Ragin' Dave's USM Preview
USM Golden Eagles Preview
It has been an up and down year for USM with some surprise wins and some surprise loses. USM started the year with a nice performance in a loss in quadruple overtime to a decent Liberty team and a good performance vs Miami (FL) in game 3, but unfortunately came out of those games at a disappointing 0-3 they did kind of right the ship with a big win over Northwestern State and then a shocking win over Tulane in New Orleans. But then had a disappointing result vs Troy but have won the last 2 games over Arkansas State and Texas State. They stand at 4-3 overall and 2-1 in conference. This is a good start for them coming off a 3-9 campaign in 2021, Coach Will Hall’s first season at USM.
We are very familiar with Will Hall as he was the UL OC in 2017. Hall has also been the Head Coach at West Alabama and OC at Tulane. In his 2 seasons at USM he has an overall 7-12 record and as a HC he has a record of 63-32. Hall took over a program that was a mess and is working on bringing it back to life. Some familiar names are peppered throughout the USM coaching staff including Reed Stringer who is Assistant HC and General Manager at USM and Austin Armstrong who is the DC and Inside Linebackers coach.
QB—I feel for Will Hall as he has had a mess at QB since taking over USM including playing a game last year vs La Tech where he lined up multiple RB’s at the QB position for the entire game because he did not have 1 healthy QB available and this year he has had issues as well. When the season started, they were high on Sophomore QB Ty Keyes who was a highly recruited young man out of Taylorsville, MS, Keyes had offers from Tulane, UL, Auburn, Kansas among others. Keyes was hurt early in the season and is now out for the year. The new QB is Freshman Zach Wilcke (6’3 205) from Hernando, MS. Wilcke has had his moments, but overall has struggled in this offense. On the season he is only completing around 60% of his passes with 7 TD’s and 8 INT’s. Keyes was more of a threat with his legs than Wilcke is, and I would not be surprised if we possibly see Trey Lowe (6’2 235) JR transfer from WVU or possibly Jake Lange (6’2 194) Sophomore if Wilcke continues to struggle in the passing game.
RB—This team wants to run the ball and they have a good one in Frank Gore Jr (5’8 195). He is the son of former NFL RB Frank Gore and has been good in his first two seasons at USM. Gore leads the Eagles in rushing with 568 yards and 4 TD’s and no one is really close behind him. The next leading rusher only has 116 yards on the season. Gore is averaging 4.9 yards per carry. To show you how much he is carrying the ball the 3rd leading rusher is Ty Keyes who only has 60 yards on the season and has only played in parts of 3 games. Gore is also a threat to catch the ball out of the backfield. He has 9 receptions for 83 yards on the season, but you can expect him to be in on all passing downs. Gore is 5th on the team in receiving yards and 4th in receptions.
WR/TE—The Eagles have 3 receivers that are doing most of the damage to opponents, but clearly they are led by Jason Brownlee (6’3 202) who has 31 catches on the season for 397 yards and 4 TD’s and backed up by Jakarius Caston (6’0 204) with 21 catches for 264 and 3 TDs and finally Tiaquelin Mims (5’9 172) with 12 catches and 172 yards and no TD’s. After that there is a huge drop off. They do have a pretty good one at TE in Cole Cavallo (6’2 232) who has 9 catches for 81 yards. Brownlee and Caston are JUCO transfers before transferring into Hattiesburg. This team has some talent at WR but having QB issues has been the biggest reason they have not put-up bigger numbers.
OL—This is a team that has struggled offensively on the season and while Frank Gore’s numbers are good, overall running the ball they have not been great. They are only averaging around 125 yards per game on the ground and only 208 through the air but it is a very veteran squad. There is only one underclassman on the starting OL. This group is led by Gerquan Scott (6’4 331) Sophomore at LG, Tykeem Doss (6’5 360) SR at LT, Briason Mays (6’3 315) JR who started a few games at WVU at Center, John Bolding (6’3 320) JR who started his career at FIU at RG and finally Paul Gainer (6’3 290) Senior at RT.
