BATON ROUGE, La.— Malcolm Cyrus rushed for 185 yards and two scores, but it was not enough as the Hornets fell at Southern 28-21 in another close Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) game.
“I thought our guys played the game the right way, they played hard and I’m proud of them for that,” Head Coach Reggie Barlow said. “Of course Southern is a solid team and they made more plays than we did, but we are proud of the effort our guys played with.”
ASU rushed for 297 yards in the contest, but Cyrus was injured on the first play of the second half and only carried the ball two times for six yards after he was injured.
The Hornets (4-5/3-4 SWAC) had 410 total yards compared to only 377 for the Jags as the ASU defense kept the Hornets in the game despite four turnovers and several dropped passes.
Daniel Duhart was 10 of 28 for 113 yards and a score. His numbers don’t reflect well he threw the ball as he was victimized by seven dropped passes.
Like last week the Hornets turned the ball over several times, four in all, and Southern (6-3/5-1 SWAC) was able to parlay those turnovers into 12 points.
“You can’t turn it over and we had far too many turnovers, fumbles, and we had some drops early on,” Barlow said. “Like I said, our guys played hard and unfortunately we came up on the short side of it.”
The ASU defense shut down the Jags rushing attack only allowing 86 yards on 36 carries. Southern was able to complete 25 of 48 passes for 291 yards and two scores.
Defensively Daerius Washington led the Hornets efforts with 10 total tackles including three behind the line of scrimmage. Deontrelle Sillmon had eight stops and Ka’Ra Stewart added seven.
Barlow added, “We are proud of them (defense), our defense stepped up and did some positive things tonight. “We just didn’t have the juice tonight so we will go back to the drawing board and try to get better.”
It was all Cyrus in the first half as the Hornets struggled on offense with penalties, dropped passes and turnovers. Cyrus opened the scoring with a 37 yard run on the Hornets’ opening possession. ASU did not score again until Cyrus led the Hornets with another score, this one from two yards out with five seconds left in the half. Cyrus set the score up with a career-long 81 yard run. He finished the first half with 179 yards and the two scores.
Between those two scores the Hornets defense did a good job of keeping the Hornets in the game. ASU turned the ball over on consecutive possessions inside their own 20 yard line, leading to nine points. The Jags actually scored on three consecutive possessions in the second quarter; a touchdown and three field goals to lead 12-7, before Cyrus gave the Hornets the late lead.
ASU will be back home next week when they host Jackson State at New ASU Stadium at 1 p.m. It will be the first home game for the Hornets since a 38-3 win over Texas Southern back on Sept. 27.
