Southern Miss 28, GGSM{SMU} 12

It looks like it will be a long off-season on the SMU campus.

After giving up an early touchdown, the Mustangs held it close, trailing only 7-6 at halftime, but Southern Miss broke it open with three touchdowns at the end of the third quarter and the first play of the fourth quarter.

SMU QB Bo Levi Mitchell was 26-49 for 253 yards, giving him 2865 yards for the season, 21st in the nation. Not too shabby for a true freshman. Of course he threw two more interceptions to bring his nation leading total to 23. And only 13 QBs were sacked more often than his 26. On the bright side, his numbers on the season are not too dissimilar from Minnesota's Adam Weber's freshman season last year. His Gophers were also 1-11, but then this season he led them to a 7-1 (before losing their last 4, but I'll ignore that for now).

June Jones didn't beat a Division I-A team this year in his first season at SMU. Quite a fall from his 12-1 Hawai`i team last season, but considering that he was building on an SMU team that also finished 1-11. Hm, although now that I look more closely, Jones's passing attack only increased the Mustang's from 252.1 passing yards per game to 272.9. However, the more dramatic chase was in the lack of the running game. In 2007, the Mustangs rushed for 170.4 yards per game, led by QB Justin Willis, who carried 180 times for 699 yards and three touchdowns. In 2008, the entire team rushed only 217 teams for 497 yards and three touchdowns. Their 41.4 yards per game were last of the 120 teams in the country and less than half of the 117th team.

There was one bright spot for the Mustangs in this last game of the season. Senior Jessie Henderson returned four kickoffs for a total of 64 yards. This gave him 2,945 career kickoff return yards which established a new NCAA record.

And one more bright spot, an SMU freshman defensive back got his first career interception. I mention it because of his name: Chris Banjo.

Oh, on a nonshameful side note, Southern Miss's punter/kicker has a wonderful name for a kicker: Britt Barefoot.

The 2008 season ends with the SMU losing 21 straight to non-Division I-A teams and 10 straight games overall. But there's something about them that prevents me from trying to pile on. Or at least makes me feel bad about it. Here's to a excellent spring practice, SMU!