Southern Miss closing in on first season in Sun Belt Conference

During USM’s final season in Conference USA, no team used more quarterbacks than Southern Miss. Now that the Golden Eagles are officially members of the Sun Belt Conference, they’re still talking about position depth at their new media days in New Orleans.

If you recall, it got to the point that star running back Frank Gore Jr. took snaps under center during the team’s final three games and the Golden Eagles actually ended their injury-riddled 2021 campaign on a two-game winning streak.

Southern Miss is now healthy at QB heading into Will Hall’s second season as head coach, but that’s not the kind of depth he’s most excited about.

Hall says the program enrolled 26 players at mid-year, allowing USM to go full units with enough offensive and defensive lineman to support all three which he considers to be rare at the group of five level in spring ball. “Fans only think of that depth as games. What these two guys will tell you is practice is where it matters most. We can practice the right way. Well, there’s a cumulative effect of work that takes place over the course of – we couldn’t practice the right way all the time last year, so it’s not just the games. It’s practice. Like I said, man, from the moment I got here, they’ll tell you. I open up every beginning of the year team meeting with newcomers and say hey, man, we will not become you. You have to become us. And I don’t think any of them have batted an eye at that. I think they’ve embraced our culture from the jump and have become us.”

Joining Coach Hall on the mic on day two of media days was senior wide receiver Jason Brownlee and redshirt senior linebacker Swayze Bozeman.