HATTIESBURG, Miss. (AP) — If Southern Mississippi wants a place in the Conference USA championship game, the Golden Eagles must defeat a Tulsa team that appears vulnerable after five straight losses.
Yet coach Larry Fedora doesn’t view that losing streak as a sign of opportunity.
“I look at it like a wounded animal to be honest with you,” Fedora said. “Their back is against the wall and I expect them to fight with everything they’ve got.
Southern Miss (6-4, 4-2 C-USA) must win out against Tulsa and East Carolina for any realistic hope of representing the conference’s East Division in the championship game.
Tulsa (4-6, 2-4) long ago lost championship hopes but can become bowl eligible by winning its final two games against Southern Miss and Memphis.
The Golden Hurricane faces a Golden Eagles squad that survived the loss of its starting quarterback and has won three of its last four and seven straight at home.
Tulsa, whose losing streak included two losses to Top 25 teams, is coming off a 44-17 Sunday night home loss to East Carolina and will be playing after a short work week.
“I think we’ve had some big-time growing pains because we’ve had a lot of inexperience,” Tulsa coach Todd Graham said. “We’ve played really, really well at times. You look back at the last five weeks and we’ve almost beaten two of the top teams in the country and then at times looked bad and played bad.”
Saturday will mark the last home game for Southern Miss running star Damion Fletcher, who is No. 13 on the Football Bowl Subdivision career rushing list and No. 1 among active rushers. Fletcher needs 211 yards to become only the ninth FBS player to gain more than 1,000 yards in four seasons.
“It’s going to be emotional, my last game in the Rock,” Fletcher said. “It’s going to be real tough.”
