Out of time

HOUSTON – The Southern Miss Golden Eagles lost their fourth
consecutive road game Saturday in a thrilling 50-43 loss to the No. 15
Houston Cougars.

“Our guys fought to the last second, like I knew they would,” head
coach Larry Fedora said. “We put ourselves into position (to win), but
we just didn’t get it done.”

The Golden Eagles rallied late after going down by 18 in the beginning for the 4^th quarter. The offense scored 21 points in the 4^th quarter to tie the game up, until Houston drove down with 57 seconds on the clock to score. The game clock hit zero with the Eagles offense launching the ball into the end zone.

 

“(The Houston offense) is the best in the nation,” said Fedora. “We knew they were going to make some plays. We knew we were going to make some plays. We just ran out of time.

Even with the loss, the offense posted 608 yards of total offense on
the day, 248 of those coming on the ground and 360 yards through the
air.

“We felt like we ran the football well and didn’t turn it over,” Fedora said.

Damion Fletcher accounted for 136 of those rushing yards, who also had
26 yards receiving.

“We knew we could run the ball on them because their defense was very
vulnerable,” said Fletcher. “We came out, did well, moved the ball up
and down the field, and we scored points.”

Quarterback Martevious Young had a great day, completing 58 percent of
his passes for 360 yards and three touchdowns.

“Its frustrating, but we can stay down and we have to keep our heads
up,” said Martevious Young. “We have to score more. We have to focus
on putting points on the board instead of field goals.”

But one player in particular was not happy with the offensive
explosion the Eagles had today; all wide receiver Gerald Baptiste
wanted was a win.

“You can never be satisfied,” said Baptiste. “I’d give give all the
touchdowns and career highs back for a W. The past two games, I had
zero receptions, but we won, and I was the happiest guy on the field.
I’m about team wins instead of individual wins.”

The defense had a tough game against the best offense in the nation,
with Houston putting up 750 yards of total offense on the day.

“We’re down, but we’re still going to win our side of the conference,”
said linebacker Korey Williams. “(Houston) just gets the ball in open
space and they have a lot of quick guys that make you miss.”

The kicking game woes continued, with two missed extra points and one
field goal.

“There is no excuse for missing two extra points,” Fedora said.

Several players were adament about returning to Houston in December
for the Conference USA championship game.

“The Eagles are not dead, regardless of what people might think,” said Baptiste.

Southern Miss has a bye week before playing an away game against
conference foe Marshall on November 14th.