surgery on the foot, which we'll find out probably later today tomorrow."
Q: Speak to how this Tuesday game changes up your schedule.
"Yeah, it really creates a good opportunity for us right now after four games to kind of reassess. It's not the same as an open game. I mean, it's really just have an extended time, way easier than a Thursday. So we get we're going to get an introductory practice on Troy tonight. We'll get a solid extra day on them tomorrow than we would normally get in a normal game week, we'll take Thursday off and let guys heal up, and then we'll get a normal game week cycle starting Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, leading into game time. So it's weird to play on a Tuesday, but it's also you know you don't have a short week, which we'll have a Thursday later in the season, which will be completely different. I think it comes at a good time. We get some guys back, a chance to get some guys healthy, really analyze our offense and defensive calls and tendencies, and what are we best at? What do we need to get away from? And really build off the momentum of this game. So I, I like how it comes. I wish it was here at home. We had to go on the road and find a way to win on the road. But I think the timing of it and the and the structure of it's not a bad thing for us. Hardest part is on Tuesday you got to figure out what to do with yourself all day when there's no game day on and no games on. Like it's a long, long Tuesday, but we'll figure out what to do with that."
Q: Preparing for Coach Parker's team, I remember that battle last year. What do you remember about that game and team?
"They're extremely well coached. I have a tremendous amount of respect. I watched them a ton of tape going into that game, and they didn't make mistakes. Like they made you earn it. Their intensity that they play with, effort in all three phases. Like, they cover kicks hard. You always find guys that maybe aren't playing on offense and defense that show up in special teams, there's some chaos on defense. We're going to have to handle. They'll bring them all. They'll bail them all. They'll move the front, and we didn't do a good job of that last year. Felt we were a little bit handcuffed with Braylon being hurt in that game a year ago, and we felt very you know we felt very handcuffed in terms of what we could do, and they sense that, and it took us a long time to get going. They will run the ball, they have a physical nature about them offensively. So I think it's going to be a great game. I think it's you know I expect it like every week to be a toe-to-toe slugfest, and if we can play and build off what we did, I love our opportunity to go win and find a way to be one and zero, but it'll be it'll be a great challenge, and we're going to have to finish it. I expect it to be 60 minutes of getting after each other."
Q: Maybe you're not thinking of it this way, but the fact that this game is a national spotlight, ESPN, just I mean, how can that kind of help program a little bit, or maybe?
"Well, I mean, anytime you go on national TV and you represent your logo well. I mean, I think that's got to be helpful. Recruiting-it's in our footprint. We recruit against each other every day. There, there's some residual benefits, but beyond that, man, it's still the same football. We've got to get better. We got to improve. I got to get them to that finish line, and we got to find a way to fight the one and zero on TV or not. I think that's just an added benefit for the kids. They enjoy it. People get to watch them that wouldn't normally get to come, and then obviously the fan base and the recruiting base. If you go play well, it helps in some conversations."
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