Louisiana at Southern Miss
Louisiana (5‑2) travels to Southern Miss (1‑5), with Louisiana favored by 10. Southern Miss’s offense is at the 16th percentile on efficiency; Louisiana’s defense is at the 92nd.
How they got here
Last three games
Louisiana · 5-2
Rated 35th in our preseason ratings, 38th now.
2-1 in its last three — but nothing on this résumé beats a top-40 team yet.
Last three games
Southern Miss · 1-5
Rated 57th in our preseason ratings, 127th now.
Three straight losses.
Biggest mismatch: Southern Miss’s EPA/play against Louisiana, 76 points
Each row ranks the two sides among all teams. The longer the line, the bigger the mismatch.
Southern Miss’s EPA/play against Louisiana’s defense
Southern Miss offense, 16th percentile · Louisiana defense, 92nd
Southern Miss’s explosive plays against Louisiana’s defense
Southern Miss offense, 39th percentile · Louisiana defense, 100th
Louisiana’s rushing EPA against Southern Miss’s defense
Louisiana offense, 76th percentile · Southern Miss defense, 8th
What’s at stake
Louisiana
- Louisiana is 2 games back in Sun Belt with 4 left to make it up — 27% to win it with a win here, 11% with a loss.
- Louisiana is coming off a 27-point win.
Southern Miss
- Southern Miss needs 5 more wins in the final 5 to reach bowl eligibility — 24% to get there with a win here, 5% with a loss.
- A win would be one of Southern Miss’s biggest of the season — a 89-spot gap in the power ratings.
The series
Southern Miss leads the series 24-5
29 meetings since 1953 · Southern Miss won the last meeting
- 2025Southern Miss 22-10
- 2024Louisiana 23-13
- 2023Southern Miss 34-31
- 2022Southern Miss 39-24
- 2016 · neutral siteSouthern Miss 28-21
Each line is Southern Miss’s chance to win through that meeting. Older meetings have no play by play, so no line.
Face-off
What each fanbase carries into this one.
Louisiana
The chip · vs the national mediaFans point to four straight conference titles and a top-20 ranking and ask why the national conversation still files them under generic Sun Belt mid-pack — as if the best run any Sun Belt program ever stacked never happened.
What this game touches
The post-Napier slide. Billy Napier won four straight Sun Belt titles (2018-2021) and a #19 finish, then left for Florida. Michael Desormeaux, his hand-picked successor, slipped to 6-7 in 2025 — a losing record capped by a 20-13 loss to Delaware in the 68 Ventures Bowl — and Lafayette is asking whether the standard was ever the program's or only the coach's.
Southern Miss
The chip · vs the national mediaEagle fans are tired of being filed under forgotten — the program that developed an NFL Hall of Famer and won for two straight decades, now treated like it never mattered. They'll tell you Southern Miss has more pedigree than the leagues that look past it.
What this game touches
The fall — and a coaching door that won't stop spinning. The 21-year winning streak ended in 2011, and the program bottomed at 1-11 in 2024 under two coaches in one season. Charles Huff arrived and went 7-6 in 2025, dragging Southern Miss back to a bowl — then left for Memphis after a single year, with Blake Anderson promoted to keep the rebuild from resetting again.
Best players
Louisiana
- Jake St. Andre (LB) · 48 tackles
- Brent Gordon Jr. (CB) · 42 tackles
- Maurion Eleam (S) · 36 tackles
Southern Miss
- Mathis Haygood (LB) · 55 tackles
- Mike Steven Robinson III (DB) · 51 tackles
- Mario Sanders II (WR) · 492 receiving yards
The betting line, and the fans
Louisiana fans are feeling it more than most fanbases this week (88th among FBS fanbases), in line with the numbers.
- Model · 45%
- Line · 21%
- Southern Miss fans · 80th
- Louisiana fans · 88th
Louisiana favored by 10 · Total 52.5
Louisiana by 10: where a favorite like this usually runs
Half of games8 in 10 games
Louisiana’s chance through the game, if this goes like the 387 games since 2025 with a favorite of 7.5 to 14.5 points.
Weather at kickoff
Typical at M. M. Roberts Stadium: 7:30 pm Saturdays score 96, noon Saturdays 81
Louisiana at Southern Miss · Saturday, Oct. 24 · 5 pm ET · M. M. Roberts Stadium.
Weather score: 0 to 100, higher is better, for the first 3 hours and 20 minutes of the game. Ideal is 100, Comfortable 90 to 99, Mixed 75 to 89, Rough 50 to 74, Harsh under 50.
If it kicked off at
Typical at M. M. Roberts Stadium: noon Saturdays score 81, 3:30 pm 84, 7:30 pm 96.
- noon: 81, Mixed
- 3:30 pm: 84, Mixed
- 7:30 pm: 96, Comfortable
Typical weather score at each kickoff time.
Typical means the average of regular-season Saturdays at this stadium, 2018 to 2025. It is not a forecast for this game.
Home field
Southern Miss is worth +3.4 points (±3.9) more at home than on the road since 2018 — middle of FBS, 35th percentile.
35% at home, 28% on the road against FBS opponents (15-28 home, 13-34 away).
Our model gives every stadium the same flat 2.3-point home edge (why); the books use about 3. Against the closing line this stadium reads +0.3 at home vs. away over 99 games — inside the ±5.7 noise, so the flat number is the honest one here.
The visitors travel about 178 miles to get here.
Season profile
Week by week
Southern Miss
- Wk 2Lat Auburn8-43
- Wk 3Lvs UConn20-48
- Wk 4Lat Tulane21-24
- Wk 6Lat Troy34-55
- Wk 7Lvs Arkansas State13-23
Louisiana
- Wk 3Wvs UAB21-14
- Wk 4Wat Charlotte34-7
- Wk 5Wvs Arkansas State23-20
- Wk 6Lat Louisiana Tech31-32
- Wk 7Wvs Troy33-6
Power rating by week
Louisiana is rated 10.4 points ahead as of week 8. Our power rating by week; higher is better.
The market
The spread moved 0.5 points toward Southern Miss.
Spread: +10.5 → +10
The books’ cut: 4.2%, the margin built into the odds
Conference standings
Place in the conference, then conference record.
- Southern Miss14th0-2
- Louisiana6th2-1
Last meeting in our History pages
- Southern Miss 34, Louisiana 31Nov 9, 2023