With one week of college football in the books, there were some impressive feats, and nearly impossible comebacks made. One of the more impressive comebacks, was from Southern Miss against Kentucky last Saturday.
Heading into halftime, the Golden Eagles were down 35-17 and had struggled mightily against the Wildcat defense, throwing three first-half interceptions trying to take shots downfield. In the second half, the Southern Miss offense, led by offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson completely took over, scoring 27 unanswered points en route to a stunning 44-35 victory.
At the end of the day, Dawson led the offense to a day where they piled up 520 yards of total offense, and 262 rushing yards against an SEC opponent while running nearly 100 plays (96 to be exact).
How did it happen? Well it certainly wasn't a magic pill, Dawson told Kentucky Sports it was important for them to not fall into the trap many offensive play callers face trying to make it all up in a few big plays, and opted instead to attempt to wear the defense down.
“When you get down like that, the fight as a coordinator is not try to get it back in one play. You only overcome a deficit like that by slowly chipping away.”Chipping away is precisely what they did, dominating the time of possession at the final whistle 40:32 to Kentucky's 19:28.
“The nature of their defense is they play coverage. They play a guy in the middle of the field, they don’t want to give up post, so when people play that, you’ve got to be patient as a play caller. You’ve got to put the ball in play underneath."
“That’s why we were throwing slant routes. That’s why we were throwing glance routes. You try to put the ball in play in pockets and run the football. So that was the plan at halftime really.”
The plan clearly worked, as Dawson took his new offense and helped lead them to a victory over the school he spent last season working with.
Head here to read the full story via KentuckySports.com.
Southern Miss will look to keep the momentum rolling against FCS Savannah State this weekend.