The problem with dismissing cliches is that most of them are grounded in truth.
UL coach Mike Desormeaux heard the talk. He knew most of his players and fans thought Saturday’s road trip to play a 1-5 Southern Miss team was going to be the easiest Sun Belt game so far this season.
He also knew Southern Miss coach Blake Anderson’s Golden Eagles were going to be more motivated than any game all season.
The Cajuns were coming to town. Anderson spent a season as an assistant coach in Lafayette and spent a decade as Arkansas State’s head coach with UL being their most bitter rival.
The result was UL falling to 2-25 all-time in Hattiesburg.
“We talk about it a lot, but we’ve got to stay focused on us and what we are and what we do,” Desormeaux said. “There’s no easy games in this league. I told them that early in the week. Southern Miss has good players. They’re still playing really hard. They made mistakes early in the year that cost them games and they didn’t make them tonight and we did. That’s what’s frustrating and that’s what’s maddening about it.”
Redshirt senior linebacker Jake St. Andre admitted the Cajuns got much more than they expected from the 1-5 Golden Eagles.
”They came ready to play and we didn’t,” St. Andre said. “I think we looked a little too much into the record as players. Coach Des warned us all week about none of that matters. It’s about football. We didn’t come out ready to go.”
Desormeaux abruptly addressed that issue.
“That was my concern all week,” he said. “Obviously, I didn’t do a good enough job being a (jerk), but I will be for the next two.”
With that said, Desormeaux said it’s important his team handle the loss properly.
“It’s a plethora of errors across the board and there’s no one group now that owns more than the other,” Desormeaux said. “I just told our team we didn’t play well enough to win. You don’t get to pound your chest whenever you play well (33-6 win over Troy), and then you don’t get to point fingers when you lose, and this group doesn’t do that.”
The truly rough part of the loss is the Cajuns now have to mull it over for two weeks.
“Yeah, it sucks, definitely,” St. Andre said.
Bright spots
When you lose a 35-31 game, there are obviously many big plays made by both teams during the game.
No one in UL’s locker room was in the mood to discuss the positive aspects of the loss after the game, but there were some hidden gems.
One was redshirt freshman wide receiver Russell Babineaux.
It was UL’s third drive of the second half and the game was still tied at 21-21. The Cajuns were facing a third-and-5 from their own 29. As the play developed, it appeared doomed, but Winfield throw right to a cover Babineaux. Instead of leading to a punt, however, Babineaux made a tough catch for 13 yards.
That catch led to an 8-play, 76-yard drive in 3:23 to take the 28-21 lead with 2:16 left in the third period.
“There’s no question,” Desormeaux said. “We had guys that stepped up in some critical moments and made some big plays. The miscues were just louder than the good plays. That’s usually how it happens whenever you lose.
“If you find a way to win the game, then that’s when you go back and you talk about the big ones that happen that allowed you to win. Whenever you come up short, those are kind of muffled a little bit by things that caused you to lose a game. That’s just the way it works.”
Wide receiver KeDarius Wade was another example.
With the offense struggling at the time and facing a third-and-21 situation from his own 11, Winfield went deep for a 47-yard completion to Wade.
Also, on UL’s game-tying, two-minute drive, redshirt freshman Trenton Chaney caught three passes for 35 yards on the drive, including the 4-yard touchdown pass with 31 seconds left before intermission.
Missed chances
Many things cost UL’s chance of moving to 6-2 Saturday in Hattiesburg.
Near the top of the list was wasted opportunities by the offense.
After a really nice 13-play, 75-yard drive in 7:23 opened the game with a touchdown, the Cajuns’ defense forced a three-and-out on the first Southern Miss drive. Even better for the Cajuns, the subsequent punt only went 23 yards to give UL possession at the USM 35.
Instead of going up by two scores, though, a 2-yard run was followed by three straight incompletions – none of which came close to being receptions for a turnover on downs.
Two drives later, Avery Demery caused a fumble recovered by teammate Kody Jackson to give UL the ball at the USM 37. Three plays later, Tony Sterner missed a 51-yard field goal – his first miss of the season.
Two quarters later, the 47-yard completion to Wade led to UL turning it over on downs at the USM 33 when a fourth-and-1 play was stuffed.
“We had plenty of opportunities,” Desormeaux said. “I mean, we had drives, drive opportunities where we got a good field position and didn’t score. We had drives where we had a chance to put the fire out on defense and we didn’t earlier in the game.”
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