Southern Miss to host South Alabama on Senior Day

JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) - The Southern Miss Golden Eagles sit at 5-5 (3-3 in Sun Belt Conference play) heading into the final two weeks of the regular season after suffering a heartbreaking 23-26 defeat to the Sun Belt leaders, the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers this past Saturday.

The Golden Eagles went into the matchup with much uncertainty at the quarterback position after starting freshman QB Zach Wilcke was pulled out of the game against Georgia State two weeks ago. However, Head Coach Will Hall seemed to have found the answer to the quarterback woes through Senior Trey Lowe, who had an outstanding game despite the loss and will back himself to close out the season.

“We sure hope so,” Coach Hall said when I asked if he is the starting quarterback. “That was the best quarterback play we’ve had here in quite some time. I’m really proud of Trey for how he played and we hope he can continue to play like that.”

Lowe finished the game against the Chanticleers throwing for 295 yards and a touchdown and will need a similar performance this upcoming Saturday.

Southern Miss will be back at The Rock in Hattiesburg this weekend and will host the top team in the West division team of the Sun Belt, the South Alabama Jaguars on Senior Day. The Golden Eagles have a chance to do something special and clinch bowl eligibility with a win against the Jaguars for the first time since 2019.

Coach Hall will have his squad ready for another nationally televised matchup in hopes of securing a win for the seniors who have been crucial to the rebuilding process and will play their final game inside M. M. Roberts Stadium.

“We had 3 [different] offensive coordinators over the last few years, 4 o-line coaches, a head coach that left after game 1, and 2 interim coaches. You also had COVID and the portal coming into play for the first time. We were a depleted roster in every way,” Coach Hall said. “And these seniors that’ll play in this game this week are the ones that chose to stay and love Southern Miss in spite of everything that was going on. To be quite frank with you, a lot of kids these days would not have stayed, and a lot of them didn’t stay.”

“With the situation that they were in, in some ways you can’t blame them for leaving. But, we are certainly appreciative of the ones that stayed. We have built this program back on stable ground now and laid a foundation that can be built upon. We would like to send them out the right way because they deserve it.”

Kick-off is set for 2:30 p.m. at The Rock. The game will be televised on NFL Network.

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