Southern Miss opener against SEC foe looms

• The Golden Eagles are still figuring it out at QB. Quarterbacks aside, Head Coach Will Hall believes he has a stronger and deeper team.

Two weeks before a season-opening SEC road trip, Will Hall isn’t saying who will start at quarterback for Southern Miss.

Not saying and not knowing are different things.

After Saturday’s scrimmage, the second of camp for the Golden Eagles, Hall spoke of the quarterbacks as a collective unit and had little to say individually about Florida State transfer Tate Rodemaker, sophomore Ethan Crawford or freshman John White.

There may be reasons that Hall wants the competition to continue but reports out of Hattiesburg before Saturday’s scrimmage indicated that Rodemaker, a fourth-year junior, might be beginning to pull away.

“I thought they looked really good. I thought they were accurate. We had a few misses, but they functioned well,” Hall told local media afterward.

He was forgiving of a pick-six thrown by Crawford late in the day, describing it as the right read but the result of stellar play by the defensive back who jumped the route and made a play.

Soon Hall will have to be less forgiving. Unfortunate turnovers are still turnovers, and Crawford threw an interception in the Golden Eagles’ first scrimmage as well.

Rodemaker has protected the football better. He’s been getting the first reps and has been generally consistent.

Not the giant killers of old

Southern Miss, 3-9 a year ago, used to have a giant killer reputation. Now after 11 wins against the SEC in the 1980s and five in the 1990s, the Golden Eagles are 2-22 against the league in the 21st Century.

A 44-35 win in Lexington in 2016, Jay Hopson’s debut season, ended a 16-year dry spell for the Eagles against the SEC. 

They won’t win Aug. 31 with a lot of give-aways against a Kentucky team that was tied for second in the conference in turnovers gained with 18 and ranked in the NCAA top 20 with 2.69 sacks per game last year.

Hall will likely name a starter soon and designate someone to take the first-team reps in game week.

Rodemaker could make it two transfer QBs at Kroger Field on Aug. 31. Kentucky knows who its QB1 will be – former Georgia five-star Brock Vandagriff.

Quarterbacks aside, Hall believes he has a stronger and deeper team. He expects to see playmakers emerge on both sides of the ball.

The Golden Eagles, to reach program expectations, need a quarterback to be one of those playmakers, not just a distributor, but nothing helps a quarterback like a solid cast around him.

Keep an eye on wide receiver Larry Simmons, an Ole Miss transfer from Moss Point.

But also keep an eye on the Golden Eagles’ defense under new coordinator Clay Bignell. Hall praised the unit’s physicality in Saturday’s scrimmage.

When Des Baker, a transfer linebacker from Western Kentucky, blitzed and met up with guard Klabron Pollard, Hall thought dove season had begun.

“It sounded like a shotgun going off out there. It sounded like real college football,” he said.

For much of the scrimmage his defense looked like it was playing real college football.

It wasn’t dominant as much as it was efficient. Most of the time the defense kept the ball in front and kept the offense out of the end zone.

“There were four drives where the defense held the offense to field goals,” Hall said. “That’s 16 points saved. We call those four-point plays. You do that four times in a game, and instead of the game being 30-30 it’s 30-14.”

That’s no small achievement for a unit that has dealt not only with a new coordinator but also the death of a teammate. Cornerback MJ Daniels, an Ole Miss signee, had three interceptions in 2023, his first season at Southern Miss. He was killed in a shooting at Hattiesburg apartment complex in June.

Defense coming together with new DC

Players have a good understanding of Bignell’s expectations, Hall said.

“We really understand that we’re going to chase the ball, try to get our hands on the ball and disrupt the ball.”

Hall believes the front seven will be a strength.

Every time the secondary doesn’t let the ball get past them is another chance for outside linebacker Jalil Clemons and defensive tackle Armondous Cooley to turn things around.

“If they snap it again it’s another chance for those guys to win up front and get you ahead of the sticks,” Hall said.