After a 7-5 turnaround season under first-year coach Charles Huff, Southern Miss finds itself in need of a new leader following Huff’s departure to the University of Memphis.
It’s an all-too-familiar spot for the Golden Eagles, who since parting ways with Jay Hopson on Labor Day Weekend 2020 have seen approximately a half-dozen coaches lead the program on a full-time and/or interim basis.
Right now, the interim is Blake Anderson. He grew his coaching profile as Southern Miss’s high-flying offensive coordinator nearly 15 years ago under Larry Fedora and eventually became head coach at both Arkansas State and Utah State.
As Southern Miss conducts its replacement for Huff, who a year after leading Marshall to a 10-win season and the Sun Belt Conference title helped the Golden Eagles to seven-win turnaround campaign, Anderson is at the center of the process.
Southern Miss is utilizing the search firm of CSA to handle its process.
The Golden Eagles face Western Kentucky Dec. 23 in the New Orleans Bowl, and several sources tell FootballScoop that Anderson has an inside track to claim the job on a full-time basis.
But there are additional candidates. Among them, sources tell FootballScoop, is former Ole Miss and most recently ex-Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze.
Sources close to Freeze have shared in recent weeks that the veteran coach is itching to return to coaching sooner than later to show that whatever happened to doom his Auburn tenure isn’t going to define him as a collegiate coach. Freeze had sough to be involved in the Memphis search as well, sources told FootballScoop last week.
Stability is needed at Southern Miss, which stood out as one of the more consistently competitive Group of Five programs across multiple decades of football.
The switch to the NCAA Transfer Portal era sport-wide earlier this decade has proved debilitating for the Golden Eagles, who have lagged behind in money and resources per multiple sources with direct knowledge of the situation.
Despite preparing for the program’s 17th bowl berth this century, Southern Miss is returning to the postseason for just the second time in six years.
Southern Miss also has dipped behind several of its Conference-USA peers as well. Jerry. Mack just led Kennesaw State to the C-USA Championship in his year first year as an FBS head coach and in just the Owls’ second year at the FBS level.