C-USA Media Days: Southern Miss reflect on ups and downs of Jay Hopson’s first year

In a world of peaks and valleys, highs and lows, the Southern Miss football team found itself living on both ends of the spectrum at different times during the 2016 season. In the end, the Golden Eagles finished off Jay Hopson’s first year at the helm just how they started it.
USM marched into Lexington for a week one match up at Kentucky and marched back to Hattiesburg, having staged the largest comeback in program history. The Black and Gold went down by 25 points in the second quarter before scoring 34 unanswered to pull off the unthinkable.
They would go on to start the season with a record of 4-1, but then proceed to drop five out of their next six games. With bowl eligibility on the line, the Eagles rose to the challenge and knocked off Louisiana Tech in the final week of the regular season.
They gave Louisiana-Lafayette the same treatment in the New Orleans Bowl, salvaging what could have been an otherwise disastrous end to the season that was. “The football team in 2016 will always have a dear spot in my heart, the adversities those guys battled through. We kind of started off hot and the season started off really well, then we had some tough losses and some key injuries that those guys just kept battling and we hit a tough spot and never once did they quit. Never once did they not go out Monday through Friday and dig and fight. I always talk about a Southern Miss style of football and that’s what they did,” said Hopson.
Southern Miss finished 2016 with an overall record of 7-6 and won its first bowl game since 2011.