JACKSONVILLE—Six takeaways and 509 yards of total offense pushed Jax State to a 44-7 victory over Southern Miss.
 
The defense set the tone early with three first half takeaways, recording interceptions on each of Southern Miss's first two possessions, then forced a turnover on downs on the third drive. That group came through again at the end of the second quarter with a fumble recovery in the end zone with 19 seconds left in the half.
 
The first two takeaways both resulted in touchdowns with a 32-yard touchdown run by Tre Stewart at the 11:44 mark of the first, and a seven-yard run by Anwar Lewis with 4:44 left which capped a nine-play, 59-yard drive that took up 3:25.
 
Jax State answered the Golden Eagles touchdown on its next possession with a six-yard Tyler Huff touchdown run at the 6:58 mark of the second.
 
Huff finished the game 14-of-16 passing for 236 yards and added 77 rushing yards.
 
Brock Rechsteiner took a pass from Huff 85 yards to the end zone on the second play of the second half to take a 20-point advantage. The defense then recorded their third of four picks on the day on the Golden Eagles next drive when linebacker Ky'won McCray hauled down an errant pass. Four plays later, Lewis was in the end zone for the second time.
 
Garrison Rippa added a 43-yard field goal at the 6:44 mark of the third and Stewart scored his second touchdown of the game at the 2:19 mark on a five-yard run.
 
Stewart finished with a team-best 96 yards on 16 carries.
 
On defense, Laletia Hale had eight tackles and broke up a pass. He was followed by Reginald Hughes with six including a sack and 2.5 for loss. Antonio Carter, Geimere Latimer, and Jabari Mack joined McCray with interceptions. Ricky Samuel recovered a fumble on the Golden Eagles final play of the second quarter, and Thaxton Gallagher also recovered a fourth quarter fumble.
 
The Gamecocks will return to action on October 4^th when they open Conference USA play at Kennesaw State.
 
Jacksonville State Head Coach Rich Rodriguez
September 21, 2024
The Southern Miss Game  
Opening Comments:
Played really hard. Only thing, I was just disappointed in nine penalties. Got to clean that up. But I thought our guys had a really good week, I thought we were better than what we had played. But until you play, you don't really know, you know. So, it was good, got some turnovers. Defensively, got some stops, offensively, ran the ball a little bit, got some explosive plays and that's a that's a solid group of five program that's been Division I for how many years we've been Division I for one year. We got a lot of work to do still. Our guys know that, but to get a good win at home, Homecoming, great crowd, great weather. Love it hot like this. It was gave our guys a little bit of boost and as I told them in the locker room, let's enjoy it for a day or two and then, and we got to get to work for our conference schedule.
 
On the Performance of the Defense:
I think they're still getting comfortable with what we're doing. I think having enough confidence. It's like a couple plays, you know that interception on their sidelines. I mean, that's the kind of stuff we've seen. And they just got to play with that kind of confidence, because, you know, we have the corners and the safeties, particularly corner. I think we're really deep at corner, and those guys can make those kind of plays. And it was good to see. And they got challenged. They kept throwing back there and they really responded.
 
On Third Down Success:
The third downs were all short yardage ones, and we got some push. It's nothing we did trick-wise, or anything like that. Tyler's a tough runner. He's a physical runner. Trey Stewart's a hard guy to bring down. He runs hard, and it was good to see (Anwar) Lewis. He's a smaller guy, but, you know, and Andrew Paul was out, so we were ready to play Mike Franklin as well. But the biggest difference for us was getting some movement up front. You know that we needed to do a better job of that in short yardage than we did today.
 
Running Back Tre Stewart
On The Improvements this Week:
All week we've been working on the little details and the kinks. And today, they finally came together.
 
Safety Antonio Carter
On Making A Step Forward as a team today:
I think it all came together today. We had confidence. We were playing fast. And I think it showed on the field

Jacksonville State Postgame Notes – Southern Miss • September 21, 2024 • AmFirst Stadium at Burgess-Snow Field • Jacksonville, Ala.
· Jax State Captains: Senior cornerback Marco Baker, senior quarterback Tyler Huff and senior quarterback Logan Smothers.
· Jacksonville State won the coin toss and chose to defer. Jax State won the toss and elected to defer in two of the first three games this season.
· Jax State had four interceptions against the Golden Eagles marking the first time since 2016 when the Gamecocks had five against EKU. 
· Jax State forced six Southern Miss turnovers, including four interceptions and a pair of forced fumbles. It is the most forced turnovers for Jax State since Oct. 11, 2014 against No. 25 Tennessee State (6).
· Geimere Latimer, Antonio Carter II, Ky'won McCray and Jabari Mack each tallied an interception. Latimer had his first career interception last season against New Mexico State while Carter and McCray each picked up the first interceptions of their Gamecock career. Mack entered the game with two career picks. 
· The Gamecocks led the Golden Eagles 21-7 at the halftime break, making it the largest halftime lead for the Gamecocks this season.
· Brock Rechsteiner's 85-yard receiving touchdown to open up the second half is the second longest scoring play of the season for Jax State. The Huff and Rechsteiner touchdown trails just the week one connection between Huff and Michael Pettway from 92 yards out.
· The Gamecocks set a new season high in both rushing touchdowns (5) and rushing yards (227) against the Golden Eagles.
·Jax State has rushed for over 100 yards as a team in 27 of the 28 games of the Rich Rodriguez era including 14 games with over 200 yards rushing.
· The Jacksonville State defense has made an impact over the last two weeks, tallying seven sacks.
· Jax State had three players with at least 50 rushing yards on Saturday. Tre Stewart led all ball carriers with 96 while Tyler Huff added 77 and Anwar Lewis had 65. Stewart and Lewis each had two touchdowns while Huff punched one in himself.