Southern Miss vs. Alabama: All The Information You Need to Know
Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles (1-1) vs. No. 3 Alabama Crimson Tide (2-0)
Date: September 13, 2014
Time: 5:00 PM CDT
Location: Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, Alabama
Local Weather at Kickoff: 83 degrees with 50% chance of rain and humidity at 74%.
Stadium Capacity: 101,821
Television Information: ESPN2
Broadcast Crew: Joe Tessitore as Play-by-Play announcer, Brock Huard as color analyst, and Shannon Spake as sideline reporter.
Radio Info: Crimson Tide Sports Network. Eli Gold as Play-by-Play announcer, Phil Savage as color analyst, and Chris Stewart as sideline reporter.
Vegas Odds: (via Bovada) Alabama (-48)
Next up for Alabama: September 20 vs. Florida at Bryant-Denny Stadium, 2:30 PM CDT kickoff on CBS
Game Notes
Last meeting between these two teams: September 20, 2005 (Alabama won 30-21). Alabama leads series 34-6-2, every single game between the two schools has been played in the state of Alabama (Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, Montgomery, and Mobile dating back to 1947). Southern Miss’ last win against Alabama was 2000, 21-0 in Mike DuBose’s final year.
Week Two Recap
The Crimson Tide
Alabama is coming off of a dominating win over Southern Mississippi’s Conference USA brethren Florida Atlantic inside Bryant-Denny last Saturday 41-0.
Blake Sims led Alabama once again in passing with 228 yards and 2 TDs, completing 12 of 14 passes and not turning the ball over. He also carried the ball 3 times for 14 yards and a rushing TD. Jacob Coker saw his first meaningful playing time of the year and completed 15 of 24 passes for 202 yards and his first career TD as an Alabama player. Amari Cooper continued his impressive start to the season tying DJ Hall’s school record 13 catches for 189 yards and his first TD of the year.
Five different running backs carried the ball for Alabama last week, but none got more than 7 carries as Alabama spent the majority of the day testing out their new QBs in the passing game. The Tide still averaged nearly 6 yards per carry on the 32 rushes it had.
Defensively Alabama allowed just 145 yards of total offense (57 rushing, 88 passing) and forced the first turnover of the year. FAU only managed to convert 2 of 10 third downs and gave up 3 sacks to the Tide defense.
The Golden Eagles
Southern Miss bounced back from a humiliating 49-0 loss in week one with a 26-20 victory of FCS Alcorn State in week two snapping an eleven game home losing streak.
After jumping to a 20-7 lead against Alcorn State last week they allowed the FCS school to come back late but managed to hold them off 26-20 led mostly by kicker Corey Acosta’s career best four field goals. Eagles QB Nick Mullens threw for 208 yards and 2 TD in the game while running back Ito Smith added 118 yards on the ground.
On defense Southern Miss allowed Alcorn State to rack up nearly 400 yards of total offense including two 100 yard rushers. Alcorn State’s John Gibbs Jr. ran for 161 yards on just 11 carries with a touchdown and Darryan Ragsdale ran 11 more times for 111 yards. Gibbs is also the starting quarterback for Alcon State. The lowly run defense could spell trouble for Southern Miss as Alabama boasts one of the most dominating backfields in the country.
Key Injuries
Alabama
Defensive back Jarrick Williams sustained a fracture in his foot in the opener which will once again cost him this game. Receiver DeAndrew White is still nursing his separated shoulder from week one but has returned to practice. Receiver Christion Jones sprained his ankle against FAU but was practicing this week and could potentially play as well.
Southern Miss
Freshman offensive guard Garett Clark suffered a broken foot in fall camp and is expected to miss a few more weeks recovering from the injury.
Conclusion
For Southern Miss to make this game competitive they will need quarterback Nick Mullens to have an all world type of game and will need the defense to play much better against the run than they have thus far this season. Mississippi State had over 200 yards rushing against Southern Miss and Alcorn State had nearly 300 yards on the ground including two 100 yard rushers. The pass defense was a bit better against smaller Alcorn State but Mississippi State had almost 400 yards through the air and five TDs.
The message for Alabama will be “consistency” and staying away from complacency. Both Blake Sims and Jacob Coker will likely see action once again though I would expect Alabama to stick more to the run against the Golden Eagles especially with the chance of a lot of rain. Southern Miss also had trouble against a mobile quarterback in both games this year which could lead to some big things for Blake Sims.
Be sure to check back with Bama Hammer and The Houndztooth for all of your game day coverage.