Zaxby’s Heart of Dallas Bowl
Washington Huskies (6-6, 4-5) vs. Southern Miss Golden Eagles (9-4, 7-1)
December 26 (2:20pm EST, ESPN), Cotton Bowl; Dallas, TX
Spread: UW -8.5 Over/Under: 54.5
For the first time ever, the Washington Huskies and Southern Miss Golden Eagles will play each other on the gridiron. UW has a rich history of sending players to the NFL such as Warren Moon, Corey Dillon and Napoleon Kaufman to name a few. Southern Miss has sent a few quality players as well. There is this one guy that you might have heard about, Brett Favre? Ray Guy, punter, also was a player for Southern Miss.
Enough about what players have played for both schools. It’s time to look at the current players and see what each brings to their team and this game. That being said, let’s take a look at the “away team”, the Huskies.
WASHINGTON HUSKIES
This is the second straight bowl for the Huskies under Head Coach Chris Petersen and sixth straight overall. The last few years UW has been mediocre at best. In Petersen’s first year at UW, he went 8-6 (4-5 Pac-12) and lost the 2015 Cactus Bowl 30-22 to the Oklahoma State Cowboys. UW is coming off a 45-10 blowout over their rivals, the Washington State Cougars. UW needed the win to become bowl eligible.
There was a lot of change coming into the 2015 season for the Huskies. A majority of those changes happened in the backfield. Petersen decided to start a true freshman in Jake Browning. At first, it didn’t look like the right choice but over the year he has gotten much better. Jake has thrown for 2,671 yards on 210/334 passing (62.9% completion) with 16 touchdowns and 10 interceptions.
Browning did miss one game this year, at Stanford, after suffering an injury late in the game against Oregon back on October 17th. He’s best game in regards to passing yards was against Arizona State when he went 28/52 for 405 yards. He did throw three interceptions in that game though.
Another change in the backfield was true freshman Myles Gaskin. He has been nothing short of impressive and looks to have a bright future in front of him. He has rushed for 1,121 yards on 201 carries and has 10 rushing touchdowns. Gaskin became the first true freshman in UW history to run for over 1,000 yards in a season and he also now hold the record for most rushing yards for a freshman in their history.
SOUTHERN MISS GOLDEN EAGLES
This is the first time that Head Coach Todd Monken has taken the Golden Eagles to a bowl game. He is in his third season (13-24 overall) and this has been by far his best. In 2013, he took over a team that went 0-12 the year before. He guided them to records of 1-11 (2013) and 3-9 (2014) until finally breaking through this year (9-4). Southern Miss is coming off a 45-28 defeat at the hands of Western Kentucky in the Conference USA Championship Game. Prior to that loss, USM had won six straight.
Quarterback Nick Mullens has thrown for 4,145 yards on 483 attempts, completing 306 of them (63.4 %). He has thrown 36 touchdowns against 12 interceptions. Mullen’s best game this year came against Nebraska. He was 26/41 (63.4%) for 447 yards. He also threw for two touchdowns as well. His last game out, he was not careful with the ball at all as he threw three interceptions against one touchdown. He also was only 15/30 (50%) for 181 yards through the air.
Just like UW, USM has a 1,000 yard rusher. Actually, they have two. Jalen Richard (185-1,098 yards) and Ito Smith (155-1088 yards) have combined for 22 rushing touchdowns. They are also dangerous catching the ball out of the backfield. Smith (44-493-7 TDs) and Richard (14-200-3 TDs) will help keep the Huskies’ defense on their toes.
PREDICTION
This is one of those games that could go either way really. UW has a great defense and USM has a potent offense. Whoever wins the turnover battle will more than likely win this game. Vegas may have UW has an 8.5 favorite, but it will be closer than that. Mullens will need to be careful with the ball and not turn it over. In UW’s last game, they had two pick six’s and a fumble recovery for a touchdown. UW will need to slow this game down and chew up the clock with Gaskin pounding the rock.
This is a hard one to pick for this writer. His first college game was way back in 1995 and it was at M.M Roberts Stadium in Hattiesburg, MS. He fell in love with the Golden Eagles and has kept tabs on them ever since. In 1998, he moved to Washington and fell back in love with the Huskies (he moved around, a lot). With that being said, USM covers but loses in the end to the Huskies.
Washington 27, Southern Miss 20