Tulane rings true in 21-3 win at USM
Last season, Tulane led Southern Miss by as many as 14 points, but it was USM making all the big plays late in a 27-24 comeback victory.
This season, the Green Wave got out to a similar lead and never looked back.
WXXV News 25’s Sports Director Jeff Haeger was on-hand for the 34th Battle for the Bell and brings us the full recap from Hattiesburg.
The Green Wave defense rang true in the Battle for the Bell, reminding everyone why they’re just one week removed from being a top 25 team in the country. On the flip side, not a very inspiring performance from Southern Miss on offense, scoring the fewest points since a shutout loss against UAB in October 2021. Head Coach Will Hall said, “We never really made a play. We never caused a turnover, never made an explosive in the kicking game, and then offensively, we had one explosive to Caston on that deep pass. And defensively, they did a great job defensively of giving us some yards underneath. They tackled extremely well and kicked our butt pretty good.”
Quarterback Billy Wiles said, “Going into the year we didn’t want to be here. These past two weeks have been really good teams obviously, but we haven’t played near as well as we should’ve, and we know that. We know we can be so much better and that’s going to keep us working and keep us going in the season. We have so many hard-working guys on this team.”
Safety Jay Stanley said, “We want to continue to get better and just put all of this behind us. Critique yourself when you put the film on and try to correct everything and try to be perfect in every game. We’ve just got to continue to move forward and get better as a team.”
Now another thing Coach Hall touched on, everyone wanted to count out the USM baseball team after its first two losses against Coastal Carolina, well guess what, the Golden Eagles won 14 straight games after that point.
That’s his message to his football team now, as they enter conference play in less than a week.
Next up for Southern Miss is a road trip to Arkansas State for a 6 p.m. kick off on Saturday.
