Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl 2010 Southern Miss vs. Louisville: 10 Things To Know
The Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl is a very new bowl game. The first game was played in 2008, when South Florida beat Memphis 41-14.
Since then, the game has been played only one more time, when Rutgers beat Central Florida 45-24 in 2009.
This year, the teams competing for the title will be Southern Miss and Louisville.
The game will be played on December 21st at 8:00 PM EST and broadcast on ESPN.
Read on to learn a little bit more about these two football teams.
Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl History
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Southern Miss Golden Eagles
The Golden Eagles have never played in the Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl, so they have a chance to win in their first appearance and hold an undefeated record in the bowl's history.
In fact, only four teams have ever played in the Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl going into this year's contest.
Louisville Cardinals
The Cardinals also have yet to play in a Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl, so this will be a first for the program.
Now that Southern Miss and Louisville will have played in one of the contests, they join South Florida, Memphis, Rutgers and Central Florida as the teams to have competed for the Beef 'O' Brady's Bowl title.
Overall Bowl History
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Southern Miss Golden Eagles
In Southern Miss' history, the Golden Eagles have been to 21 bowl games.
Of those 21, 10 have been victories while 11 have resulted in losses. That means there's a chance to get back to .500 this season.
Southern Miss' last bowl game came last year when they secured an invitation to the New Orleans Bowl. Facing off against Middle Tennessee, Southern Miss lost a shootout 42-32.
Under current head coach Larry Fedora, who has been the coach for two years, the Golden Eagles have been to two bowl games. They went to the New Orleans Bowl in both, coming out with a 1-1 record.
The Golden Eagles have been to a bowl game every year since 1997.
Louisville Cardinals
In Louisville's history, the Cardinals have been to 14 bowl games.
Six games resulted in victories, seven in losses, and one ended in a 24-24 tie.
Their first bowl game was a 34-20 win over Drake in the 1958 Sun Bowl.
This game will end the Cardinals' current bowl drought. In their most recent postseason appearance, the Cardinals beat Wake Forest 24-13 in the 2007 Orange Bowl.
This will be the Cardinals' first bowl game under first-year head coach Charlie Strong.
This Season
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Southern Miss Golden Eagles
Southern Miss fought its way to an 8-4 record this year and didn't have a bad loss all season.
They started off the 2010 campaign with a tough game at South Carolina and fell to Steve Spurrier's Gamecocks 41-13. While the margin of defeat was large, the opponent was still supposed to do that to them.
The Golden Eagles didn't lose again until their sixth game of the season but then lost two of three. First was a one-point defeat at the hands of East Carolina, and then came another one-point loss, this time to UAB in overtime.
Southern Miss also closed its season with a 56-50 loss in a shootout with Tulsa.
Louisville Cardinals
In a weak Big East, the Cardinals struggled to a 6-6 record.
Throughout the season Louisville lost to Kentucky, Oregon State, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, South Florida and West Virginia. All of the losses were fairly spread out throughout the year.
The most impressive win of the season was a 26-0 shutout victory over the BCS bowl-bound Connecticut Huskies. Either that or the 56-0 drubbing of the Memphis Tigers.
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Offensive Stats
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Southern Miss Golden Eagles
The Golden Eagles are an incredible offensive machine that runs and passes the ball fairly equally.
Led by quarterback Austin Davis, Southern Miss' aerial attack has averaged 254.8 yards per game this season. That's good enough for them to rank 31st in the nation in that category.
As for the running game, it's even better. The Golden Eagles have racked up 203.4 yards per game, the 21st highest average in all of college football.
The team has posted point totals of 41, 43, 41, 49, 46, 59 and 50 this season, averaging 37.6 points per game on the year. That's the 15th best total in the country.
Louisville Cardinals
Louisville does not possess what one would call a good offense. They prefer to run the ball and win with their defense.
The Cardinals have only thrown for 195.3 yards per game this year, the 78th best average in the nation.
As for their running game, it's slightly better with an average of 180.5 yards per game. Twenty-nine teams in college football have run for a higher average in 2010.
Even though the average is slightly skewed by their 56-point blowout of Memphis, which clearly seems to be an anomaly, the Louisville offense is putting an average of 26 points per game on the board, the 71st best number in the country.
Defensive Stats
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Southern Miss Golden Eagles
While the Golden Eagles may be a great offensive football team, the same cannot be said for their defensive prowess.
The 2010 Southern Miss team has allowed 29.4 points per game, the 81st best average in the country.
In their four losses this year, the team has allowed 41, 44, 50 and 56 points. That's just not very good at all.
Louisville Cardinals
On the opposite end of the spectrum is Louisville, which lays claim to a great defensive unit.
The Cardinals have only allowed 18.7 points per game, the 15th lowest average in the nation.
In fact, Louisville has held its opponents to zero points twice already this year.
Quarterbacks
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Southern Miss Golden Eagles
Austin Davis, a junior out of Meridian, Mississippi, has been quarterbacking the Golden Eagles in 2010.
