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Southern Miss hangs on to beat Louisiana-Lafayette in New Orleans Bowl
Southern Mississippi will finish the season above .500 thanks to a New Orleans Bowl win over Louisiana-Lafayette. The Golden Eagles won 28-21 after a last-chance drive by the Ragin’ Cajuns came up short.
ULL got the ball back trailing by seven points with just over two minutes left and one timeout remaining. But the potential game-tying drive stalled near midfield thanks to four-straight running plays and a sack that followed.
From the time ULL QB Anthony Jennings scrambled on the first of four run plays to when he was sacked and the Cajuns used their final timeout, nearly 80 seconds ticked off the clock. And those 80 seconds even included two Southern Miss timeouts for defensive adjustments. It was quite the odd display of hurry-up football.
So even if Jennings’ fourth-down pass would have been completed with 12 seconds to go inside the Southern Miss 30 yard-line, the chances of a comeback were still pretty slim.
Southern Miss wide receiver Allenzae Staggers set a New Orleans Bowl record for receiving yards with 230 on 11 receptions. He had seven catches for 202 yards in the first half and his eighth catch was a touchdown that gave the Eagles a 21-14 lead in the third quarter.
The game was Staggers’ second 200-yard game of the season — and second game over 100 yards — and put him over the 1,000-yard mark for the season. The junior finishes the season with 63 catches for 1,165 yards and seven touchdowns.
Southern Miss running back Ito Smith had 26 carries for 138 yards and two touchdowns to give first-year coach Jay Hopson a 7-6 record in 2016. Hopson was hired as the Eagles’ coach after Todd Monken left in January to be the offensive coordinator for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
ULL finishes the season 6-7.
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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
