That was tough to take.

Opening statement…

"It was a tough game. We didn't have many breaks go our way Saturday. Give Western Kentucky credit doing a good job creating a couple of those turnovers. We'd certainly love to have it back, but we don't. If there was a silver lining it was the result of the LA Tech-UAB game. We've got a big game this week and have to get ready to play."


On potential tiebreakers…

"No (I have not looked at all of them), but I've heard some good things. Bottom line is we just have to win the ball game, that's all that matters."


On Quez Watkins' fumble at the goal line…

"It's so close. The game of football is a game of inches. It's just close and right there. It's bang-bang. Those things are just tough calls. I can't say one way or the other."


On Tate Whatley at quarterback…

"[Tate] is just a gamer. He came in and did well. He's a good football player, so I have no reservation with Jack [Abraham] or Tate. We've got some really good quarterbacks and that's something that is a good thing."


On the WKU game…

"It was really a tight game. It was just a few plays that were huge momentum-swinging plays. Sitting back and looking at it, the turnover at the goal line was a huge deal. The sack that caused the fumble was a huge deal. We went down inside the 10 and didn't get it on fourth-and-1. We also had a missed field goal. We had opportunities, but we just didn't take advantage of those opportunities and they made plays too. You have to give [WKU] credit. There were probably one or two plays that swung the pendulum, but that's football. We have to lick our wounds and bounce back."


On the Golden Eagle offensive line…

"I didn't feel like we had our best game up front for sure. That's somewhere we definitely have to play better. We ran the ball well at times, but we have to make sure we do a little bit better job at protection."


On defensive leaders after Racheem Boothe left the game…

"There are some guys like Demarrio [Smith] and Jacques [Turner]. Those guys are leaders and DQ [Thomas] is always a guy that is a bell cow. We have plenty of leaders up front that do a good job."


On FAU…

"They're a good football team. You have to give credit where credit is due. They're well-coached, athletic, and do a good job across the board. The quarterback does a good job running the offense. Look at our schedule, you know every week is a war. There are no layups on our schedule this whole season."


On the progression of Jack Abraham since week one…

"Jack's an upper-echelon quarterback. He leads our offense extremely well. He throws the ball well and sees the field well, so he's a smart quarterback. Jack's played well this year."


On late field goal…

"To be honest with you, I was sitting there in the fourth quarter and had no idea how [the tiebreakers] are going to shake down with point differences. At that time the game was pretty much over, so I said we might as well get what we can get because who knows what this thing will shake down to. That's really what I was thinking. It's so even, because we all have the same divisional record. I didn't have a manual by me sitting there saying scenario eight is what it comes down to. So I was like you know what, we might as well get some points where we can get some points. We'll see if it helps us. That was my mindset. I was thinking championship the whole way. My brain was on that the whole way going in. It might be irrelevant, but if three points help then it helps."


On defensive play against WKU…

"We have to do a better job on the reverse. We have to make sure we keep that contained. I felt like they had that drive and then we had a broken coverage. Other than that, there's not much you can do about the sack-caused-fumble touchdown. After the fumble, they ran it back to the 10 and we probably had two bad plays right there. We had the broken coverage for the long touchdown and then they ran a little corner route of a bunch set that we didn't cover well. Give them credit on those two plays. All of a sudden you're down 14, but I thought other than that the defense did some good things."


On Thanksgiving plans…

"Usually we practice in the morning and then have a big Thanksgiving dinner together as a football team."

Yes we lost they won. But observations Quez mugged on every play. It was funny the one time he did get the PI call I thought that was clean. The Quez Touchdown maybe there was a better view but I have watched that play fifteen times and I dont know how he couldn't have broken the goal line. Western Kentucky last TD the Jack Abraham Fumble and return I an not sure the Defender ever had control of the Football and wouldn't that actually have been a Touchback. This one hurt especially when La Tech laid the division in our lap. Huge Game must rebound and find a way to win next week to get this horrible taste out of mouth

I don't want this to come across as too hard or too mean. After watching Hop's teams for 4 years now, something is starting to really become clear. For Hop, as a head coach, to win games, his teams must be more talented and athletic than the other team in every aspect of the game. When Hop's teams play against squads that, maybe has a more talented offense or defense, or maybe a team with not much less talent, and a coach who can gameplan and make adjustments, then Hop's teams will lose 70-75% of the time. Tonight is a great example. WKU is not a more talented team than USM, but they are better coached and make better adjustments as the game goes along.