Offense—This team has struggled mightily except for the Northwestern State game on offense. They are only averaging 25 points per game on the season and if you take out the NW St game that number drops to 18.5 points per game and again, they are not getting much production in the passing game which in turn putting pressure on Gore to produce, most teams are lining up extra men in the box and daring USM to throw the ball against them which is where they have struggled with turnovers. They are also struggling on 3rd down only converting around 36% on the season. USM has 11 INTs on the season and 6 more fumbles lost giving them a total of 17 turnovers through 7 games. The RZ has been an issue as well. They are only 7 of 20 on TDs in the redzone and only 13 of 20 in scoring opportunities. Offensive woes have been the biggest issue for this team this year.
DLine—While the offense has struggled, the Defense has been pretty good, and this team has gotten surprisingly good play out of their D-Line and DL is probably the best of the group and that is saying allot. USM will line up in a 3-4 base defense but will give you multiple looks at different times. The leader on the DL is the big guy in the middle, Jalen Williams (6’3 305) the NT, a guy who started his college career at Arkansas and went to JUCO before ending up at USM. He has 28 tackles on the season with 1 sack but is just a disrupter on defense. The other guy to what out for is Quentin Bivens (6’3 305) who transferred in from Ole Miss at DT. Bivens only has 17 tackles on the season, but he has 3 sacks, the other guy is Kristin Booth and Jordyn Mahaffey, Mahaffey is a Sophomore JUCO transfer and has given them solid minutes from the DE position.
LB—The LB group is a veteran group and a good one. The best of this group is Santrell Latham (6’2 225) with 46 tackles on the season and a forced fumble, he is all over the field, but he is backed up by a number of players around him. Daylen Gill (5’11 225) is 4th on the team in tackles with h35 and Averie Habas who is 6th on the team in tackles with 23 and 2 sacks. But the most impressive from this position is got to the Dominic Quewon (6’3 254) who only has 12 tackles on the season, but of those 12, 7 are sacks. When he is in the game, he is rushing the QB.
D-Backs—They are good in the back group as well, but none are better than Malik Shorts (6’0 202), their version of Bralen Trahan at Safety, Shorts leads the team with 53 tackles and is tied with the team lead with 2 INT’s. Jay Stanley (6’2 215) is the other Safety and is very good as well with 36 tackles 1 sack and 2 INT’s as well. The CB’s will be Eric Scott (6’2 202) and Natrone Brooks (5’11 168). Except for Brooks this is a very big group of DB’s. Tylan Knight is a player to keep an eye on. He will be their extra DB when they need one and is a very small guy (5’7 175) but played 4 years at Ole Miss. Knight played in 47 games at Ole Miss before transferring.
DEFENSE—This is a very good defensive team. They are only giving up 21.86 points per game, while giving up only 111 yards per game on the ground and 238 through the air. They have also forced a ton of turnovers. They have 9 picks on the season. Teams are 40-111 on 3rd downs and 2 of 11 on 4th downs against them. They are also forcing a ton of FG’s in the RZ. Teams have only converted 10 of 20 TDs in the redzone.
Special Teams—Mason Hunt is the punter for USM, he has 35 punts this year for a 43.40 average with a long of 57 with 4 TB’s and 12 Fair Catches and 16 of them inside the 20. What impressive is that about 1/3 of his kicks have been over 50 yards. Their FG kicker is Briggs Bourgeois, and he is good, with only 1 miss on the season and perfect on the season from 40 -59 yards at 2-2. He does have 1 miss on the season. He is also the KO man for the Eagles as well and 21 of his 35 have been Touchbacks, so we might not get many attempts to return many kicks.
Return Specialist—Starting DB Natrone Brooks is the punt returner, he is good, he has an average of 14.71 yards per return on 14 returns with a long of 33. He is a dangerous return man. As far as KO’s go, Camron Harrll is the kickoff guy, and he is averaging 20 yards per return but only has 10 returns on the season. So he is not getting much of a chance to return many.
My Prediction
Cajuns 24
Golden Eagles 10
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Re: Ragin' Dave's USM Preview
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