Fast start for Southern Miss wasted as North Texas storms back for a C-USA victory
Southern Miss is still searching for its identity after dropping its seventh consecutive game of the year against North Texas.
The Golden Eagles jumped out to a 14-0 lead before giving up 38 unanswered points and eventually falling 38-14.
Walk-on quarterback Jake Lange threw for 116 yards and a touchdown in his fourth start of the season.
Southern Miss falls to 1-8 and 0-5 in conference play. Here are four takeaways from the game:
Offensive stars establish themselves
Head coach Will Hall’s first season in Hattiesburg has boiled down to finding playmakers on the offensive side of the ball around which to establish an identity.
Second-year freshman Frank Gore Jr. ran for 82 yards and made it back-to-back games of 80-plus yards against FBS opponents for the first time in his career.
Gore opened the game with a 38-yard run that set up a 17-yard touchdown catch by Jason Brownlee. The junior wide receiver finished the game with 53 receiving yards and has now reached 50 yards in four of the last five games.
Lange himself had his most efficient outing of the year, completing a season-high 68 percent of his throws and did not throw an interception.
Third downs take USM out of the game
Southern Miss has struggled mightily on third down in recent weeks and it carried over into Saturday’s game. The Golden Eagles did not convert on third down until over halfway into the third quarter.
By that time, UNT had already built a two-score lead. Hall’s team finished 3-for-12 on third downs — perhaps none more crucial than a third-and-one from the UNT 36-yard line early in the second quarter. Gore was stopped for a loss of two and Hall elected to punt on fourth and short with a 14-0 lead.
The offense would not get another opportunity that deep in Mean Green territory until the final minutes of the third quarter.
Defense struggles with heavy minutes
The Golden Eagles defense went into Saturday’s battle top five in Conference USA in nearly every defensive category. That may change after the Mean Green tallied more than 300 yards in just the first half before finishing with a season-high 537 total yards of offense.
North Texas ran nearly 100 plays and held onto the football for over 34 minutes of game clock. A typically stout USM defense ran out of gas in the second half and allowed 183 rushing yards in the last two quarters of the game despite UNT losing its starting running back early in the contest.
Golden Eagle safety Malik Shorts finished with a career-high 13 tackles while Ole Miss transfer Jay Stanley would record his first career interception and return it for a touchdown in the first quarter.
Negative plays loom large in key moments
The box score shows a dominant performance for UNT, but the Golden Eagles had their opportunities to shift the tide.
Down 21-14 in the third quarter, walk-on quarterback Jake Lange fell victim to a strip sack off the edge that was recovered and returned 53 yards for a touchdown.
On the ensuing possession, the offense marched into the red zone for the second time in the afternoon but came up empty-handed after a fourth down sack gave the ball back to the Mean Green.
A defensive touchdown and a turnover on downs 12 yards from the end zone swung the game heavily toward the opposite sideline.
The final nail in the coffin came when former student coach Jake Smithhart entered the game for Lange late in the fourth quarter. On his third play, Smithhart dropped the shotgun snap and watched as the ball was kicked forward into the hands of UNT defender who returned it for a touchdown.
Southern Miss will hit the road to face a yet-to-be defeated UTSA squad next week in San Antonio. The game is set to be broadcast on ESPN+.
