Dominant first half the difference as Southern Miss survives for rare road win
A dominant 20-minutes provided the boost Southern Miss needed.
The Golden Eagles (4-2, 2-0) scored 28 unanswered points in the first half on their way to a 38-35 win at Georgia Southern (2-4, 0-2) Thursday. Southern Miss needed every one of those four touchdowns to hold on in the second half, where it watched its 21-point lead dwindled to three by the 2-minute timeout.
Southern Miss picked off Eagles quarterback J.C. French three times and got the third consecutive multi-touchdown game from Mississippi State transfer Jeffery Pittman. The win gave USM its first 2-0 start in conference since joining the Sun Belt in 2022.
“We played hard, fast and physical, but of course we’ve got to play better at the end,” linebacker Mike Montgomery said on the postgame radio show. Montgomery made a team-high 11 tackles and two sacks. “I felt like we let up a little bit, but we’re going to take a win on the road every time.”
Georgia Southern scored the game’s first touchdown early in the first half, from which point the Golden Eagles’ offense outgained their counterpart, 239-36.
Braylon Braxton dropped a 50-yard pass over the middle into the arms of Tychaun Chapman to open the torrent of scoring. In between a pair of drives that each ended in goal line touchdown runs by Pittman, Braxton delivered a 30-yard back-shoulder strike to Carl Chester.
The outburst proved to be vital. Georgia Southern put together touchdown drives of 87 and 75 yards on its first two drives of the second half.
Southern Miss responded to each with a short Matt Jones scoring run and a 42-yard field goal on true freshman Creighton Wilbanks’ first career attempt.
Georgia Southern would score the final two touchdowns of the night, the second aided by a Micah Davis fumble, but Pittman put the game away with one first down gained on two runs after a failed onside kick by GS.
“It’s just the beginning,” Huff said. “We work to do, obviously, we got a lot of things we can get cleaned up. But it’s hard to win. We won tonight, so I’m really proud of these guys.”
Pittman picked up a career-high 140 rushing yards and USM got four receptions each from Chapman, Bralon Brown and Elijah Metcalf.
It’s the first road win for the program since Nov. 2023 when it beat Louisiana. The Ragin’ Cajuns are on deck again and will host the Golden Eagles on Oct. 18.
This story was originally published October 9, 2025 at 10:57 PM.
