SMU defender Ja’Gared Davis pulls in an interception on a pass intended for Southern Mississippi’s Brandon Francesconi during play Saturday evening. (Associated Press)

The SMU Mustangs were defeated 27-3 Saturday when they played Southern Miss at M. M. Roberts Stadium.

The loss snaps SMU’s five game winning streak. The Mustangs record is now 5-2 overall and 3-1 in Conference USA.

The Mustangs had trouble moving the ball all game long against a tough Southern Mississippi defense that had its best performance since they shutout Alcorn State at the beginning of their 2009 season.

The Mustangs could only move the ball for a total of 330 yards, well under their average of 431 yards per game.

Southern Miss opened up the game with a field goal and followed it up with a 13 yard pass from Austin Davis to Kelvin Bolden to make the score 10-0 at the end of the first quarter.

SMU got on the board in the second quarter when Chase Hover kicked a 19 yard field goal.

In the second half SMU had opportunities, but were unable to convert those opportunities into points.

Zach Line rushed for 163 yards on 22 carries, but was unable to score on eight carries inside the 10 yard line. J.J. McDermott was intercepted twice by Marquese Wheaton.

The first interception came when SMU was poised to score, but Wheaton intercepted the ball in the end zone and fell to the ground for a touchback.

The second interception was returned 41 yards for a touchdown to seal the win for the Golden Eagles who improve their record to 6-1 overall and 2-1 in Conference USA.

The win also improves the Golden Eagles winning streak to five games.

The Golden Eagles’ offense had a big day against the Mustang defense as well, which had not allowed an unranked opponent to score more than 17 points all season long.

Quarterback Austin Davis led the attack for Southern Miss, completing 27 of 37 passes for 266 yards and a touchdown.

Running back Jamal Woodyard also had a nice game rushing for 116 yards on 12 carries and a touchdown.

The Southern Miss offense had 28 first downs, compared to only 14 first downs for SMU.

The Mustangs play next Saturday at Tulsa in an important in-conference game.

Tulsa is currently 4-3 overall, but is still 3-0 in Conference USA.

If SMU wants to keep its hope of winning the conference alive it is imperative that they beat Tulsa, and not win every other conference game. This could be tough with explosive teams like Houston still on the schedule.