How Southern Miss plans to play Bama in Tuscaloosa, the ‘best team in the country’

Coming off a dispiriting home loss to Troy last week, Southern Miss faces the toughest task imaginable this weekend, as the Golden Eagles travel to Alabama to take on the top-ranked team in the country.

Kickoff at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Saturday.

Southern Miss head coach Will Hall made no bones about the task that awaits his team, but his focus this week has been on his team and fixing the things that went wrong in the 21-9 defeat to Troy last week.

“We’re playing the best team in the country, and it’s a great opportunity,” Hall said Tuesday at his weekly media briefing. “But, where we’re at right now, we’re building the program. Really, every day it’s about us.

“We’re not at a point, obviously, where we can focus on a lot of other things other than just getting better every day with our technique, our fundamentals and executing our assignments.”

Of particular concern for the Southern Miss coaching staff was an anemic offense that netted just 156 yards of offense, including minus-1 yard rushing.

It didn’t start out that way for USM. The Golden Eagles took the opening kickoff of the game and marched down the field for a field goal and moved the ball well through most of the first quarter.

“We came out, probably the best we’ve played early,” said Hall.

“We drove it down the field and kicked a field goal. The next drive, we started on (our own) 2-yard-line and drove all the way past midfield. It was just inches away from a big completion that would either score or gotten down to the red zone.”

But Troy adjusted on defense and started bringing more pressure on quarterback Ty Keyes to make the freshman’s first start a nightmare. In all, the Trojans sacked Keyes nine times for 70 yards in losses, leading to the negative finish in rushing yards.

“That’s on me, as obviously as coach,” Hall said. “But we’ve got to execute better, and we’ve got to play better. It was our worst game up front, and we had been playing well there.

“It’s one of those deals where each game something new has been holding us back offensively. And, obviously, we’ve got to get those issues fixed.”

When the 2021 schedule was released, the Golden Eagles looked like a trap game for the Crimson Tide, coming between important Southeastern Conference games against Florida and Ole Miss.

But Bama had to work hard last week to hold off the Gators at Gainesville, Florida, 31-29, and it appears that USM will have the Crimson Tide’s undivided attention.

“I probably wasn’t as pleased as what I would like to be,” Alabama coach Nick Saban said Thursday on his weekly radio show. “Sometimes you win the game but don’t really beat the other team.

“I still think we need to learn how to compete for 60 minutes in a game and stay focused on what we need to do to maintain our intensity.”

Saban was high on Golden Eagle freshman running back Frank Gore Jr., who had a respectable game against Troy last week, with 75 yards of offense, including 31 yards rushing on 15 carries and 44 receiving yards on five catches, both team highs.

The relationship between Hall and Saban goes back to 2008, when both coaches first arrived in Alabama, Saban with the Crimson Tide and Hall at West Alabama.

“It was a 45-minute drive, so I’ve spent many a day in those offices,” said Hall. “The six years they were building their program were the six years I was at West Al and I was up there all the time.

“We pattern much of everything we do like them. The way we build our program, quarterback centered through the defense, they way we practice is almost carbon copied off the way they practice.”

Nevertheless, Hall’s biggest challenge this week is centered around boosting Keyes’ confidence and getting his more in tune with the offense.

“Right now, it’s important that he gets better in understanding the offense,” Hall said. “We want him to see the signal and execute the assignment. It’s about every day getting better.

“Ty’s got a chance to be a great, great player, but he’s a freshman. But it’s the sixth time in my career that I’ve started a (true) freshman at quarterback. So, it’s not my first rodeo with this, and we’ll get better as the year goes on.”

The Troy game wasn’t a total washout for Southern Miss. The Golden Eagles continued to play well on defense and in the kicking game.

The Trojans finished with 306 yards of offense, but much of that came in the latter stages of the game after the Golden Eagles wore down on defense. Still, USM’s only touchdown of the game came on a 47-yard fumble recovery return in the fourth quarter by Everett Cunningham.

Southern Miss is ranked third in the nation in rushing defense, giving up just 46 yards per game on the ground, and 12th in the nation in total defense, with 250.7 yards per game.

“I would equate their defense to an SEC-type defense in terms of the way they’ve played so far this year,” Saban told his radio audience Thursday.

This week’s game is the final non-conference game for Southern Miss, as the Golden Eagles open Conference USA play next week at Rice, and in Hall’s mind that’s the first game that has any serious meaning.

“Win, lose or draw this week, it all starts over next week,” Hall said. “We have a great opportunity with the No. 1 team in the country at their place, an unbelievable opportunity to do something special.

“But after that, we’ve got conference play coming up, and we’ve got to be a much better football team going into that than we were this past week.”

Saturday’s game will be televised on the SEC Network and can be heard on the Southern Miss Sports Network from Learfield Sports (WBUV-FM, 104.9 in Gulfport).