Times are changing for Southern Miss Football and here are the reasons why
Southern Miss is back to where it should be, winning football games. We are not here to drag up the past, so we won’t do that here. It should be emphasized that is did take a coach who has adjusted and embraced this new era of college sports and how to maneuver in it. What steps were taken and how they were taken will help us understand just what is happening in Hattiesburg.
The foundation was already somewhat set by the collective and attention drawn to that. Here is where I will give a small amount of credit to former HC Will Hall. He did promote and push the TTT Collective. Even though his last few years were terrible in every since of the word, he was out there trying to raise money for the collective. That was one of the reasons, and a huge reason from my understanding, why current HC Charles Huff chose to come and rebuild this program. The war chest, so to say, was not empty. There were funds there that allowed him to attract quality and some all-conference players to Southern Miss.
Speaking of attracting quality players to Southern Miss, that is exactly what Huff did. He took advantage of the new transfer rules. He did not run from them but embraced them and used it to his advantage. Huff is a player’s coach and develops relationships with those players. When he left Marshall to become the HC at Southern Miss, it was a no-brainer that some players would follow. That happens everywhere and will be more of a factor in the hiring process going forward or until the rules change. Unlike many coaches, Huff took what many saw as a bad situation and made it work in his favor. While some still keep fighting the portal, Huff embraced it and overhauled a roster. While only five games into the season, it is already paying off.
While Huff may use a new school approach to building his roster, he remains old school when coaching. Discipline and trusting the process are things he teaches on a daily basis. He has mentioned numerous times about the small things teams must do to be successful. In the loss at Louisiana Tech, he told the team during the week’s preparation that they weren’t preparing like they need to secure a win. He was right. The team came out flat, blew some assignments early, and fell to the Bulldogs 30-20. That is a mistake I don’t think you will see happen again. The Golden Eagles may lose on the road again, but it won’t be because they didn’t prepare in the right way.
The SBC West is wide open for the taking. Is this the year Southern Miss makes it back “To The Top?” Who knows. What we do know is Southern Miss is off to its best start in years and that is in no small part to coaches and players who took a chance, believed in a process, and traveled to Southern Miss in hopes of turning a program around. Early results say they already have.
