Jeremy McClain named new Southern Miss athletic director

Have you ever watched a game after a trade or free agent signing and just said to yourself “man, that guy looks weird in that jersey.”

Well, to a lesser extent, that’s kind of how it felt when Jeremy McClain returned to Southern Miss in 2016 as the new athletic director at Troy then overseeing a football program that beat the Golden Eagles on that September night.

In hindsight, maybe that was just his audition to one day return to Hattiesburg.

Today, University President Dr. Rodney Bennett announced McClain as USM’s next director of athletics following his three-and-a-half year run at Troy thus concluding a four month search process following the departure of Jon Gilbert to East Carolina back in December.

Prior to taking the job at Troy, McClain served as USM’s deputy director of athletics for three years and was the AD at Delta State for the five years previous to that.

McClain should see a bump in pay back at Southern Miss where Gilbert just recently had a $350,000 base salary compared to McClain’s $210,000 at Troy.

Here’s what Dr. Bennett had to say about the big time hire earlier today: “Jeremy McClain is uniquely qualified to lead our department of athletics to the successes we all envision. We know Jeremy. Jeremy knows us. Jeremy McClain is a “Southern Miss guy” who shares the values and ambitions of the University of Southern Mississippi.”