Favored by 10.5...On paper they should win this game going away...But...You never know...

You get SWAC players and SWAC play. Hopson has no business in Div.1 football, even in CUSA.

Call Art Briles at the end of the season and see if he's interested. We can find the money if our Illustrious President gives a shit about our program. (he doesn't)

.....and I still think Hop is an idiot and we’ve reached our ceiling with him.....

Let’s bring in a young fiery coordinator looking to make a name for himself to drive some energy into our program!!!!

USM will never even make it to the championship game with Hop as coach. Another poor season has occurred.

http://www.mississippi.edu/pr/newsstory.asp?ID=1577

14,133 (-2.6%)

16,000 butts, 22,000 announced.

talked to a players parents and they were asked to get passports together.
ESPN has USM projected for Bahamas Bowl

Giannini is the Exec Director

https://www.bahamasbowl.com/the-game/bowl-staff/

Anyone know why Jaylon Adams isn’t playing?

This is sooooooo CUSA. If all 3 teams USM, UAB, La Tech win or lose saturday this is how they determine who wins the west. LOL

If Louisiana Tech, Southern Miss and UAB each win their final regular season game and finish 6-2, the tie would not be broken through the first seven tie-breakers and it would go down to tie-breaker No. 8: “If still tied, the representative will be the team that has not participated in the championship game most recently.” Southern Miss (2015) would win that tie-breaker ahead of Louisiana Tech (2016) and UAB (2018).

Courtesy of CUSA

FB: C-USA Football Scenarios
Nov. 24, 2019 Football
CONFERENCE USA FOOTBALL SCENARIOS

Following is a "simple" evaluation of the league's 2019 football race through games of November 23:

C-USA Football Scenarios 11 24 19.(pdf)

2019 C-USA Football Tie-Breakers.(pdf)

In the East -
Florida Atlantic (6-1) –The Owls can win the East Division by winning against Southern Miss. Florida Atlantic owns the tie-breaker over WKU.

Marshall (5-2) – the Thundering Herd can win the East Division by winning against FIU, if Florida Atlantic loses to Southern Miss. Marshall owns the tie-breakers over Florida Atlantic and WKU and would win a two-way tie with Florida Atlantic at 6-2 and a three-way tie-breaker at 6-2.

WKU (5-2) –The Hilltoppers can finish in a tie for the East Division at 6-2, but lose the head-to-head tie-breaker with Florida Atlantic and a three-way tie-breaker with both schools based on head-to-head losses to each.

In the West –
Louisiana Tech (5-2) – the Bulldogs can win the West Division title with a win vs. UTSA and a UAB loss at North Texas. The Bulldogs will win the division at 6-2 in a tie with Southern Miss only, as the Bulldogs own the tie-breaker over the Golden Eagles).

Southern Miss (5-2) – the Golden Eagles can win the West Division by winning at Florida Atlantic, if LA Tech loses to UTSA. Southern Miss owns the tie-breaker over UAB if both schools are 6-2.

UAB (5-2) – the Blazers can win the West Division by winning at North Texas, along with a Southern Miss loss at Florida Atlantic. UAB would then win a head-to-head tie-breaker with LA Tech if both schools are 6-2.

If Louisiana Tech, Southern Miss and UAB each win their final regular season game and finish 6-2, the tie would not be broken through the first seven tie-breakers and it would go down to tie-breaker No. 8: “If still tied, the representative will be the team that has not participated in the championship game most recently.” Southern Miss (2015) would win that tie-breaker ahead of Louisiana Tech (2016) and UAB (2018).

