I don't get all the love and credit people are giving them. All their wins came against teams with a combined record of 31-75. They beat a grand total of 1 bowl eligible team...ONE! They lost to every single BCS team they played as well. Including getting waxed by WKU. I don't think we should look past them but to put them in the category some fans and pundits are is sort of amusing. Winning one game against a team with a winning record last year playing in a sub par conference doesn't impress me.
Souther Miss isn't good
- Thread starter supernova0221
- Start date
Their record was certainly lacking, and ours was certainly stronger, but we also won only one game against a team with a winning record last season...and it was 6-5 EKU.
I think almost all of us expect to win but if anyone is worried its because they have one of the best QBs in the nation. We should still beat them pretty easily though, but their QB is no slouch. Might be the best QB we face all year outside of maybe Dobbs.
I am sure not going to say So Miss is good and because I have no idea how good they are and I do expect UK to win game 1 but I do want to point out the while UK did beat SC & MIzzou last year who are BCS schools the reality is none of UK 5 wins were against D-1 teams with a winning record and their combined records were far less than 31-75.
I don't expect a win. They have the better team, remember CBS ranked them in the thirties and UK in the seventies for a reason, but a UK win wouldn't surprise me. UK has some good players but USM is a very good team.
I agree. We should win decently but they are a far cry away from being Austin Peay. My final prediction is that they scare us a little earlier in the game.....hang with us for a while......then we pull away. Something to the tune of 45-24.
But there is some danger here.
LOL at you saying they're better because of a bogus preseason CBS poll. Vegas has us as a 7 point favorite which gives us a 70% chance of victory. Are you going to believe the morons at CBS or the people that make their living being right about this stuff? The spread will move even more into UK's favor before kickoff
Southern Miss lost 2,500 yards of receiving last year and both of their starting offensive tackles. Their pass defense is awful and our's will be formidable. We are not a good matchup for Southern Miss. Shannon Dawson with two inexperienced offensive tackles is also a recipe for disaster. While his QB's are waiting 5 seconds for the receivers to get 40 yards downfield we'll have blitzes coming from everywhere
Southern Miss is often dangerous because they are a well-established program from the deep south that takes football seriously. Their best coaches always seem to be the ones that have strong ties to the Mississippi junior college system. From year to year you just never know which two or three JC studs they are going to surprise you with, especially in a first game situation.
They were recently terrible. After Larry Fedora was hired away by North Carolina following a 12-2 season in 2011, they went 0-12 under Ellis Johnson in 2012. Johnson was fired and replaced by Todd Monken, who went 1-11 and 3-9 before breaking through last year with that 9-5 record.
Monken went to the NFL to be the offensive coordinator of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and has been replaced by Jay Hopson of Alcorn State. That Monken is gone is probably the best news of all for UK, because he was considered an offensive innovator who really had USM going in the right direction.
Should be a really good game. Unless Hopson turns out to be a bad coach, I suspect that a win over USM this year will look good on UK's resume' this December. Really looking forward to watching this one!
They were recently terrible. After Larry Fedora was hired away by North Carolina following a 12-2 season in 2011, they went 0-12 under Ellis Johnson in 2012. Johnson was fired and replaced by Todd Monken, who went 1-11 and 3-9 before breaking through last year with that 9-5 record.
Monken went to the NFL to be the offensive coordinator of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and has been replaced by Jay Hopson of Alcorn State. That Monken is gone is probably the best news of all for UK, because he was considered an offensive innovator who really had USM going in the right direction.
Should be a really good game. Unless Hopson turns out to be a bad coach, I suspect that a win over USM this year will look good on UK's resume' this December. Really looking forward to watching this one!
EKU wasn't much of a team either!
I hope the players don't read this thread.
I hope the players don't read this thread.
They are pretty good. Lost by 6 at Nebraska. They lost their offensive tackles and some pretty good WR's and a really good head coach. They are also breaking in a new OC 
. We will be favored by about a TD and if we play well and don't have a lot of TO's we should beat them by 10 points or so and that would be a solid way to start the season.
As a UK fan I don't think we can take any game for granted. Our margin for error while getting better is still slim and we'll have to be ready.
I'm looking forward to a big game from Drew. He's having an outstanding fall camp.
. We will be favored by about a TD and if we play well and don't have a lot of TO's we should beat them by 10 points or so and that would be a solid way to start the season.As a UK fan I don't think we can take any game for granted. Our margin for error while getting better is still slim and we'll have to be ready.
I'm looking forward to a big game from Drew. He's having an outstanding fall camp.
Honestly, don't know just what to expect from our guys in the first game of the season. We've heard a lot of hope and promise from early reports but we've heard that in the past too. S. Miss isn't a bad team at all and we need to respect them for that but I'm still expecting to beat them. This first game should tell us a lot about what our team may be like this season and I am hoping our guys will come out focused and determined to get a jump start on the season. A loss against S. Miss would be a very tough way to begin the season and set us up for a bad start as we head to UF the following week. Going to be a big first game for the Cats and I'm hoping for a very good start. So, without knowing just what our guys are truly going to be like, I'm going to say we win by double digits, maybe around 14 points. But, I'm not known as a great forecaster so take it for what it's worth.
They are pretty good. Lost by 6 at Nebraska. They lost their offensive tackles and some pretty good WR's and a really good head coach. They are also breaking in a new OC
As a UK fan I don't think we can take any game for granted. Our margin for error while getting better is still slim and we'll have to be ready.
I'm looking forward to a big game from Drew. He's having an outstanding fall camp.
