MOBILE, Ala. – No coach in America has been able to slow LaDainian Tomlinson this season.

Maybe they should ask Southern Miss coach Jeff Bower.

Bower and the Golden Eagles defeated the Tomlinson-led TCU Horned Frogs in the 2000 GMAC Bowl in Mobile. Jeff Kelly’s touchdown pass with less than a minute left in the game gave the Golden Eagles a 28-21 victory.

The Golden Eagles’ defense, the staple of its 13 straight winning seasons, held Tomlinson to 118 yards and a pair of touchdowns. The outing was respectable, but by Tomlinson’s standards not one of the best of his career.

So how did Bower hold L.T. in check?

&#8220We had 12 guys on the field and no one found out,” Bower quipped Friday evening at the last press conference before Sunday’s GMAC Bowl against Ohio. &#8220I don’t know if we stopped him, he had about 120 yards. He’s going to get his yards, goodness.”

Kickoff for Sunday’s game is scheduled for 7 p.m. and will be televised by ESPN.

Solich used to this,

but players aren’t

As Frank Solich took the podium as the first Ohio University coach since 1968 to lead his team to a postseason bowl game, he looked like a man that has done this type of thing before.

As head coach at Nebraska from 1998-2003, Solich went 58-19 and guided his Huskers to six bowl games. He said the experience this season has been different, but in a good way.

&#8220It’s been very pleasing to see our players have success,” said Solich, in his second year as Bobcats coach. &#8220It was obvious when I got here two years ago that there were things that needed to be changed.

&#8220The players’ attitudes changed the most. They work hard and do everything we ask of them.”

Solich will line up against a coach just as familiar with bowl games.

Bower has guided the Golden Eagles to nine bowls in the last 10 seasons, and has recorded 13 straight winning seasons in Hattiesburg.

&#8220It’s amazing. Nine bowl games in 10 years, 13 winning seasons in a row,” Solich said.

Solich and Bower will be butting heads for the third time in their careers. Solich led Nebraska to wins over Southern Miss in 1999 in Lincoln, Neb., and in 2003 in Hattiesburg.

Bobcats surge

out of neutral

The year before Frank Solich took over a moribund football program, Ohio went an awful 2-10 and ended the season with a shutout lossto Marshall.

Then Solich arrived.

The Bobcats went 4-7 in his first season as head coach and this season are 9-4. They began the season 2-3, but won seven straight games before losing to Central Michigan in the Mid-American Athletic Conference championship game.

Ohio is making its first bowl appearance since matching up with Richmond in the 1968 Tangerine Bowl. The Bobcats also played in the 1962 Sun Bowl against West Texas State.