Southern Miss’ top three quarterbacks are so nicked up that head coach Jeff Bower might have to consider loosening up his arm if the situation worsens.
OK, so the Golden Eagles’ dilemma isn’t quite that drastic. However, it doesn’t look too promising, either.
Senior starter Jeremy Young, who suffered a high-ankle sprain in the Golden Eagles’ 38-16 loss to Boise State on Sept. 27, is slowly progressing back to form and will likely miss his second straight game.
Senior backup Stephen Reaves, who took nearly every snap in Wednesday’s 31-29 loss to Rice, is battling a strained oblique muscle in his abdomen.
Third-string quarterback Martevious Young, no relation to Jeremy Young, is out for the season with a broken right leg.
Reaves’ injury bothered him so much that he sat out much of Friday’s practice. He pulled the muscle the weekend before the Rice game, but was pressed into service when Martevious Young, a redshirt freshman, fractured his right fibula on the third play of the game’s opening series.
To shore up depth at quarterback, Bower moved sophomore wide receiver Todd Wilson, the Golden Eagles’ former camp/scout quarterback, back to quarterback on Friday. He shared repetitions with freshmen Randy Hardin and Darin Farris in Friday’s practice.
Bower said at his weekly press conference on Monday that Wilson would back up Reaves in Saturday’s homecoming game against Southern Methodist.
Jeremy Young’s status is still up in the air.
"I have no idea (whether Jeremy Young will play against SMU)," Bower said in a release. "His problem is planting and changing direction. So I don’t know, but hope he is going to be a lot better today after the weekend off."
Poor guy
No Southern Miss football player felt more miserable last week than senior backup quarterback Stephen Reaves.
Reaves threw four interceptions and lost two fumbles in the Golden Eagles’ 31-29 loss to Rice on Wednesday in Hattiesburg, Miss. His last fumble came with 1:30 left in the game and Southern Miss driving from its 28-yard line, wiping out any chances of a come-from-behind win.
Reaves completed 24-of-44 passes for 231 yards and a touchdown. He was also sacked four times.
And, of course, there were those six ugly turnovers.
"I take this loss all on me," Reaves told the Vicksburg (Miss.) Post following the game. "I played like crap tonight. Those guys in the locker room should feel positive because they played their butts off. I didn’t get it done, and with the number of interceptions I threw, you are not going to beat anyone."
Southern Miss head coach Jeff Bower did not come down nearly as hard on Reaves, who helped the Golden Eagles (2-3, 1-1 Conference USA) rally from a 31-7 fourth-quarter deficit.
"He just made some bad decisions," Bower told the Hattiesburg American. "But I also thought he kept his composure and made some big plays at the end of the game. That was great to see. That is tough to do – after you’ve made a few major mistakes to keep competing the way he did. His team needed him to do that, and he did."
Quote to note
Despite having to play less than 48 hours after a teammate’s tragic shooting death, Memphis took the challenge head-on and defeated C-USA rival Marshall 24-21 on Oct. 2.
It was a grand way to honor the memory of junior reserve offensive lineman Taylor Bradford, who was fatally shot on the Memphis campus on the night of Sept. 30. The game had the usual storyline of a team that overcame great tragedy on its way to victory.
But Memphis head coach Tommy West believes that it took more than the emotions from Bradford’s death for the Tigers (2-3, 1-1 C-USA) to avoid a three-game losing streak.
"Sometimes when bad things happen to you, you think that something good is (automatically) going to happen to you," West told the Memphis (Tenn.) Commercial Appeal. "But that’s not the case.
"When bad things happen to you, you have to make something good happen. … Just because we had some bad luck on the field and then we had a terrible tragedy off the field didn’t mean all of a sudden (we’d) go win the game. (We) had to go make it happen."
By the numbers
After five games, Central Florida junior running back Kevin Smith leads all Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) rushers in rushing yards per game (172). Smith is also tied with two other players for second-highest points-per-game average in the FBS (13.2)…. Houston senior wide receiver Donnie Avery is seventh among FBS receivers in receiving yards per game (107.6)…. Texas-El Paso senior running back Marcus Thomas rushed for 134 yards and three touchdowns in the Miners’ 48-47 win over Tulsa on Saturday, becoming the first player in school history to rush for three or more touchdowns in back-to-back games. In UTEP’s 48-45 overtime win over Southern Methodist the previous weekend, Thomas rushed for a career-high 207 yards and two touchdowns…. East Carolina senior running back/wide receiver Chris Johnson scored four touchdowns and set a school and C-USA single-game record with 372 all-purpose yards (89 rushing, 89 receiving, 194 kickoff return) in the Pirates’ 52-38 victory over East Carolina on Saturday. Johnson, who was named C-USA Special Teams Player of the Week on Monday, rushed for two touchdowns, caught a touchdown pass and returned a kickoff 96 yards for a touchdown.
