Southern Miss drops its first Sun Belt bout on the road
The first-ever conference meeting between Southern Miss and Troy ended with the Trojans running away in the fourth quarter with a 27-10 win over the Golden Eagles.
Troy forced two turnovers in the final quarter and capitalized each time with points. True freshman quarterback Zach Wilcke turned the ball over four times, thrice intercepted and losing a fumble.
Despite the poor outing from QB1, Southern Miss was right where it needed to be when halftime arrived.
In a game that promised defense, defense and more defense, every point scored in the first half came off turnovers.
In between six total sacks, 10 negative plays and four giveaways between the two disruptive defenses, Wilcke found Jason Brownlee for a 13-yard score while Troy’s D.K. Billingsley plunged in for the Trojans’ only first half touchdown.
A 47-yard Troy field goal was the only thing separating the newly-minted rivals after 30 minutes.
The Trojans distanced themselves in the back-half of the game with a third-quarter, opening-drive touchdown and maintained their lead down the stretch.
Wilcke turned the ball over on back-to-back possessions late in the game, ultimately sinking any chances the Golden Eagles had of closing the gap.
“We’re just not very good on offense right now and, ultimately, that’s what it came down to,” USM coach Will Hall said. “I thought we played pretty dang good on D for a long time... we just didn’t make the plays, offensively.”
Wilcke hits growing pains
Saturday’s game at Troy was start No. 4 in Wilcke’s young career. His first came against Miami, a decision made because Hall felt the Hurricanes’ base defense would help ease Wilcke into FBS football.
The Trojans presented a hard reverse of what Wilcke saw in South Florida. Troy brought exotic blitz packages, sending corners and twisting lineman into Wilcke’s pocket with great success.
Troy had eight tackles for loss, five sacks, four pass breakups and held USM to 3.4 yards per play.
“We got to learn from this,” Hall said. “He’s going to watch this tape and see that he had some things there. I thought it was unfortunate that his first two picks were tough. One could have very well been a pass interference, but that weighs on you as a quarterback... He’s got to learn to put a bad play behind him and move onto the next.”
Wilcke targeted Brownlee on 16 of his 32 pass attempts that didn’t land in Trojan hands. According to Hall, that was due to play calling.
Troy’s secondary kept Brownlee, a tall wideout with game-breaking potential, completely sealed off from the top of the defense. Instead, Wilcke repeatedly found him through underneath routes, leading to a career-high 12 catches for the senior.
The biggest reception — the lone USM play that ended in the end zone — represents a building block from which Wilcke can work from: a picked up hot blitz and a dart to his 6-foot-3 target.
“The corner blitzed and they left me one-on-one with the safety,” Brownlee said. “I beat him across the face and Wilcke put a good ball on me.”
Brownlee has caught passes from numerous quarterbacks over the past few seasons and he had a message for the still-green Wilcke after the game: “Just stay poised and stay focused,” Brownlee said. “You’re a young quarterback, you’re going to mess up. You got to keep going because there’s still a lot of games left to be played. You can’t sick back and wonder on the mess ups, you got to move forward.”
Defensive demons resurface
You had to turn on a USM game in 2021 to understand the talent level of the defense. The stats weren’t always pretty, but the unit was consistently put in situations by the offense that left it at a disadvantage.
The proof of the “Nasty Bunch’s” strength is evident in 2022. Southern Miss entered the game third in the conference in sacks and tacked on four more against Troy. It was second in the SBC in tackles for loss per game, and added another seven to the stat sheet.
It wasn’t enough, though. Short offensive drives and turnovers repeatedly put the Golden Eagle defense up against the wall.
“We knew that we were going to be a team that was young offensively and our defense and special teams was going to have to carry us,” Hall said. “We got to be able to make enough plays and not turn the ball over. The disappointing thing tonight is we turned it over. It put us into some hard situations.”
Defense and special teams took command against Tulane two weeks ago and turned the tide in a game that got away early.
Punter Mason Hunt pinned Troy inside its own 20-yard line multiple times and the defense allowed only one score on a possession that wasn’t created by a USM turnover.
“When stuff goes bad for us, we try to prove that good defense doesn’t let that effect us,” said Jay Stanley, who had his second interception of the year. “We try to make up for any mistake our offense makes.”
Southern Miss will have a chance to make amends against another aggressive defense next week, this one belonging to Arkansas State. The Red Wolves travel to Hattiesburg coming off a 42-20 loss to James Madison.
This story was originally published October 8, 2022 at 9:03 PM.
