HATTIESBURG &045; Bless big ol’ Alan Whitney’s heart.

The 6-5, 250-pound tight end from Fairhope, Ala., showed his true freshman stripes after he made the headline play against Tulane at The Rock Saturday.

It was easy to tell the youngster has not seen much of the field during the 2003 campaign when the name of quarterback Dustin Almond’s slipped his mind when detailing his 34-yard touchdown reception on a fourth and 4 to ensure the 28-14 victory and keep the Eagles undefeated in Conference USA at 6-0.

&uot;I was worried when I first got to the line. The quarterback (Almond) told me he was nervous too when he saw how wide open I was,&uot; said Whitney, who had one catch for 16 yards coming into Saturday. &uot;I was supposed to run 10 yards, but I cut it off early in case there was somebody on me. I was just thinking, ‘Catch it,’ first.&uot;

The win fuels the fire for next Thursday’s C-USA showdown between the Eagles and No. 9 Texas Christian, who stomped Cincinnati 43-10 to move to 7-0.

Ahead by six, 20-14, Southern Miss (7-3, 6-0) grinded out 52 yards from its own 14 into Green Wave (4-7, 2-5) territory before fourth down prompted each team to burn timeouts with less than two minutes to play.

Southern Miss head coach Jeff Bower weighed his options of either attempting a 51-yard field goal with Darren McCaleb, taking a delay penalty to pooch punt it or going for it.

&uot;I had a lot of options. Gawww, thank goodness it worked.&uot;

Coach, what were you thinking when the pass caught flight?

&uot;Catch that sucker. Allen did a great job and it was good execution,&uot; Bower said.

He thought McCaleb’s success earlier in the game with two made field goals from beyond 40 yards (41, 47) perhaps convinced the Green Wave that Southern Miss wanted three instead of six.

However, Green Wave head coach Chris Scelfo believed just the opposite as both teams met back at the line after a Southern Miss timeout.

&uot;We were yelling fake,&uot; Scelfo said. &uot;They executed, and we didn’t. We told them before they went out there, ‘Watch the fake.’ We didn’t think they’d kick it, not in that situation.&uot;

Almond picked the ball up from the spot, shuffled to his right and spotted a wide open Whitney inside the 15, who enveloped it and ran into paydirt without a Tulane defender 10 yards near him, as 1:27 shown on the clock.

&uot;It’s something I work on a lot,&uot; said Whitney, who is normally not in on field goals. &uot;I knew I had to make a big play for the team. I had a lot of time to think&uot; about the catch while in made its way through the late afternoon atmosphere.

Bower’s decision to let it all hang out was necessary because the Green Wave had stolen the momentum of the game with a touchdown on the preceding drive after trailing 17-0 earlier.

Quarterback J.P. Losman, who finished 21 of 36 for 244 yards, hit receiver Chris Bush’s hands on a post route in the end zone to cut Tulane’s deficit to 20-14.

&uot;We were missing the one or two big plays to get us over the hump,&uot; Losman said. &uot;I think the offensive line was tremendous. I don’t think I was even touched once until the last drive. (The Eagles’ defense) had a lot of blitzes and our offensive line picked them up very nice.&uot;

Conference USA’s third-worst passing offense caught the Tulane defense napping on the second play of their opening possession with a 60-yard duck from the arm of Almond to the juggling hands of Antwon Courington.

The pass pinballed off Courington’s hands and facemask before he reeled it in for the first down to the Tulane 32.

Two plays later, Almond uncorked a radar that hit Courington on the numbers down to the Wave 8.

Anthony Harris, who finished with 111 yards on 33 carries, put Southern Miss on the board first with a blue-collar touchdown run of 3 yards behind a wall of blockers around the right side less than four minutes into the contest.

&uot;We didn’t throw a lot tonight, but when we did it was productive,&uot; Bower said. &uot;We’ve got to keep working at it. I think people have to respect it because of our run.&uot;