Jayhawks
Preview: Jayhawks vs. Southern Mississippi University
Jayhawk fans, do you have Eagle Fever? Anyone? (Why would you have a school cheer that sounds like the guy from Ferris Bueller?)
A big crowd will be gathering in Hattiesburg, Mississippi around 11:30 on Thursday. The Fedora Football group. They’ll be eating lunch with the Golden Eagles head coach Larry Fedora at the Trent Lott Center! *yikes* (Why would you have lunch in a building named after Trent Lott. Isn’t there a Brett Favre building on campus somewhere??) They had to move their lunch to Thursday because they’re playing the Hawks Friday night. That’s right! Jay-jay-jay-hawks! (Always Sunny? Anyone?) There is apparently lots of free parking on Championship Lane for the event, as I would imagine there would be given there aren’t a lot of championships coming out of Southern Mississippi University. Although, to be fair, they have two more national championships in football than KU.
So how tough of a game will this be? Looking at Southern Miss’s last two games doesn’t tell us a whole lot. They lost at South Carolina and beat Prairie View A&M at home. By 27 points. (Sort of like losing to North Dakota State). So I’m more interested in their loss to South Carolina. They only got 67 yards rushing against South Carolina (about a 2-yard average per rush) but rang up 337 yards in passing. However, it only resulted in one touchdown for them. Quarterback Martevious Young was responsible for that touchdown. Don’t let his name fool you. He’s actually a senior. But Southern Miss uses a two quarterback system. Austin Davis is their other quarterback who has thrown for 416 yards in two games this year.
Luckily for the Jayhawks, their two bizarre opposite game performances have the Golden Eagles confused. They don’t know which team to prepare for! Fedora says:
Offensively for us, from the two films we have gotten, the first game was a two-back, two-tight end set offense that was just running and pounding the ball. The second game was an option team, so for the offense we really do not have anything to go off of on film and that’s frustrating. Its almost like it’s the first game of the season and you have to go into it not having any idea what they are going to do. On the defensive side, we have a better feel because we can see what they are going to do. It has been a little tough on the offense as we are game-planning trying to figure out what they are going to be when they get in the game. Neither of those two teams threw the ball much against them but hopefully we can change that.
If the Golden Eagles are anything like their most famous alum, Favre, we know they won’t quit. Or will they? No, they won’t. Maybe. I don’t know. What are they doing today? Quitting? No. Still playing? Okay. Well, let’s just hope the Jayhawks can handle whatever their precarious 40-year-old mental state may be. Rock Chalk Jayhawk!