Yes, that Nebraska powerhouse that was 6-7 last year.
I've seen MSU play a couple times years back. One of the games was versus Bama at Legion Field in Birmingham. They were competitive in the first half. Remember reading then they had several players that were prop 48 players. No longer classified prop 48 but still do not have grades to sign with major conference teams. I'd imagine their roster has many of these players on their roster.
Have feeling we will see UK line up in two tight end sets and run right at them. Like what I'm hearing about CATS o.line!
Have feeling we will see UK line up in two tight end sets and run right at them. Like what I'm hearing about CATS o.line!
I live near Huntington wv so I watch/follow Marshall who of course is the same conference as USM.My opinion is MU in the last 20 yrs or so would have a great record against us so it scares me to think that USM might be near as talented as UM. I will take a 1 point win and go to the Swamp smiling. I would like to see a well prepared/well coached team more than a big margin of victory although I realize only so much can be expected in game one!
Now this is funny. Southern Miss qualifies as a should be win. Losing that game would be a disaster. They're along the same lines as our home opener last year. Which of course got close in the 2nd half but shouldn't of been.
That doesn't mean anything. They have 1 decent win in two years lol. In a bad conference
They are pretty good. Lost by 6 at Nebraska. They lost their offensive tackles and some pretty good WR's and a really good head coach. They are also breaking in a new OC
As a UK fan I don't think we can take any game for granted. Our margin for error while getting better is still slim and we'll have to be ready.
I'm looking forward to a big game from Drew. He's having an outstanding fall camp.
You mean 6-7 Nebraska? Ya impressive
How many D-1 FBS teams did Louisville beat in the regular season last year that had a winning record? Answer=ONE... NC State (yes I know, you beat A&M and their 18th string QB in a bowl game, but I'm looking at 12 game regular season games). The combined record of your 6 wins vs Div 1 FBS schools last year = 26-47
You had tight games with AWFUL teams like BC, WF and UVA. You might have a good team this year, but last season if UK takes care of business and beats you the last game, we both finish 6-6. We didn't beat you, and we finished 5-7, but you guys were by no means THAT much better. You guys didn't do anything that impressive last year and you're still 3.5 years removed from beating a ranked team. So save us your "pointing out" of who UK did or did not beat last year.
Right, and the same folk worried are predicting 8 plus wins??? Thats uk football for ya!
I'd be a lot more worried if anyone other than Dawson were calling plays. BOMB BOMB DIVE PUNT should be tattooed across his chest. He calls plays like a 12 year old on Madden 96 for SNES.
We will win this game by a significant margin if we show up focused and ready to play. If we aren't interested it's going to be a battle or a bad loss. It depends more on us than them.
I went to the Southern Miss/ WKU game last year. Southern Miss started fast but once WKU got settled, it was a rout. WKU's defensive line dominated their offensive line and the vast majority of Mullens' yards came off broken plays. He was also intercepted multiple times as the pressure clearly got to him. This could be a good opportunity for our young defensive line/linebackers to gain some confidence.
On defense, Southern Miss had severe issues with handling the pace of WKU's offense. At least 8 players went down during long WKU drives. This showed that they had pretty significant issues with conditioning. Our offense won't put up numbers like WKU but the pace and physicality should be similar.
Southern Miss was not impressive or even good that day. In fact, they were one of the worst teams I saw play last year. Severely overrated. They've lost a lot from that team and downgraded in coaching.
Is it game day yet?
I went to the Southern Miss/ WKU game last year. Southern Miss started fast but once WKU got settled, it was a rout. WKU's defensive line dominated their offensive line and the vast majority of Mullens' yards came off broken plays. He was also intercepted multiple times as the pressure clearly got to him. This could be a good opportunity for our young defensive line/linebackers to gain some confidence.
On defense, Southern Miss had severe issues with handling the pace of WKU's offense. At least 8 players went down during long WKU drives. This showed that they had pretty significant issues with conditioning. Our offense won't put up numbers like WKU but the pace and physicality should be similar.
Southern Miss was not impressive or even good that day. In fact, they were one of the worst teams I saw play last year. Severely overrated. They've lost a lot from that team and downgraded in coaching.
Is it game day yet?
I'm with you and when I looked into their stats from last year more deeply, I get even more confused at the praise they are getting. Let's just do a few bullet points:
They have a new HC
They have a new OC
Their veteran QB is having to learn to totally new system
Their QB had a TERRIBLE QB rating against teams who were decent
Their QB has a habit of throwing picks when playing decent teams
They lost their top 2 receivers
They lost one of their bookend RB's
They lost their top 2 OL
Their schedule, particularly in CUSA East is terrible
They are to be respected but they have no business being very close at the end.
Just for the flip side, their fan base is saying:
They have a new OC
They have a new QB with very little game experience who didn't exactly light it up in the few games he's played in
They lost multiple would-be starters on the DL
Their schedule is solid but they only beat one team with a winning record last year.
I'm not overestimating USM. They're an average-ish team. I think some of you are overestimating us. USM doesn't have to be a great team to give us a game.
nobody knows who has the best team until they play but I trust the guys in Vegas that shove millions thought the window more than I do the sports writers at CBS who base their polls largely on last seasons w/l record and not much more.
Cats win this one easy. UK 65 - SoMiss 17
Our defensive line is not good to say it mildly. You don't beat a mediocre team with a poor defensive line. Southern Miss can score points the question is can we match them. We shall see, I sure hope so.
Read the post again. I mentioned A&M. You aren't the sharpest tool in the shed, are you?