Southern Miss came into its opener against Nebraska with plenty of quarterback questions.

Some were answered, but the Golden Eagles still left Lincoln without a clear-cut starter.

Chris Campbell threw a little better, Anthony Alford ran better, but neither was able to do much of anything against 17th-ranked Nebraska’s defense in a 49-20 loss Saturday. The two quarterbacks — along with third-stringer Ricky Lloyd — were a combined 7-of-19 passing for 75 yards, with one touchdown and no interceptions.

“It was good. I was interested to see how they handle a real game plan and a real defense. I thought Chris did an excellent job controlling our offense,” Southern Miss coach Ellis Johnson said. “It became apparent in the second quarter that our running game wasn’t going to work, and the defense was just sitting on him because he wasn’t a threat to run the ball. When Anthony went in, they had respect to him and things opened up the middle.”

Johnson was a little more pleased with Southern Miss’ running game. Alford was the team’s leading rusher, with 84 yards on 15 carries. As a team, USM ran for 185 yards.

Johnson said the quarterback rotation helped the running game, and could be a way to spark the offense in the future.

“I think we can sub our quarterbacks and switch up the game plan and try and make sure they all got a shot in the game,” Johnson said. “In the second half we were just trying to make our players better, so I think that hurt our rotation, and our overall flow of the game. I think they ended up taking over the line, but overall I liked our execution.”

Nebraska coach Bo Pelini agreed with Johnson’s assessment that Campbell and Alford have the potential to be an effective tandem.

“Anytime you get spread out all over the field, we really didn’t know what they were going to do with the quarterbacks,” Pelini said. “Toward the end of the game there, end of the third quarter, fourth quarter, they were running a wildcat-type offense with their quarterback. You just do the math. It’s not easy to deal with that, especially when you don’t know what sets and what structures they’re going to do it out of. There were some adjustments that needed to happen, and I thought our guys reacted pretty well.”

Campbell, who started, said he wasn’t surprised by anything the Cornhuskers threw at him. Campbell was 6-of-12 passing for 69 yards. He threw a 24-yard pass to Dominique Sullivan early in the second quarter for USM’s only offensive touchdown.

After completing 5 of 7 passes in the first half, Campbell was just 1-for-5 in the second half. He only threw one pass in USM’s last two series as Alford and Lloyd got more playing time.

“There were a few series with maybe one or two plays where they tried to go three-down and get some blitzes, but other than that, it was pretty much what I saw on film, from the past years and what we saw in practice. I was very prepared by the coaches for this game,” Campbell said.

Up next

Sept. 15, 2:30 p.m.

East Carolina at USM