You don’t need a calendar to know football season is getting close in Hattiesburg. Walk over to the Duff Athletic Center during the first week of August and it’s obvious. The whistles are back. Helmets are popping. Coaches are yelling from one drill to the next while music echoes across the practice fields.
Southern Miss is back on the practice field. For the first time, Blake Anderson is running fall camp as the Golden Eagles’ head coach. Anderson isn’t new to Hattiesburg. He spent last season as Southern Miss’ offensive coordinator and previously coached quarterbacks and coordinated the offense from 2008-11. But being the head coach changes everything.
Every decision now runs through him. Practice plans, quarterback reps, roster battles and the overall direction of the program all fall on his shoulders. The first thing that jumps out during camp is just how many new faces are wearing black and gold.
Southern Miss brought in more than 70 scholarship newcomers during the offseason. Transfers, junior college additions and freshmen are all competing for playing time. At times, it almost feels like an NFL training camp, where nearly every position group has jobs up for grabs.
No position battle has drawn more attention than quarterback.
Who is going to start at quarterback?
Landry Lyddy, John White and Ethan Hampton all came into camp with a legitimate opportunity. Anderson hasn’t seemed interested in forcing a decision just to have one. Lyddy is probably the easiest one for Southern Miss fans to recognize. He played in six games last season and had his biggest moment at Arkansas State, when he came off the bench after Braylon Braxton went down. Lyddy completed four of six passes for 128 yards, threw a touchdown and ran for another in the 27-21 win.
There is something to be said for having already taken meaningful snaps in a Southern Miss uniform with a game hanging in the balance. He also has the advantage of knowing Anderson’s offense better than anybody else in the competition. Lyddy has talked this summer about how much last season helped him, including the rough moments.
“Last year had some highs as well as some learning moments for me,” he said. “And all of those moments were crucial for my development going into this season.”
Then there is John White. White might be the most interesting player in the quarterback room simply because of how far he has apparently come in a year. He redshirted last season and didn’t generate much conversation outside the program. That changed during spring practice.
Anderson talked openly about how much stronger White looked physically and how much his arm had improved. During Southern Miss’ second spring scrimmage, White connected with Grant Page for an early touchdown and continued to show enough that it became clear this wasn’t just a two-quarterback race. He has made himself a real part of the conversation.
Ethan Hampton brings something different. The Illinois transfer has been around college football for a long time. He previously played at Northern Illinois before spending last season at Illinois, and this is his final shot at the college level.
That experience is valuable. He has been through quarterback competitions. He’s been in different systems. He has seen what college football looks like when things aren’t going perfectly. Hampton said one of the things that attracted him to Southern Miss was the direction Anderson wanted to take the program.
“Every day is a consistent pursuit of getting better,” Hampton said.
Southern Miss doesn’t need somebody declared the winner in the first week of August. It needs the right guy when Alcorn State comes to Hattiesburg on September 5. Whoever wins the quarterback job should have some weapons around him. Southern Miss wants to play fast. Lyddy has been pretty straightforward about that.
“We’re going to be fast. We’re going to protect the football and score a lot of points.”
That shouldn’t surprise anybody who has followed Anderson’s offenses over the years. He likes tempo. He likes getting defenses lined up quickly. He likes creating space.
The question is how quickly this group can come together. Davis Dalton is one of the familiar names back in the receiver room, and Grant Page gives Southern Miss another veteran option. Page has history with Anderson from Utah State and gives the quarterbacks a bigger target on the outside.
Eelijah Singleton is another name worth remembering. The East Central Community College transfer caught 61 passes for 618 yards last season and opened the year with three straight 100-yard games. He isn’t a huge receiver, but he can move. That becomes important in an offense that wants to get the ball out quickly and let receivers work in space.
The running back room has a similar feel. Robert Briggs already knows Anderson’s system from Utah State and gives Southern Miss a back who can make people miss. Steven Robinson is a little more compact and physical. He rushed for 598 yards and six touchdowns at Coffeyville Community College last season and earned first-team all-conference honors.
Jamarice Wilder gives Southern Miss another option. It may end up being less about finding one running back and more about finding the right mix.
The Offensive Line Is Going to Tell Us a Lot
Quarterback will get most of the attention. But the offensive line might be the position group that tells us the most about how good Southern Miss can actually be. There is a lot of turnover there as well. Joe Rounds, Brayden Warner, Christian Young and the rest of that group are going to get plenty of work over the next few weeks.
If Southern Miss can get settled up front, the offense has a chance to be fun. If it can’t, everything else becomes harder.
The Defense Has Plenty of New Faces Too
The defensive side might be even harder for fans to recognize at first. Southern Miss hit the transfer portal hard there. Jyaire Brown is one of the more recognizable names. He was once a four-star prospect who signed with Ohio State before later spending time at LSU and UCF.
Champ Lewis arrives from Tulsa. JR Stegall comes in from Towson and weighs more than 330 pounds. He had 23 tackles last season, recorded a sack and somehow even intercepted a pass at Maryland and returned it 29 yards.
Then there is Jeffery Rush. Then there is Jeffery Rush. Mississippi football fans probably remember that name. Rush was a Dandy Dozen selection at Pascagoula and one of the better defensive line prospects in the state before signing with Ole Miss. Now he’s back home in South Mississippi. That’s the kind of player Southern Miss has historically done well with, a talented Mississippi player looking for an opportunity to prove something.
Linebacker Mathis Haygood is one of the returning players who gives the defense some continuity. He talked at Sun Belt Media Day about how much better the defense had gotten since the spring. That might be more important than any individual statistic right now.
More Than 70 New Players Have to Become One Team
That has probably been the most interesting part of this entire Southern Miss offseason. This isn’t a normal roster turnover. It’s almost a rebuild from scratch. More than 70 scholarship newcomers have walked into the building. Now Anderson and his staff have a few weeks to get all of them pulling in the same direction.
Lyddy said something recently that stood out.
“There’s not a lot of egos,” he said. “Being humble is a great place to be when you’re trying to make 100 guys think the same way.”
That’s probably a better description of this camp than anything else. Southern Miss has talent. Nobody really knows yet how much of that talent is going to translate.
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