Southern Miss might be C-USA’s best team (on the field, at least)

Bill C’s annual preview series of every FBS team in college football continues. Catch up here!

You just fielded your school’s best defense since 2011’s C-USA championship team. You didn’t once allow more than 26 points in a game all year. But you went just 6-5 because your offense regressed for the third straight season. You averaged 16 points per game in those six defeats, and your No. 122 Off. S&P+ ranking was even worse than what Southern Miss produced in its 0-12 season of 2012 (113th).

So you had one giant issue to solve.

In late-January, Jay Hopson arranged to interview former Baylor head coach Art Briles for Southern Miss’ vacant offensive coordinator position. Briles is one of the most brilliant offensive minds in recent college football history, having taken spread and tempo concepts to almost absurd extremes and winning in Waco. He was also in charge during a shocking series of sexual assault scandals.

To hire Briles before the NCAA had even finished its investigation and officially levied sanctions against him would be reckless. You’d guarantee justifiable backlash, and you’d imply what happened at Baylor (and what Briles avoided doing to stop it) fits into the “hey, people make mistakes” category — like committing recruiting violations or something.

You’d also guarantee that you’d score some points.

Hopson’s desire for the latter led him to accept the former.

Southern Miss’ athletic director, on the other hand, did not accept latter or former. After Hopson arranged to interview Briles without first getting permission, AD Jeff Mitchell told Hopson he couldn’t allow it.

“The simple fact that he’s the subject of a current NCAA investigation and that we’re still on probation from our basketball infractions years ago leads me to firm conviction about this matter. This is the right thing to do, and it is in the best interests of the University. Please go in another direction for your OC hire.”

Hopson put out an ill-advised “[Briles loves] the Lord and deserves a second chance” statement and then hired Arkansas State’s Buster Faulkner instead.

That’s a sound, non-controversial hire — after one of the biggest unforced errors you’ll see. After making news for all the wrong reasons, Hopson goes back to trying to win football games.

He took on a job perpetually in an iffy financial state, and he has been alright so far. He’s 21-16, his Golden Eagles have been bowl eligible in all three seasons, and he made what appears to be a dynamite defensive coordinator hire. He replaced Tony Pecoraro with Tim Billings this time last year, and USM improved by 44 spots in Def. S&P+ (while Pecoraro’s new team, FAU, improved by only seven spots). And now his 2019 team is scheduled to return a top-five level of production.

S&P+ projects Southern Miss as the top team in Conference USA, albeit in a crowded field. Last year’s offense was crippled by youth — his QB was a sophomore, his RBs were all freshmen, his WRs were mostly sophomores, and freshmen and sophomores accounted for 34 of 55 line starts — and was all but guaranteed to improve this year no matter what.

So Hopson didn’t have to sacrifice credibility to make his program better. It was probably going to be better this year anyway.

Alas, as long as Briles is in the unemployment line (and if justice prevails, he will be for a while), the temptation will be there. Hopson fell for it, and it’s easy to look at him differently now.

Faulkner really was a perfectly sound hire. In his last two years at Arkansas State, the Red Wolves ranked 56th and 57th in Off. S&P+. Granted, head coach Blake Anderson calls the plays in Jonesboro, but when Faulkner was calling plays at MTSU before that, his units ranked 65th in Off. S&P+ in both 2012 and 2014.

Faulkner’s got almost a decade’s worth of coordinator experience, and he’s still only 37 years old.

Hopson brought in a new line coach as well: former All-American Ryan Stanchek, who coached with Hopson at Alcorn State. A change makes sense, considering Southern Miss was 127th in stuff rate (run stops at or behind the line), 124th in opportunity rate (percentage of non-sack rushes gaining at least four yards), and 102nd in sack rate. Young players or not, that’s quite bad.

Hopson also signed three JUCO transfer linemen, led by mid-three-star Khalique Washington. They’ll join a huge batch of eight linemen who have combined for 103 starts but failed to distinguish themselves.

A sturdier line will make any new OC look good. It’ll also give Jack Abraham something to work with. Abraham completed 73 percent of his passes in 2018, best in the country, but averaged only 10.5 yards per completion and took a lot of sacks for such a one-dimensional offense. Despite all those completions, Southern Miss ranked only 58th in passing marginal efficiency.

Still, the potential’s there, especially considering who Southern Miss brings back. Five wideouts caught at least 25 passes in 2018, and they’re all scheduled to return. Hopson added a couple of JUCOs here too, in receiver Demarcus Jones and three-star tight end Naricuss Driver.

The leader of the receiving corps is Quez Watkins, whose first year as No. 1 target went pretty well. He caught 72 passes for 889 yards and nine TDs. And he had a talismanic presence; when he got open downfield, Southern Miss won. He averaged 18.9 yards per catch in Golden Eagle victories and only 10.9 in defeats.

