HATTIESBURG — A lack of offensive punch left Southern Miss knocked out cold in its Sun Belt Conference opener.

The Golden Eagles only had eight first downs and 177 total yards as they lost 23-13 to Louisiana-Lafayette on Saturday.

“Offensively, we’ve got to get it fixed and we can be better than that,” Southern Miss coach Will Hall said. “We need to score more points than that, and it’s a total deal from everywhere. That’s something that we’ve got to fix, and we will continue to do that.”

Dre’lyn Washington rushed for 91 yards and a touchdown for Louisiana (4-1, 1-0 Sun Belt), and quarterback Ben Wooldridge completed 22 of 30 passes for 222 yards and one TD.

Southern Miss’ defense held Louisiana to field goals on three of its five trips inside the red zone, which kept the game close deep into the fourth quarter. Louisiana did not take a two-score lead until Kenneth Almendares kicked a 19-yard field goal with 5:46 left in the game.

Almendares had three field goals, from 21, 30 and 19 yards.

Southern Miss (1-4, 0-1) allowed 410 total yards and registered three sacks.

“I think that’s by far their lowest point total this year,” Hall said. “We did a good job of getting in the red zone and holding them to field goals, so I was pleased with that effort, and I was pleased with the way we fit our gaps and the way we tackled.”

Southern Miss quarterback Tate Rodemaker completed 15 of 21 passes for only 140 yards. He did not throw an interception, but was sacked five times. Clark Rodrigues led USM with 61 rushing yards on seven attempts, while Kenyon Clay rushed for two short touchdowns.

Because of the sacks, the Golden Eagles only had 37 rushing yards. They ran 39 offensive plays to 76 for Louisiana, were 1-for-8 on third down, and possessed the ball for 18 minutes and 10 seconds compared to 41:35 for the Cajuns.

Both of Clay’s touchdowns came in the second quarter and the scoring drives covered 80 and 82 yards. On their other eight possessions in the game, the Golden Eagles had a total of minus-2 yards; had six three-and-outs; punted after getting one first down; and lost a fumble with a minute left in the game. Only one of those eight possessions lasted longer than two minutes.

The late fumble was the team’s only turnover, which Hall tried to spin as a positive on a difficult night for the offense.

“The big point of emphasis all week was not turning the football over. That’s something we didn’t do until the last play of the game,” Hall said. “You can see when we don’t turn the football over and we allow our special teams to work and allow our defense to work, and not give them great field position, it allows us to play better defense and play better football. We lost to a really good football team.”