There's no number on this one yet, so the matchup has to carry it. On paper it's 2 Sun Belt teams looking for a foothold. Arkansas State has been close: it lost at Louisiana 20-23 and then dropped the South Alabama game by 7 at home. Southern Miss hasn't been close nearly as often.
West Georgia52-7
The Golden Eagles' slide has looked bad. After opening 49-3 over Alcorn State, they lost to Auburn 8-43 and to UConn 20-48 at home. They hung around in a 21-24 loss at Tulane before Troy ran over them 55-34 in the conference opener. Troy quarterback Goose Crowder and running back Jordan Lovett both went over 140 yards rushing, which had never happened in Troy program history. Head coach Blake Anderson said afterward there were no excuses, and the fan base has turned loud about it.
That sets up the main question for Saturday: can Arkansas State run on a defense that just gave up two 140-yard rushers? With Spencer gone and Clay banged up, the Red Wolves might not have the bodies to do it. Their own defense also just gave up 56 to South Alabama, so neither side gets to feel good about stopping anybody. Southern Miss has had a long gap since the Troy game to fix its run fits. If Lyddy keeps throwing like he did at Troy with a thin receiver room, this probably becomes another track meet.
Both teams have something to fix. Arkansas State's is closing out tight conference games, and Southern Miss has to stop getting run over on its own field. Whoever wins this gets a Sun Belt win on the board. Whoever loses falls to 0 wins in conference play with the back half of the schedule coming.