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The Run Game Carried Southern Miss to Back-to-Back Wins, and the Passing Game Still Hasn't Shown Up
A weekly, unique recap show for each college football team that played a game. This unique look at what occured has a forward-looking approach and gets you what you need to know. For hardcore fans, casual onlookers and the gambler looking for an edge. Check out the Depth Dossier!
This is the Depth Dossier: the Southern Miss Golden Eagles, Week 9.
Southern Miss is winning games now by pounding the ball, and the passing attack still hasn't come along for the ride.
The Golden Eagles beat Louisiana-Monroe 35 to 21 for their first road win of the year, piling up 249 rushing yards on 42 carries. Running back Steven Robinson went for 151 yards and a touchdown, and fellow running back Jamarice Wilder closed it out with 104 yards and two scores, including a 32-yard dagger with under two minutes left. The defense sacked quarterback Aidan Armenta five times, forced two first-half fumbles, and stopped Louisiana-Monroe on all three fourth-down tries. Quarterback Landry Lyddy did just enough through the air, completing 15 of 30 passes for 130 yards, to let the ground game close it out.
Here's the thing though. Southern Miss led 27 to 7 to start the fourth quarter, and that lead shrank all the way to 27 to 21 before they hung on. Penalties did most of the damage, including a targeting call on safety Kobi Albert. Head coach Anderson didn't sugarcoat it afterward, saying, "Felt like we let momentum get away from us in the second half. We were lucky to get away with it the way we did."
Dig into the numbers and this game was actually pretty shaky under the hood. Louisiana-Monroe actually won the per-play efficiency battle, meaning Southern Miss was the less consistent offense snap to snap. What flipped it were the margins. A two-to-nothing turnover advantage, a perfect three-for-three on fourth-down stops, and a handful of explosive runs that papered over a rough day of push up front. This was a game won on long gains, not on movement at the line of scrimmage.
A couple of other moments mattered a lot. Linebacker Malakai Murphy recovered a fumble at the Southern Miss 8-yard line that erased what looked like an early Louisiana-Monroe score. And right before halftime, a muffed-punt recovery by Cace Reed set up a 36-yard field goal with 17 seconds left in the half, the difference between a comfortable cushion and a dogfight. Southern Miss was flagged nine times for 87 yards overall, though it was really that fourth-quarter cluster that nearly cost them.
Zoom out, and the stakes are real. Southern Miss sits at 3 and 5 overall, 2 and 2 in the Sun Belt West, and needs to win three of its last four just to reach bowl eligibility, with Louisiana Tech still unbeaten in the division.
Now to the depth chart, and the headline there is no injuries reported, which is its own kind of win for a team trying to string together its first back-to-back victories of the season.
The backfield situation keeps getting clearer. Robinson and Wilder have each topped 100 rushing yards in back-to-back games, the first time that's happened for Southern Miss since 2016. Together they've put up 535 yards on 85 carries over that stretch. Robinson is still the early-down hammer and the guy who finishes short-yardage situations, while Wilder is the one finishing games, with his damage coming late for the second straight week.
At quarterback, Lyddy's struggles haven't gone anywhere. His completion rate is well below what you'd expect given his throws, and his passing success rate sits around 30 percent. Nothing suggests a quarterback change is coming, but the ground game is bailing him out rather than working alongside him.
On defense, Albert was the disruptor again, with six tackles, a sack, a forced fumble, and a pass breakup, even with that targeting penalty attached. Cornerback Champ Lewis added three pass breakups and earned a weekly conference honor, though he also drew two fourth-quarter penalties, something worth watching as the competition gets tougher.
Next up is James Madison, and the formula is simple. Clean up the fourth-quarter penalties, and let Robinson and Wilder keep carrying the offense.
This was the depth dossier. For everything college football, be it depth charts, data or dossiers, head over to C F B Depth dot com. We will be back next week. This was an AI-generated podcast from content developed by real human beings passionate about college football.