C-USA Media Days: Southern Miss determined to win turnover battle in 2017

The Southern Miss football team comes into 2017 trying to replace Nick Mullens, the school record holder for passing yards and touchdowns.
While the QB battle is important, the Golden Eagles have some other things they need to address this fall as well. Most importantly are turnovers. USM gave the ball away 32 times last season, but only took it back 15 times.
That’s a recipe for disaster and would normally equate to less than seven wins. However, the Black and Gold outgained their opponents by over 1,900 yards in 2016 on the way to their first bowl game victory since 2011.
Today, Head Coach Jay Hopson was miked up for Conference USA media days and he says ball security is the top priority. “We actually finished in the Top 25 in total offense and in defense I think in America, so it’s very seldom do you have both sides of the ball finish in the Top 25 in the country. But I think we led the country in turnovers, and that’s something we’ve got to eliminate that and we gave up too many big plays. So, there was so many times you could turn on the game film and just see so many positives. But we’ve got to eliminate those few negatives, and I think that’s the trick in being great. So certainly we’ve studied our mistakes and hopefully we’ll continue to learn from that and get better.”
Southern Miss hasn’t had a positive turnover ratio since the 2010 season.
Now heading into 2017, the Golden Eagles have been picked to finish third in the west, receiving one first place vote in the pre-season media poll. They trail Louisiana Tech and UTSA and come in ahead of North Texas, Rice, UTEP, and UAB.
In the east, Western Kentucky takes home the top spot with MTSU, ODU, and Marshall also receiving first place votes. Rounding out the division are FAU, FIU, and Charlotte.