Southern Miss finishes its season with blowout loss to Troy
Published 10:24 pm Saturday, November 30, 2024
TROY, Ala. — Southern Miss was clinging to a brief flicker of hope Saturday. Then, true to form for this miserable football season, it was quickly snatched away and trampled upon.
Troy scored three touchdowns in a two-minute span in the fourth quarter to turn a two-score game into a blowout, and beat Southern Miss 52-20 in the season finale for both teams.
“The game could have been a lot closer at halftime and then we came out and punted and then the fourth quarter got away from us,” Southern Miss interim head coach Reed Stringer said. “It was not a lack of effort. We’re just a 1-11 football team for a lot of reasons. Right now, we don’t play well and smart all the time and it caught up with us today.”
Southern Miss (1-11, 0-8 Sun Belt Conference) missed two field goals in the first half and trailed 31-14 entering the fourth quarter.
The Golden Eagles cut it to a two-score deficit when Tate Rodemaker threw a 4-yard touchdown pass to Tiaquelin Mims to make it 31-20 with 7:05 left. The glimmer of hope was short-lived, though.
Troy recovered Southern Miss’ onside kick attempt and scored three plays later on a 35-yard run by Damien Taylor. On USM’s next play from scrimmage, Rodemaker was intercepted by Ian Conerly-Goodly, and the Troy defender returned it for a 31-yard TD.
Rodemaker threw another interception on Southern Miss’ next series. LJ Green returned it 49 yards to the USM 16-yard line, and Jordan Lovett scored on a 5-yard run with 4:10 remaining to make it 52-20.
Taylor rushed for 169 yards and three touchdowns for Troy (4-8, 3-5).
Rodemaker was 18-for-30 passing for 234 yards, with two touchdowns and two interceptions for Southern Miss. Mims caught five passes for 77 yards, and Larry Simmons caught four for 90 yards and a touchdown.
“I felt like we were ready for this game today. I knew our guys were going to come out to play. They have proven over and over the last couple of weeks that they will show up and play,” Stringer said. “It’s the same thing every week. We have got to play better, smarter and take advantage of opportunities, but I am proud of our seniors. They kept coming to practice, they kept trying to lead and the team played hard. That’s really all I asked them to do is to please play hard.”
Southern Miss finished the season on a 10-game losing streak that cost head coach Will Hall his job in the middle of the season. None of its 11 losses this season were closer than 10 points. Its only win was in Week 2 against FCS opponent Southeastern Louisiana.
The program will soon enter a new era under a new coach. It remains to be seen whether Stringer will be a part of the new staff or not, but he said whoever is at the helm next season will have something to work with.
“I am really excited about the core of the young players and there’s also a lot of freshmen that aren’t getting to play a whole lot right now that we think are really talented guys,” Stringer said. “As long as they stick together, they have a chance to be really good, and be good really fast. It’s not a two to three year complete rebuild. This is a team that has a bunch of guys that, with the right combination of coaches and schemes, I think can come out next year and get this thing rolling.”