Kivon Bennett and Jarius Reimonenq pulled their defensive teammates together in the halftime locker room Saturday evening in Mobile, Ala. They knew their unit was better than this.
It was just nine days earlier that the Arkansas State defense had held Louisiana-Lafayette scoreless for the opening quarter and a respectable 5.1 yards per play -- excluding another crushing 99-yard touchdown.
Yet, the Red Wolves were staring down the barrel of a 28-7 deficit, the result of South Alabama's 352 yards, 20 first downs and 57% third-down conversion rate in the opening 30 minutes.
"[We] had some self-talk and realized what we were doing wasn't acceptable to the standards of our defense," Bennett said.