Frank Gore Jr. lunged for the end zone and immediately put his arms, signaling for a touchdown, which would have given Southern Miss a late lead.
Instead, Gore was marked short, making it the third time in three different trips inside Old Dominion’s 10-yard line that the Golden Eagles failed to score a touchdown, leading to a 17-13 loss to the Monarchs.
“For three straight weeks, we are in a one-score game and have lost all three of them,” Southern Miss coach Will Hall. “That’s something we have to get over the hump and fix.
“We just didn’t score enough points and didn’t make enough plays right there to get it done…We are one to two plays away from winning all three of them, but that’s no excuse. This isn’t horseshoes. Close doesn’t count. We have to find a way to get it done.”
Southern Miss (1-5, 0-3 Sun Belt) jumped out to a 10-0 lead over Old Dominion. Prior to the early, USM had been outscored 63-7 in the first quarter since the season-opener. Aiding in the strong start was the Golden Eagle defense, forcing the Monarchs to punt on their first drives as well as finishing the game with five sacks.
Unlike the defense, the offense struggled to find consistency with untimely penalties killing drives. In USM’s second drive on third and short, the Golden Eagles were called for a 5-yard penalty leading to a punt.
“We have scored 13 times in the last two weeks, but we didn’t play well tonight,” said Hall on his offense. “We just haven’t put it all together. In the last two weeks, if we play defense and in the kicking game like we did tonight, then we would have won both games. Tonight, we played well in defense and in the kicking game, but we didn’t play well offensively.”
Midway in the first quarter, the Golden Eagles put together a 13-play drive that resulted in them driving to ODU’s four-yard line. Another five-yard penalty pinned them back, leading to USM not punching in a touchdown and settling for a 21-yard field goal by Andrew Stein.
After forcing a three and out against Old Dominion (3-3, 2-1), Ty Mims returned the ensuing punt for an 82-yard touchdown, which was the fifth-longest in program history.
Mims nearly scored again on a punt return just after Old Dominion scored its first touchdown in the second quarter. But replay review officials overturned the play after saying Mims gave an invalid fair catch signal to keep the score at 10-7 at the half.
By the end of the game, ODU outgained USM 337-276, with quarterback Billy Wiles going 15 of 26 and throwing for 166 yards. Notably, Old Dominion quarterback Grant Wilson completed just eight passes and threw for 194 yards.
Southern Miss had an opportunity to widen its lead midway through the third quarter after putting together a 12-play drive that put them inside ODU’s five-yard line. However, the Golden Eagles couldn’t score and again settled for a 31-yard field goal by Stein to push the score to 13-7.
“I don’t know, we just have to find a way to win,” said quarterback Billy Wiles on what his team was missing in the red zone. “I trust Coach Hall with every decision he makes."
ODU responded with its own field goal and narrowed the score to 13-10.
At the start of the fourth quarter, Southern Miss opted to punt it on fourth and one inside their own 30. ODU capitalized on the shift of momentum with a 39-yard pass completion, setting up a 16-yard touchdown run to give the Monarchs the lead.
“I felt like our defense was getting tired,” said Hall on the decision to punt. “I was torn between feeling like ODU was getting a little momentum. I was torn between if we convert that first down, then we could rest our defense a little longer. What I was torn with was that we had been playing so good on defense that I didn’t want to take the game out of their hands at that moment. It was 50-50 in my mind.
“But our defense had been playing so well that I didn’t want to take it out of their hands, so I elected to punt.”
This led to Southern Miss trying to put together a go-ahead touchdown drive. The Golden Eagles ran 13 plays before Gore, who finished the game with 66 rushing yards on 29 carries, came up short on fourth down.
“I’m upset about this game,” Wiles said. “To be 1-5 at this point in the season, it’s not where I thought we would be. It’s not where anybody thought we would be. I don’t think we’re going to reset our goals. We have a lot ahead of us. We are just going to keep fighting and clawing.”
Southern Miss will go on the road to face South Alabama on Tuesday, Oct. 17. The game will be televised on ESPN2, with kickoff set for 6:30 p.m.
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