Regarding the host of the Conference USA Football Championship game –
Florida Atlantic (6-1) – controls its destiny to host the C-USA Championship Game and will host with a win over Southern Miss in Boca Raton on Saturday.

Marshall (5-2) remains a possibility to host the C-USA Championship from the East Division, while Louisiana Tech (5-2), Southern Miss (5-2) and UAB (5-2) remain possibilities to host the C-USA Championship from the West Division.

Head-to-head competition is the first tie-breaker if divisional champions have the same conference record. If they did not play, the CFP ranking is the next tie-breaker. If neither team is in the top 25 of the CFP Rankings and wins on the final weekend, average computer ranking (Anderson and Hester, Billingsley, Colley Matrix, Massey, Sagarin and Wolfe) would be used to determine host.

As far as bowl eligibility is concerned:

There are six teams with at least seven wins and bowl eligibility – Florida Atlantic (8-3), Louisiana Tech (8-3), Marshall (7-4), Southern Miss (7-4), UAB (7-4) and WKU (7-4).

There are two teams with six wins and bowl eligibility – Charlotte (6-5) and FIU (6-5).

Conference USA will have eight bowl-eligible teams this season.

C-USA has six guaranteed bowl selections in 2019: Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl (Tampa Bay, Fla.) the Makers Wanted Bahamas Bowl (Nassau, Bahamas), New Mexico Bowl (Albuquerque, N.M.), R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl and SERVPRO First Responder Bowl (Dallas, Texas), along with either the SoFi Hawai’i Bowl (Honolulu, Hawai’i), or the Tropical Smoothie Cafe Frisco Bowl (Frisco, Texas) . The league has a secondary agreement with the Walk-On’s Independence Bowl (Shreveport, La.), should the ACC or SEC not be able to fill its spot in that game, and a secondary agreement with the Cheribundi Boca Raton Bowl.

We could be staying home. A distinct possibility.

Nothing of my opinion about last night has changed. This is my opinion: Southern Miss has the better roster from top to bottom, but was out planned and out schemed by a very good WKU coaching staff. This happened once before this season at La Tech. Now saying that, unbelievably the Eagles are still alive in the Western division race and still have a great opportunity to host the CUSA Champ game. Southern Miss has been known to play well when their backs are against the wall. What is standing in their way is Kiffen and FAU, but FAU is also playing to represent the East and their back is up against the wall. Who will win? Who knows, but one thing is for sure, the team most prepared will win. This is CUSA and some strange things always happen, so with that said, SMTTT

Jack Abraham will be the USM representative for the 2019 Conerly Trophy. He should be the frontrunner.

Very interesting...

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The only difference between JH and EJ is, EJ kill the program in one year. JH is killing us by a slow and painful death that will take just as long to recover from if it is not stopped now. There is a reason SWAC coaches don't get hired to coach DI ball and we are seeing it first hand. That old saying you get what you pay for we are seeing exactly what it means. Stop the bleeding now before all of the attendance records for the lowest have been reached. I for one am not sure I will renew my season tickets of six which I have had for years anymore with type of coaching. I don't want to hear some of you say we need to support our team and University. I graduated in 72 and have been supporting them from the beginning but I am really tired of giving and not getting a return for my money. We wonder why we never got invited to another conference well it is because we are not able to win year after year and keep fan support. With just the City of Hattiesburg alone we should fill the stadium not counting the students, surrounding cities on the coast. Even in Hattiesburg there is more support for the two instate SEC schools than USM. We need to hire an exciting OC like Monk and Fedora again and if they leave hire another. Don't hire a JH that is not going to excite the fans or get the kids to want to come here. You can have the best race car in the world in your garage, but if you don't have gas to put in it you are going anywhere. That is what we are missing, the right GAS.

Still possible to win West



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...play so poorly with what we had in front of us. Especially on Senior night. La. Tech gives us a ticket to the Championshio game and we don't want it. Very disappointed.