2022 G5 Preview: Southern Miss Has Work To Do
The Golden Eagles are finally in a conference that fits them. Now they just have to do everything else.
This is part of the Sun Belt Preview, the third conference in the Outside Zone’s Group of Five season preview package. Check out the preview landing page for all previous stories. All previews and the entire Outside Zone archive are available for only $5 a month or $50 a year.
As it enters into year two of the Will Hall era, Southern Miss looks a lot like a program undergoing a major rebuild as it attempts to find something more sustainable for the long-term entering the Sun Belt. It seems like a good time for it. The Golden Eagles never really fit in the C-USA and are hoping desperately to leave ahead of the 2022 season for a league in the Sun Belt that looks increasingly tailored to accommodate what was once one of the finest programs at the Group of Five level.
USM fits geographically, culturally, and with the hire of Hall last offseason, stylistically. On the former, for all its southern credentials, the league was previously without a team in Mississippi. Southern Miss fills that void, slotting in seamlessly to natural rivalries with South Alabama and Troy to the East and Arkansas State, Louisiana and ULM to the West.
The Golden Eagles have played Louisiana 51 times, but just four times since the Ragin Cajuns joined the Sun Belt in 2001. They’re without long-established histories with those other programs, but without Louisiana Tech, Memphis or Tulane (more traditional rivals) to share a league with anymore, these new foes will do just fine. The only better fit would be with the Tigers and Green Wave in the American, but the Golden Eagles dipped as a program at the wrong time, faltering after Larry Fedora’s departure and missing the window to join those two in the AAC. Perhaps its time will come again someday.
But any possibility of that starts and stops with the Golden Eagles winning some football games, and as Hall’s second squad in town prepared to enter the Sun Belt, there hasn’t been a whole lot of winning to speak of recently. The program seemed to cut bait with Jay Hopson at about the right time, firing him during the 2020 season to nab hall, but Hopson did not leave without doing some serious damage both to the excitement around the program and to the roster itself.
The situation Hall finds himself in now can be tied directly to the apathy of Hopson’s late tenure. Last season qualifies fully as a “year zero” situation, and as we have done here before with teams leaving a year zero situation, this preview will be broken up into positions, rather than shared as a cohesive look at the team. Teams in this state are not cohesive, and really can’t be looked at as such.
So, what does Hall have headed into 2022? What can USM reasonably hope to do with Liberty, Miami, Northwestern State and Tulane on a non-conference Sun Belt schedule?
QB: To have a quarterback at all by the end of this upcoming season would be a step in the right direction for Southern Miss. Plagued by injuries and poor play behind center last season, USM started three separate quarterbacks in nine weeks and then, dismayed by what those three had done, decided instead to put halfback Frank Gore Jr. back there.
He was, without question, the best quarterback on the roster. In three starts taking the snaps, Gore went 2-1. In the other nine games of the season, USM was 1-8. Granted, he did it against Louisiana Tech and Florida International at the end of the season, both of which fired their coaches, but the Golden Eagles also entered the fourth quarter tied against UTSA with Gore at the helm and didn’t fall away for good until the worst 20 seconds that a team could possibly experience.
It’s not worth recommending that Southern Miss just run it back with Gore at quarterback this season because that won’t happen, but it’s legitimately not that outlandish a thing to say. This offense averaged 29.7 points per game in his three games at quarterback, and 10.8 in the other eight games against FBS opponents. He was responsible for both Southern Miss games with more than 20 points against those 11 FBS opponents.
Much more likely to take the reigns at quarterback is youngster Ty Keyes, who started thrice last season before suffering a season-ending ankle injury. Jake Lange and Trey Lowe III – the other two starters – return as well, but Hall seems pretty set on Keyes entering spring practice.
"I'm more of a glass-half-full guy," Hall said. "He was a freshman that got to play four games, so he gained four games instead of being a redshirt freshman and not having any experience. One of them being Alabama, where he showed he belonged. He played really well against Grambling, and he played against Troy in tough conditions. You can see the maturity with him and how much more comfortable he is.
"Trey is back from injury. Ty is back from injury. Ty is taking the first reps right now. It's his job to lose with how he played last year. (Freshman) Zach Wilke was held out today due to contact tracing, but he'll be back on Monday. He's had a phenomenal offseason. He tore it up in the offseason program. Those are the three competing for the job. All of them are highly recruited kids that are really talented."
It would be a surprise if Keyes doesn’t ultimately get the nod. His 2021 stats (33/65, 355 yards, 3 TDs, 4 INTs) certainly don’t speak highly of him, but he did run pretty well against Grambling State and Alabama (20 carries, 97 yards) and the Crimson Tide didn’t completely destroy him. He completed just 11 of his 24 passes in that game, but he did so for 131 yards and he threw more touchdowns (2) than interceptions (1). It’s probably never going to be harder than that for the redshirt freshman, and improvement is expected on the line that should allow him – or any other quarterback – to stay upright long enough to allow us to develop an opinion on them this season. Or, Gore could do it again. Just a thought.
RB: He’s not going to get to play quarterback, but Gore will slot in here at halfback No. 1 with a bullet. He’s the best weapon this offense has to offer and has been for each of his first two seasons on campus. He carried 179 times for 801 yards and five touchdowns behind an awful offensive line last season while hauling in another 20 receptions and 155 yards.
Assuming the line improves with experience (every projected starter does have experience coming into this season) and that Keyes can provide a running threat next to Gore in Hall’s slick spread option looks, Gore should be in for a career season this year. Behind him, Dajon Richard will likely get the nod to take the No. 2 RB carries, with Antavious Willis at No. 3. Richard was the most efficient back of the bunch for yards per carry last season but benefitted too from defenses assuming that without Gore on the field, USM wasn’t planning on running the ball.
