The Southern Miss football team remains a work in progress.
“We’re talented and we haven’t even come close to playing our best football yet,” Golden Eagle head coach Jay Hopson said earlier this week.
Well, this Saturday at Denton, Texas, would be a good time to play that best game, because the North Texas Mean Green sports a 5-1 record and has a quarterback who torched the Eagles for 366 yards through the air in a 43-28 North Texas victory last season.
North Texas, which was the runaway favorite to win the Conference USA West Division championship, is 1-1 in the league, with a 29-27 loss to Louisiana Tech on Sept. 29 and a 27-24 win over UTEP last week.
Southern Miss is 2-2 overall and 1-0 in Conference USA, with its 40-22 win over Rice.
Game time Saturday from Apogee Stadium is 1 p.m. The game will be televised by ESPN3.
“It was a good open week,” Hopson said. “We took a day like we did two weeks ago for a ‘get better day’ and then we started working on North Texas. We’re getting some guys healthy that we needed to get healthy, so it probably hit us at a good time. Hopefully, we’ll be 100 percent, full strength and ready to go Saturday.”
The defensive key will be slowing down North Texas quarterback Mason Fine, who ranks first in Conference USA and fourth in the NCAA in passing yards with 1,918 this season, 319.7 per game.
But Southern Miss ranks first in C-USA in total defense (294.0 yards allowed per game) and second in scoring defense (18.5 points per game).
“They are the best offense we’ve played this year,” Southern Miss defensive coordinator Tim Billings said. “They put up 44 against Arkansas. It all starts with their quarterback. They’ve played six games and he has thrown one interception, and he’s completing 65 percent of his passes.
“He reminds me a lot of Chad Pennington (who played 11 seasons in the NFL, for the New York Jets and Miami Dolphins). He’s got a savvy about him. He’s got a toughness about him. He has a great arm, he has a quick release, he knows where to throw the football and he’s very, very accurate. He’s very elusive. If you try to blitz him, he sees it coming. I hope we can make him make a mistake.”
Southern Miss counters with Jack Abraham, who is second in Conference USA in passing average per game with 315.8 yards. Abraham is completing 70,8 percent of his passes.
Kwadra Griggs, who started a number of games last year before being suspended by the school earlier this season, also is available for the Golden Eagles.
“We’ve got two quarterbacks who can play at a high level,” USM offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson said. “Kwadra had a really, really good week of practice (last week during the off week).”
Tez Parks (28.0 yards per game) is listed No. 1 at running back on this week’s depth chart, with Trivenskey Mosley (38.7 yards per game) as his backup.
Quez Watkins leads the Southern Miss team in receiving with 29 catches for 352 yards and six touchdowns. He has scored a touchdown in every game this season. Jaylond Adams has 25 receptions for 262 yards and two touchdowns.
