Southern Miss survives: Coast stars shine, the run game fails & what’s up with the QBs?

Southern Miss (1-1) overcame a slow start on Saturday to put away Southeastern Louisiana (0-2), 35-10, in the Golden Eagles’ home-opener.

Tate Rodemaker threw for 179 yards and 2 touchdowns and safety Dylan Lawrence returned a fourth-quarter interception 63 yards for a score to separate USM from its FCS counterpart.

Moss Point graduate and Ole Miss transfer Larry Simmons recorded his first career 100-yard game and did it on a career-high five receptions.

Simmons — who made his first collegiate catch last week against Kentucky — helped spark an offense that struggled to gain any traction in the first quarter.

Southern Miss tallied just 12 total yards through its first three drives and its only score in that span was aided by an SLU dropped punt inside its own 15-yard line.

Simmons was called on in the second quarter and he answered with four receptions, one being a critical 49-yard gain on 3rd and 19 and led directly to the Eagles’ second touchdown of the game.

Turnovers, penalties, missed field goals and a stuck-in-the-mud run game plagued USM throughout the night, but ramped-up defensive pressure in the second half kept the Lions at arms length.

The Golden Eagles got to SLU quarterback Ethan Sawyer three times in the second half and ended the game with nine tackles for loss with five pass breakups. Lawrence — another Coast product from George County — sealed the win with his pick-six and running back Kenyon Clay tacked on insurance with a 70-yard touchdown run in the final minutes.

“I thought our kids never panicked,” USM coach Will Hall said after the game. “For a team that’s got a lot of young guys and a lot of new guys that are building toward becoming a winning program, I thought we never panicked and I thought we kept the faith in a herky-jerky football game where weren’t functioning as well as we would like.”

Coast products make an impact

Lawrence is in his sixth year in college and second at USM, but is taking on his biggest role yet this season. As the stinger in new defensive coordinator Clay Bignell’s 4-2-5 defense, the Mississippi State transfer is tasked with helping run fits around the line of scrimmage and as an extra safety in pass coverage.

The returns through the first two weeks have been positive. Lawrence led the team in tackles last week with six and did it again with seven more against SLU. He nabbed his first career interception last week and followed that up with another Saturday.

“The funny about Dylan (Lawrence), we pick on him a lot because in his past, he hasn’t had great hands,” Hall said. “But two weeks in a row he’s made two great catches. He’s improved and he’s worked on hard to improve on that.”

Simmons’ big day was aided by the presence of his family, who traveled to Hattiesburg to see the third-year sophomore’s first home game as a Golden Eagle.

“I’m just glad to be close to home where my family can come to The Rock every home game and support me,” Simmons said.

Southern Miss brought in two Ole Miss wide receiver transfers over the offseason with Dannis Jackson being the other. Jackson was the top receiver in last week’s loss to Kentucky but was unavailable this week due to an injury.

Simmons was moved from the X position to Jackson’s more versatile Z position and the payoff was immediate.

“I was kind of frustrated that I wasn’t getting the ball last week,” Simmons said. “But I’m a team player so once they moved me back to Z, I was like ‘oh, OK. I already know what I’m fixing to do.’ I did my thing and I want to keep moving forward and continue to do the same thing each week.”

“He’s got a chance to be special,” Hall said about Simmons.

Two quarterback system?

Rodemaker once again got the start after beating Ethan Crawford in camp, but Hall and his first-year offensive coordinator Chip Long have inserted Crawford at different points of each game this season.

Crawford offers a different dynamic from Rodemaker’s tall, pocket-passer mold. The sophomore is athletic with a running back’s vision and a cannon for an arm.

His appearances were sporadic and hit-or-miss against the Lions. He delivered a 59-yard strike to tight end Kyirin Heath while sprinting to his off-hand side and that led to a one-yard touchdown plunge by Dreke Clark on the next play.

But later in the game, Crawford took a designed keeper up the middle and fumbled after picking up what would have been a first down.

According to Hall, the staff plans to continue looking for opportunities to utilize Crawford.

“If we can get in a rhythm and get into some sustainable drives, you’re able to see more of those (Crawford) packages and more of those things,” Hall said. “But when you’re on the field, off the field, on the field, off the field, sometimes that can be hard. That’s something that we’ll continue to work on and continue to get better at.”

Crawford appeared in six games last year when he threw three touchdowns and rushed for another as a true freshman. Rodemaker was brought in from Florida State to battle Crawford and the competition lasted until kickoff.

“We both try to help each other out on the field,” Rodemaker said. “When he goes in, I’ll try to help him. When I go in, he’ll try to help me. Off the field we hang out a lot so my relationship with him is really strong.”

Execution troubles

Errors, miscues and general lack of execution have underscored USM’s rocky start to the season. Last week it was two interceptions — one in the end zone — a shanked punt, a failed fake punt and a dropped pick-6.

This week it was a litany of penalties, two fumbles, two missed field goals and the inability to create any lanes for the run game.

“All in all as an offense we’ve just got to execute better,” Hall said. “We had a lot of things there. We’re going to be sick when we wake up and watch the tape tomorrow.”

Southern Miss struggled to chain together first downs for much of the first half due to a ground attack that couldn’t find any space. The Golden Eagles had just 10 rushing yards on 10 carries through the first two quarters.

Clay’s long run at the end of the game cleared USM of dubious history. It buoyed the team’s rushing total to 121 yards. Without the garbage time score, the yardage would’ve only been 51. In 17 previous FCS games since 2000, the lowest team rushing output was 96 yards against Alcorn State in 2019 and the average had been 240.6.

“It was herky-jerky,” Hall said of the run game. “It’s something we’re not proud of. It’s something we got to look at and see and address and get fixed.”

Southern Miss will stay home to host South Florida next week. That game is scheduled to kick off at 6 p.m. and will be broadcast on ESPN+.

“There’s things we can build on and there’s things we got to fix,” Hall said. “We got a big game next week, one of the biggest game’s that’s been played in this stadium in a long, long time.”