Sports - Colleges - Southern Miss

Friday, Oct. 23, 2009

USM keeping it simple for Tulane

Southern Miss coach Larry Fedora looks at today’s Tulane game at M.M. Roberts Stadium at 6 p.m. on a different note.

Instead of opting to build it as a rivalry game considering the two teams are 112 miles apart and have met 28 times, Fedora takes a more simple approach to the first meeting in three years.

“I an not saying it’s not a rivalry,” Fedora said. “All we are doing is focusing on being 1-0 after the game. Our season started last week (against Memphis) and we have to focus on one game at a time. We have to focus on this as the only game we are playing.”

Since the two schools are in different divisions within Conference USA, Southern Miss and Tulane play each other next season before taking another two-year hiatus.

In the last meeting saw Southern Miss score the game’s final 21 points en route to a 31-3 win at the Louisiana Superdome in 2006. This time around, there are only six current Golden Eagles who played in the game.

Southern Miss (4-3, 2-1) holds a 21-7 advantage in the series and a 11-3 mark at The Rock and enters the game as a 21.5-point favorite.

Tulane (2-4, 0-3) will start redshirt freshman Ryan Griffin at quarterback in place of Joe Kemp, who has started all six games for the Green Wave.

Griffin has completed 21 of 35 passes for 225 yards and a touchdowns.

Helping Griffin out will be senior running back Andre Anderson, who averages 92 rushing yards per game.

“They are doing a good job running the football,’’ Fedora said. “He (Anderson) runs hard and they will scheme you with movement.”

The outcome could be decided along the offensive and defensive fronts.

The Tulane offensive line has yielded 15 sacks this season (2.5 per game) while the Southern Miss defensive front has racked up 16 this season.

Offensively, Tulane has scored 11 touchdowns this season.

“(USM’s) front people are outstanding,’’ Tulane coach Bob Toledo said. ‘‘They will play us a little bit differently than they play other people because of what we do, but we’ve seen how they played those other people so we’re expecting them to do certain things, but also we feel like we have a plan and hopefully we can exploit it and move the football.’’

On offense, Southern Miss will see Martevious Young make his third straight start at quarterback. In his starts, Young has completed 35 of 57 passes for 400 yards and one touchdown and one interception.

“I think Martevious continues to work hard and do things we ask of him,” Fedora said.