Southern Miss’ season continues to struggle as UAB handed the Golden Eagles their fifth straight loss in a 34-0 shutout.
The last time Southern Miss was shut out at home was on Nov. 3, 1984, in a 22-0 loss against Northwestern State.
“(UAB is a) really well-coached football team we played, really talented football team,” Hall said. “They’re the standard in this league, and they have been the standard. I think they’ll continue to be the standard this year. They’re an experienced, well-coached football team. They have been in that program for a long time with a lot of older guys playing that are really talented and really good. They executed and played at a high-level today. They beat us at all three phases, they were by far the better football program than us today, and you didn’t have to be Albert Einstein to see that and figure that out.”
The Golden Eagle offense struggled as Southern Miss would use its sixth quarterback of the season by the end of the game. Southern Miss’ offense totaled just 107 yards, which was a season-low.
Trailing just 3-0 at the end of the first quarter, the game spiraled out of hand as the Blazers scored 28 points in the second quarter.
On fourth and two, UAB quarterback Dylan Hopkins threw a 34-yard touchdown. One minute later, the Blazers blocked a Mason Hunt’s punt and recovered it to the end zone to extend their lead to 17-0.
Then with 11 minutes and 37 seconds left in the second quarter, UAB running back DeWayne McBride busted a 31-yard touchdown run. McBride finished led the Blazers with 137 yards and
Finally, with two and a half minutes left in the quarter, Hopkins scored on a 3-yard touchdown scramble to give UAB a 31-0 lead by halftime. Hopkins finished 8 of 13 and threw for 147 yards and a touchdown.
After halftime, Hall elected to make a change at quarterback with Tee Webb and Chandler Pittman taking snaps, which did not transpire for many offensive yards. According to Hall, Lange had a minor ankle injury and said that he wanted to give Webb a chance at quarterback and not risk Lange’s health. Lange finished the half 3 of 10 and threw for 18 yards.
“(Lange) could have played in the second half,” Hall said. “We just felt like with the way the game was going and the game being out of hand that we could give some other guys a shot and try to keep him healthy for the rest of the year. He just had an ankle injury. He should be back. He could have played and wanted to play. He’s a tough kid. We thought we would give Tee a shot and try to keep Jake healthy for the remainder of the year.
“We wanted to try and salvage him right there.”
UAB’s only second-half score came in the third quarter after the Blazers booted a 52-yard field goal to extend the lead to 34-0.
Behind Webb and Pittman, Southern Miss’ offense could only muster 45 total yards of offense. Pittman racked up 24 rushing yards on six carries and completed one pass for nine yards. Webb finished the game 2 of 5 and threw for five yards and one interception.
“We were going to play Pittman some at quarterback in this game anyway; we thought he gave us a little bit of a spark in the run game,” Hall said. “It was good to see him. He’s a winner. He’s going to be a great player there for a long time. And the Tee did some okay things too. He fumbled one snap, which is inexcusable, and he had a misread on his interception, which wasn’t very good. He had some good plays too. He didn’t have a lot of time, they’re really good pass rushers, and we couldn’t handle them some in pass blocking situations.”
Southern Miss will have a bye week before the Golden Eagles return to action on the road against Middle Tennessee.
“There’s no lack of faith,” Hall said. “We’ve got to get bigger, stronger with those young kids, more experienced. That program (UAB) didn’t always look like that either. Six, seven years ago, UAB was not what UAB is right now. Like I said, they’re the standard in this league. They’re that way because they have stability at the head coaching spot. They’ve recruited the systems consistently over a six to seven-year run, and they’re playing with older guys that were recruited for those systems. You can see it. They’re just a really good-looking, well-coached football team. That’s what we’re going to be here. And we have to continue to improve and push towards that every day.”