No. 2 man Tim Jones is also pretty exciting — he had 31 catches for 431 yards (13.9 per catch) in the first seven games of the year before fading down the stretch (11 for 77 in the last four).

Faulkner will try his best to add a semblance of balance to this attack. His success will depend on a bunch of sophomores.

Southern Miss ranked a dreadful 120th in Rushing S&P+, producing poor efficiency numbers and non-existent explosiveness. There were too many negative plays and no big ones.

Leading rusher Trivenskey Mosley had his moments, at least: he rushed 41 times for 240 yards (5.9 per carry) over a three-week span midseason, and he had 14 carries for 107 in the season-ending win over UTEP. But in the other seven games, he averaged just 3.3 yards per carry. No. 2 option Steven Anderson, also a freshman, was decent in short yardage situations, but that’s about it.

That Hopson didn’t sign any JUCO transfers at RB, and did on the line, suggests he still thinks Mosley and perhaps Anderson could develop into something solid. If they do, Abraham, Watkins, and the other key members of the passing game could thrive.

The offensive woes were made doubly frustrating by how good the defense was.

12. Fresno State (15.5 adjusted PPG)
20. Appalachian State (19.0)
22. Marshall (20.5)
23. Northern Illinois (20.8)
24. San Diego State (21.0)
27. Southern Miss (21.4)

Those other five teams went a combined 47-20. NIU won the MAC despite an offense that was barely better than USM’s.

But the Golden Eagles went 6-5. In three of five losses, Southern Miss held opponents to under 5 yards per play. That should have been enough for a huge season.

Here’s the part where I tell you that nearly everybody responsible for last year’s surge — Billings, linebacker Racheem Boothe, corners Rachuan Mitchell and Ty Williams, end Jacques Turner, safety Ky’el Hemby — is back.

In terms of returning production, the primary issue will be linebacker depth. Both Boothe (10 tackles for loss, four sacks) and senior Paxton Schrimsher (four TFLs) return, but the other four in the rotation do not, including excellent play-makers in Sherrod Ruff and Jeremy Sangster.

For that matter, two of the top four tackles are gone, so Southern Miss is just a couple of injuries away from its backbone being awfully unproven. And considering how dominant the Golden Eagles were against the run last year — 13th in Rushing S&P+, third in rushing marginal efficiency, ninth in stuff rate — that has to be cause for a twinge of anxiety.

USM should be excellent on the edges, though. The 6’1, 247-pound Turner was second on the team in sacks (five) and first in run stuffs (15.5) despite an undersized presence, and his dance partner has plenty of size: Torrence Brown, a one-time Southern Miss commit who ended up a part-time starter at Penn State, returns to the South for his final season. He had six TFLs and three forced fumbles for the Nittany Lions in 2016.

The run defense was USM’s biggest strength, but the pass defense wasn’t chopped liver. The Eagles were 26th in passing marginal efficiency, allowing just a 53 percent completion rate and ranking ninth in defensive back havoc rate (TFLs, passes defensed, and forced fumbles divided by total plays). Leading tackler Picasso Nelson Jr. is gone, but the havoc-makers are back:

It’s fair to worry that the run defense will falter a bit, and if opponents aren’t in as many awkward downs and distances, maybe that affects the pass defense numbers, too. But this should still be one of C-USA’s better defenses. And that will again put pressure on the offense to produce.

This unit is a concern. Southern Miss ranked 76th in Special Teams S&P+ last year, primarily because place-kicking carries heavy weight in the formula, and Parker Shaunfield was awesome. He was nearly automatic inside of 40 yards and 7-for-10 beyond 40. He was also a senior.

Southern Miss didn’t rank higher than 74th in any other special teams category and was downright bad in the punting department. There’s no guarantee any of that improves.

The advantage isn’t enormous, but Southern Miss indeed starts out 2019 atop C-USA in the S&P+ projections. Experience is the primary reason: the Eagles have a lot of it after a year of having very little.

The non-conference schedule is punishing, however, and we’ll see where morale is when conference play begins. After a season opener against Hopson’s former employer, the Eagles visit Mississippi State, Troy, and Alabama in consecutive weeks. That’s not a lot of miles, but that’s at least two likely losses. And the conference road slate includes trips to Louisiana Tech and FAU. They have a chance to make this a big year, but it’s also a potential “need to improve just to go 7-5” situation.

It was disappointing that Hopson attempted the move he attempted back in January. But assuming there are no lingering effects, he boasts massive experience and made a solid OC hire to go with last year’s solid DC hire. He’s doing alright, but the on-field challenges are heavy this fall.

All 2019 preview data to date.