Offense shines as Golden Eagles wrap up Fall Camp
Photos by Charlie Luttrell, SM2 Media
HATTIESBURG, MS – On Tuesday, it was safe to speculate that the defense won the scrimmage when the Golden Eagles lined up to play 11-on-11, but the final scrimmage on Aug. 20 was a different story.
Starting quarterback Ty Keyes didn’t even complete a pass until his third drive of the scrimmage on Tuesday, and today it did not take him that long. On the second play, he found junior Jakarius Caston for a 65-yard passing touchdown to get the day going.
Keyes came right back on the next drive he was in and found redshirt sophomore Janari Dean for a 66-yard gain. Then, on the next drive, Keyes found Caston again, for a 75-yard touchdown pass.
That hot start gave Keyes a video game stat line of 3/3 passes for 206 yards and a pair of touchdowns.
“I thought it was Ty Keyes’ best day, which is good to see, but we expect that from Ty- he’s a gamer,” Head Coach Will Hall said.
Hall also raved about Caston, mentioning that he was one of the best wide receivers in Conference USA last season but that they “just couldn’t get him the ball.”
If the quarterback play can be more consistent for the Golden Eagles this season, then glimpses from the beginning of this scrimmage show the firepower this offense is capable of throwing on an opponent.
The defense cleaned up some of its miscues toward the middle of practice after some encouragement, to say the least, by Defense Coordinator Austin Armstrong and company.
Hall still had some high praise for the defense today after their performance this fall camp.
“I can’t say enough about our defense and all those guys do a phenomenal job. We do really good stuff on defense,” Hall said.
Ole Miss transfer Daylen Gill continued to impress his new coaching staff on the defensive side.
“We started off pretty bad, but in the middle, we did pretty good. We didn’t finish well in the red zone. We’ve got to come back and execute in all directions,” Gill said.
Gill also noted the physicality of the new defense and that he is “definitely ready” to hit someone else come the start of the season.
Now that fall camp is over; Southern Miss turns its eyes toward Liberty on Sept. 3.
“What’s next? Some good worship tomorrow and thank the good Lord that we get to coach at a place like this with great kids. We’ll hit the reset and we’ll lift and meet on Monday to watch this tape,” Hall said. “On Tuesday, we’ll keep sharpening our blade and also start getting ready for Liberty. They are a great program. [They are] one of the top Group of Five programs in America, and I think we are underdogs for that game and we should be. It would be a monumental upset for us to pull that off at home, so we [have] got to put everything we got into it.” Hall said.
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