MOBILE, ALa. – Tyler Bass kicked a 37-yard field goal in the second overtime Thursday to help lead Georgia Southern to a 20-17 Sun Belt Conference football victory over the University of South Alabama at Ladd-Peebles Stadium.

The points came after the Eagles ended the Jaguars' possession in double overtime on a Randy Wade Jr. sack that was recovered by Raymond Johnson III, who also blocked a USA field-goal attempt in the first extra period.  GS forced overtime with an eight-play, 65-yard march that culminated with a one-yard touchdown run by Wesley Kennedy III with just 20 seconds remaining in regulation.

Shai Werts paced the Eagles (2-3, 1-1 Sun Belt) with 102 yards on 20 carries to go along with 78 passing yards, while Reynard Ellis led the GS defense with six stops.  Cephus Johnson threw for 194 yards and a pair of touchdowns for the Jaguars (1-5, 0-2 Sun Belt), who had a trio of defenders — Nick Mobley, DJ Daniels and Kelvin Johnson — finish with 10 or more tackles.

Georgia Southern 20, South Alabama 17 (2OT) (final stats)
South Alabama/Georgia Southern photo gallery

GAME FACTS
-The Eagles limited the Jags to just 16 yards while forcing a pair of three-and-outs, but the game remained scoreless after Sean Brown blocked a 48-yard Bass field-goal attempt.
-On USA's opening offensive play of the second quarter, Johnson hit Kawaan Baker for a 75-yard touchdown pass to give the Jaguars their first lead.
-GS ran 33 plays to South's 12 in the opening half, controlling the ball for 23 of the first 30 minutes.
-The Jaguars regained the lead on a 60-yard Johnson pass to Jalen Tolbert with just under six minutes left in the third, capping another drive that took less than a minute off the clock.
-USA extended the advantage to seven when Frankie Onate connected on a 45-yard field goal with 4:25 to go in regulation.
-The Eagles outgained the Jags by a 388-247 margin, picking up 310 of those yards on the ground while holding the ball for nearly 41 minutes.

NOTES
-It was the sixth time in as many meetings between the two programs that GS has come away with a victory.
-The Jaguars are now 4-4 all-time in overtime games.
-Baker finished the night with his first career 100-yard game after catching four balls for 126 yards.
-His touchdown reception was first for the Jags covering 75 or more yards since Cole Garvin found Jamarius Way for an 81-yard score at Louisiana on Nov. 4, 2017.
-It was the third time this fall that Mobley has recorded a double-digit tackle after he led the team for the third consecutive contest with a career-best 14 stops.
-Daniels and Kelvin Johnson also posted career-high totals after finishing the game with 10 apiece.
-Brown became the sixth individual in school history to block multiple kicks in a career, making him the second Jag to accomplish the feat this fall after Jalen Thompson turned the trick with a blocked field goal in the season opener at Nebraska.
-It was the first career touchdown catch for Tolbert, who also finished with a career-high 60 receiving yards.
-Jeffery Whatley was credited with a career-high six tackles including a fourth-quarter sack that gave him the team lead in the category on the season.
-Jack Brooks recorded five punts of 50 or more yards, matching a career high with three inside the GS-20 while averaging 44.6 yards per kick.

THEY SAID IT
South Alabama head coach Steve Campbell
On what he told the team after the overtime loss: "I just told them that I was proud of their effort; I thought they played really hard. I had told them this week that they practiced like champions. They came out Monday and practice extremely hard. Did the same thing on Tuesday and took care of business. We had zero study hall hours missed. They did the thing that a good team does. They played like that tonight because they're preparing like a good football team prepares. I think they left everything that they had out on the field. We did some good things but obviously it wasn't good enough to win the game and that was very disappointing. It was a very heart-wrenching game, but we will come out on the other end of it. Each little deal that we're going through is tempering us. I hate losing and the players hate losing; the deal is to win the football game, but we're growing from it and learning from it, and we're going to use it and get better from it. All this [adversity] is doing is making us more determined. We have an opportunity that so many people do get."
On controlling the line better tonight: "I think defensively we did. I haven't seen the stats yet, but I thought our defensive line controlled the line of scrimmage. Offensively, we couldn't generate a running game and that was the difference. We couldn't run the football and had a hard time blocking [Georgia Southern's] defensive front and linebackers."
On the vertical passing game: "I thought Cephus [Johnson] hit some big balls, that was huge. KB [Kawaan Baker] went and got some balls and Jalen [Tolbert] went and got some. We haven't been able to do that this year to this point. We needed to be able to do that when they loaded the box up. We were able to hit a couple of them and had an opportunity to put the game away, and we weren't able to quite do it."

Sophomore QB Cephus Johnson
On the loss: "Any loss is a tough loss, but this one is probably the toughest one we have had to face as a team. But I know we are going to get through this."

Sophomore LB Nick Mobley
On the break before the next game: "Just looking at the mistakes, we're not where we want to be, but blessed that we're not where we were at. This loss is very disappointing, but all we can do is move forward; that's all we've been taught to do, so we're just going to move forward."

Sophomore WR Jalen Tolbert
On moving forward: "We have a lot of positives, but also a lot of negatives. We're going to go back and watch the film and see the good stuff that we did. We hit a lot of balls down the field and made some plays, but it is still little things that we did wrong that affected the game at the end. Everyone on the team hates losing, and we will win games; we just have to keep fighting and pushing, and it will happen."

Senior DL Jeffery Whatley
On the loss: "It's definitely tough to go through practice the way we did this week and just the things we did throughout the week to prepare for the game. The thing that you want the most – you work hard for it and still come up a little short. But that's not going to stop the way we go about doing things or prepare for games. Coach (Campbell) can sit there and take the blame all he wants, but it's not his fault; he's not out there playing. They put it on us to go out and make the plays, and if it is anyone to blame it is us and definitely not Coach.''
On the defense: "You are going to get tired with any game, but they (Georgia Southern) were doing a good job of getting the ball on the perimeter and cutting us out a couple of times. Late in the game, you have to get stops. We just have to do a better job of getting off of the field.''

Georgia Southern head coach Chad Lunsford
Opening statement: "Getting a 'W' after the start we had at 1-3, that was big for our guys. We're definitely happy about winning the football game. There are a lot of things we have to clean up, as far as being able to score more points when we get down in the red zone and short fields; we really have to capitalize on that stuff. The defense played really well, but you give up three long bombs, and two for touchdowns… If we can get those things eliminated, we can be a better football team. We're going to continue to do that. I'm not going to downplay what our kids did tonight because they kept fighting and kept battling. We got a 'W.' Is it what Georgia Southern football is supposed to look like? No – the fight is, but as far as how we're supposed to win football games, that's not there yet. But we can build off that."
On having 16 days before the next game: "Sixteen days off is a lot of time. So we have to be really smart with our guys and be on point. We have to make sure to work on the things that we're not good at, and we have to make sure we're working on our next opponent, and come off a bye better than we did the last time."
On the mental toughness of the team: "A lot of that has to do with 2017. They know that they can continue to fight and good things will happen. They're a tight football team; the defense was cheering for the offense and the offense was cheering for the defense. Everybody was playing hard on special teams. That's going to matter and it mattered tonight."

Up next: The Jaguars are off until Wednesday, Oct. 16, when they will visit Troy in a match-up that will kick off at 7 p.m. (CDT) and be broadcast nationally on ESPN2.

For more information about South Alabama athletics, check back with www.usajaguars.com, and follow the Jaguars at www.twitter.com/WeAreSouth_JAGS. Season tickets for all Jaguar athletic events can be purchased by calling (251) 461-1USA (1872).

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