Southern Miss defeated Jacksonville State 42-25 on Saturday, bouncing back from last week’s road loss at Louisiana Tech.
“First of all, let me say thank you to the Hattiesburg community,” Southern Miss head coach Charles Huff said. “Thank you to all the fans that showed up. It was good to be home. Second of all, I can't tell you how proud I am of this football team, this football organization. They made a choice to respond. Instead of letting last week beat you twice, they made a choice to respond. They made that choice on the way home from last week's game.”
Running back Jeffery Pittman led the Golden Eagles’ ground game with 18 carries for 80 yards and two touchdowns. Three other running backs also contributed, along with quarterback Braylon Braxton adding rushing yards.
“I mean, you never just want to run one guy to the ground,” Pittman said. “Being able to substitute backs allows us to be as healthy as we can be against the long season, and it also gives the quarterback a lot more room to, you know, wriggle around and do what you need to do.”
Braxton finished 13-of-22 passing for 152 yards and two touchdowns.
“When you have failure, you learn from it,” Huff said. “You know, last week was pressing a little bit but I told him just go play. I told him before the game, I said, guys, I just want you to go play hard. If you make a mistake, it's on me.”
On defense, Michael Montgomery recorded a strip sack and Ian Foster returned an interception 49 yards for a touchdown in the final two minutes. It was Foster’s second interception returned for a touchdown this season.
Despite the defensive effort, Huff said the unit is still working toward the standard of Southern Miss’ historic “Nasty Bunch” defenses.
“We're close,” Huff said. “We're getting better each week. The one thing that I do think was consistent. It wasn't one game a good half, one game a bad half, one game three or three and a half really, good quarters. So, we still have to earn a little bit of that, but I think we're chasing what has been a standard around here for a long time.”
The victory completed Southern Miss’ nonconference schedule and marked the program’s first three-win September since 2016.
Southern Miss will play at Georgia Southern on Oct. 9 after a bye week. The next home game will be Oct. 25 against Louisiana-Monroe.