WR: Jason Brownlee returns for what will almost certainly be his third consecutive year of leading Southern Miss in receiving. He had a team-high in both receptions (46) and yards (643) despite the rotating cast of characters at quarterback, and like the rest of the offense, would benefit greatly from the offensive line not surrendering 44 sacks again this season.
H-back Demarcus Jones, who had 22 receptions for 185 yards and 24 carries for 179 yards, will look to take on a bigger role as Southern Miss hopes to expand its passing game, and should find a nice fit in the slot as a gadget player. Jakarius Caston (16 receptions, 239 yards) looks like the easy pick to slide in opposite Brownlee again this season, while No. 3 2022 JUCO wide receiver Latreal Jones may factor into the offense somehow – though his fit is currently unclear.
TE: Leading tight end Grayson Gunter has graduated, and in his place, Southern Miss has some unique but largely untested pieces. Cole Cavallo is the most experienced of the potential replacements, but he’s also 6-2 and works essentially as a fullback. That may not suit the offense if it plans to throw the ball more this season, but a Gore-heavy attack would make sense with Cavallo in it.
Luke Baker was Gunter’s backup on the depth chart last year but didn’t contribute much of anything, while Ray Ladner played a bunch in 2019 but missed 2020 with an injury and still hasn’t seemed to recover in full yet. Gunter leaves only 15 receptions and 182 yards to replace, but those figures do put him at No. 5 and No. 4 on last year’s stat sheet respectively.
OL: The good news is that nearly everyone is back, the bad news is identical. Southern Miss is hoping that an extra year of experience will do some good on the front because changes up here otherwise are relatively minor outside of a coaching change. Hall tabbed Liberty’s Sam Gregg to tune up the offensive line and has four returning starters and Ole Miss center transfer Bryce Ramsey to work with. There’s really nowhere to go but up, although staying put would be disastrous enough to again tank the offense.
DL: Hall hit the transfer portal hard this offseason, but he did it pretty much exclusively on the defensive line as he looks to replace departing defensive end Eriq Kitchen, pass rusher Michael Pleas Jr., and nose tackles Dashawn Crawford and Tahj Sykes. The Golden Eagles have four FBS transfers and two JUCO products to pick from here, but interestingly enough, many of the pulls seem like plans less for this season and more for the future.
Arkansas tackle Jalen Williams and Mississippi State tackle Armondous Cooley have yet to do anything at the college level. Ole Miss tackle Quentin Bivens had 10 tackles a season ago. The JUCO pair, also at tackle, were highly touted but don’t look like immediate impact guys, leaving Mississippi State edge Aaron Odom as the lone member of the group who looks likely to step in from day one and contribute. He had 17 tackles a season ago.
Instead, at least of the starters on USM’s three-man line appear to be coming from within. Averie Habas played everywhere last season but did his best work on the defensive line, which now happens to be the only spot he has experience in that needs starting players. He had 33 tackles, 2.5 TFL and two sacks last season.
On the interior, Josh Ratcliff is an easy pick (34 tackles, 4.5 TFL, 0.5 sacks). The other end spot is an open competition among those transfers and internal option Dominic Quewon, and my guess is that the job ultimately goes to Odom.
A pass rush of any sort from this group would be a marked improvement and would be a serious boost for a back-end that was already good enough to keep this defense out of the gutter a season ago and returns just about everybody.
LB: Three up, three down here. Josh Carr Jr. and Santrell Latham return in the outside linebacker roles, as does Hayes Maples at middle linebacker. The three combined for 31 starts and 167 tackles a season ago, forming a group entering this season that could certainly afford to create some more havoc but can be pretty safely relied on to lead the run-stopping effort. Swayze Bozeman and T.Q. Newsome add another 50 returning tackles behind Maples in the middle, and Ole Miss transfer Daylen Gill joins the fold looking to finally crack into a lineup in his final season of college ball,
DB: Five more positions, five more returning starters. Cornerback Rachuan Mitchell departs – he played plenty on the outside – and backup STAR (like a nickel) Tyrek Moody is gone, but everything else on the two-deep is back, joined by the No. 10 and No. 16 JUCO corners in Michael Caraway Jr. and Markel McLaurin and P5 transfers in Janari Dean (from MSU) and Tylan Knight (from Ole Miss). Where those four will fit is currently unclear, because as mentioned, everything here is intact from 2021.
At the STAR, 10-game-starter Camron Harrell returns and can bolster both the pass coverage and the run defense. Eric Scott Jr. started all but one game at cornerback, while Natrone Brooks prepares to return to play opposite him after starting 10 games in 2020 but only two this past year (he still contributed plenty).
At safety, leading tackler (89) Malik Shorts is back, as is Jay Stanley – who started every game in 2021 – with reliable bench contributor Lakevias Daniel behind them.
What does all of this project to yield in 2022? It’s hard to say. So much of this is going to lean on the offensive line and quarterback, and those are the only positions on the roster without proven talent returning.
Southern Miss has so little in the way of attrition to deal with that improvement feels almost like a given after last season’s youth movement, but the passing game (and potentially the pass rush on the other side of the ball) are potentially limiting factors that we just can’t have a great projection for right now. Keyes certainly has potential and can take a step forward. If he does, a pair of non-conference wins (or even three, depending on what Liberty and Tulane are this year), and then league victories against Troy, Arkansas State, Texas State and ULM feel completely reasonable.
On the other side of that, another year without much in the way of a passing attack almost certainly leaves USM with one non-conference win and probably knocks Troy out of the “gettable” ranks. Hall doesn’t need to be scrapping for wins yet, but the former and a bowl bid sure would provide a boost for a growing program.