He's completed 259 of his 410 attempts, good for a completion percentage of 63.2 percent. The completions have resulted in 2,898 yards, 18 touchdowns and six interceptions.
While his arm is pretty good, he also possesses a great set of wheels to go along with it.
Davis has run the ball 132 times in 2010, picking up 436 yards and 10 touchdowns.
Louisville Cardinals
Adam Froman, a senior from Santa Rosa, California, has been Louisville's quarterback this season.
He's completed 132 of his 218 passes this year, gaining 1,633 yards and 11 touchdowns, while throwing the ball to the other team four times.
Froman isn't really a running quarterback either, as he's picked up 75 yards and two touchdowns during the 2010 season.
Skill Positions
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Southern Miss Golden Eagles
In addition to using Austin Davis out of the backfield (the quarterback led the team in carries and touchdowns during the regular season), Southern Miss also lets two backs carry the ball the majority of the time.
Kendrick Hardy has gotten the pigskin 127 times, picking up a team-high 855 yards and seven touchdowns. Desmond Johnson has carried the ball an additional 105 times, adding 509 yards and another seven scores of his own.
The top two receivers for the Golden Eagles are Kelvin Bolden and Johdrick Morris. Bolden has caught 41 passes for 667 yards and six touchdowns, while Morris has hauled in 46 passes for 663 yards and another four scores.
Louisville Cardinals
Bilal Powell has received the vast majority of the workload in the backfield for Louisville. The senior running back has carried the ball 211 times, gaining 1,330 yards and finding the end zone 10 times. Powell has also had three receiving touchdowns on 16 catches.
Besides Powell, the Cardinals have five players who regularly catch Adam Froman's passes. The tight end Cameron Graham, Doug Beaumont, Josh Bellamy, Andrell Smith and Josh Chichester have combined to catch 140 passes for 1,835 yards and 17 touchdowns.
Defensive Players
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Southern Miss Golden Eagles
Two tacklers stood above the rest for the Golden Eagles in 2010. With 80, junior linebacker Korey Williams led the team. He was closely followed by the 71 tackles of sophomore linebacker Jamie Collins.
Cordarro Law, a junior, led the team in sacks with 5.5. Korey Williams was second with three.
Five players—Justin Wilson, Deron Wilson, Marquease Wheaton, Collins and Chico Hunter—each had multiple interceptions. Justin Wilson led the team with five, but Collins and the other Wilson each returned one of theirs for a touchdown.
Louisville Cardinals
The leading tackler for Louisville is Hakeem Smith, who was recently named a Freshman All-American by Rivals.com. The safety had 80 tackles on the year. The next most was 65 by Shenard Holton.
Rodney Gnat, a senior lineman, led the team with 8.5 sacks that resulted in losses of 57 yards. Gnat also had nine tackles for losses in 2010.
In the secondary, Johnny Patrick paced the team with five interceptions. The senior returned them for a touchdown and a total of 99 yards.
Special Teams
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Southern Miss Golden Eagles
Danny Hrapmann, the Golden Eagles' junior placekicker, is a finalist for the Lou Groza Award after making 26 of his 30 field goal attempts and all 51 PATs.
Peter Boehme, a sophomore, has been the punter and has averaged 39.3 yards per punt on 44 attempts.
Southern Miss has had four different people return kickoffs for the majority of the season. Reggie Hunt has 12 returns for an average of 28.6 yards per return, Jeremy Hester has 11 for 22.3, Tracy Lampley has 11 for 19.6 and Francisco Llanos has seven for 28.1 and a touchdown.
As for punt returning, Lampley has handled the duties. The sophomore running back has taken back 19 punts for 117 yards.
Louisville Cardinals
Chris Philpott, a junior, has been the placekicker for the Cardinals. He's made 13 of his 17 attempts at field goals and made 37 extra points while missing just two.
Philpott and Josh Bleser have each punted 30 times this season. The former is averaging 40.8 yards per punt, the latter 39.8.
Two running backs, Victor Anderson and Jeremy Wright, have split kickoff duties for most of the year. Anderson has taken back 12 kicks for an average of 30.8 yards per return. Wright has averaged 27.3 yards per return on his 13 tries.
Finally, Doug Beaumont has handled most of the punt returning for the Cardinals, taking back 13 punts for 199 yards and a score.
Prediction
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Even though Louisville has one of the best defenses in the entire country, Southern Miss' incredible offense should be able to score quite a few points.
Austin Davis and the rest of the offense can attack in too many ways to be held in check for long.
That said, their defense is not very good at all, and even Louisville's rather putrid offense should be able to keep up.
I expect a relatively high-scoring game to take place with both teams scoring in either the high 20s or the low 30s.
Because of the special teams advantage that Southern Miss possesses by having one of the best kickers in the country, they get the slight edge.
Prediction: Southern Miss Golden Eagles
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