I will cheer for this buy, even if he plays for Alabama.

A little bit of homerism in this post, but some revealing numbers on just what a good and a bad season can do to key college football demographics.

Ole Miss has fallen to the third most popular sports team in the state. Mississippi State topped the list with 36 percent favoring MSU, 27 percent for Southern Miss, and just 21 percent selecting Ole Miss. Going 2-10 with three straight Egg Bowl loses will do that for you. But here is an interesting note from the crosstabs: Among those 18-29, Southern Miss is the top choice favored by 41 percent of voters in that age group.

It’s no speech from Hoosiers, but it would excite me nonetheless.

[Note: Lots of Memphis highlights because Southern Miss played Memphis the week before. Plus, we all know how easy it is to get highlights against Memphis.]

I’m angry that I, and my wife, and my extended family, and tons of friends cannot go to the bowl game… but Rick Cleveland makes a great point:

USM could have gone to Dallas, Birmingham, New Orleans, or back to St. Petersburg, Fla., where the Eagles played last year.

Both Fedora and athletic director Richard Giannini say that the decision was left to Fedora, who chose the Honolulu bowl. Many USM fans are angry because 1) they can’t make the trip; and 2) the Christmas Eve slot and 3) USM could have played Penn State or BYU in one of the Texas bowls.

Fedora wanted to reward the players the best way he knew how for their record-setting season. Let’s see now: Dallas in January or Honolulu at Christmas?

Hula skirts or earmuffs? White sandy beaches or a good chance of a sheet of ice?

Penn State, any other year, would have been intriguing. Penn State this year meant you would play in a game where the media focus was going to be on child sex abuse.

We could argue this all day.

I’d argue Fedora’s side hour by hour.

[via HA]

Far from perfect, but better than ever.

“Nightmare”

Pre-Game

Team Inroduction,

Halftime Video

But this isn’t Silly Season in Mississippi this year. No, this is the Magnolia State’s football version of an insane asylum. We’ll get to the coaching part, as well, but let’s start off with this: Southern Miss (10-2) will play undefeated Houston Saturday morning for the Conference USA championship. Should the Golden Eagles win, they’ll get a really nice trophy but it will cost the school more than half a million dollars. That’s right. It would knock Houston out of a BCS bowl and cost USM its share of the league’s BCS split.

USM athletic director Richard Giannini, who fights an annual battle to balance the budget, confirmed that fact of C-USA life Monday afternoon, but when asked about how much he could use the extra $550,000 or so, Giannini said, “To hell with the money. We want to win.”

[via Clarion-Ledger]

Pulled from this forum, so you know… I’m sure it’s mostly true.

“Ok so in 1976 Arnold was in Birmingham filming the movie “Stay Hungry”. While he was here, he was working out for his movie and was given a UAB shirt, which at the time had no athletic program. Then when Arnold went back to LA/Hollywood, he frequently worked out at UCLA’s gym. There Coach Bartow who was the men’s basketball coach saw the shirt and was interested about this so called “UAB”, then in 1977 Coach Bartow leaves UCLA where he had a cush job and starts an athletic program at UAB. So Arnold is the reason we have UAB sports.”

[via reddit]

Tulsa: 8-3 (provided they warp this up against UTEP)
Houston: 11-0 (provided they wrap this up against SMU)

Tulsa’s 3 losses were to (ranking at time of defeat):
#1 Oklahoma
#8 Oklahoma State
#4 Boise State

The closest game they’ve had in any win was UCF where they won by 7. Aside from that, every win has been by no less than 17.

Houston only beat LA Tech by 1, and allowed (as of this post) 7 to SMU (who beat TCU, and who only scored 3 on Southern Miss).

Houston is good… they’re really good… but they are not great.

[via reddit]

#20 Southern Miss (9-1) vs UAB (2-8)
Legion Field – Birmingham, AL
November 17, 2011
Kickoff: 7:00 PM Central

7:00 PM
@SportsMediaFolks: Meh. Overrated. Call me when you’re 11-1 vs Houston. I’ll be watching Tebow getting Tebow’d on the NFL Network.

10:30 PM
@SportsMediaFolks: JEEBUZ KRIST SOUTHERN MISS BLEW IT!!1! THE WORLD WAS WATCHING AND THIS WAS YOU BEST EFFORD? NVER VOTING 4 U AGAIN!! #pppffftt

This was (save for the 1995 Alabama game) the most stressful Southern Miss game I’ve ever attended.

Kudos for the EaglePost board for posting this interesting tidbit.

If there is a breaking point for Houston, it has been the 200-yard mark. Over the past three seasons, the Cougars are 9-7 when allowing more than 200 yards on the ground and 16-4 when allowing 200 or fewer. Tulsa and Southern Miss have combined to eclipse 200 yards on 24 occasions during that span, including each team’s win over Houston last season.

[...]

If Tulsa can reel in a Keenum pass or two on November 25, its chances to win will greatly improve. Since Keenum began his career in 2007, Houston is 23-3 in games when he has not thrown an interception, 15-12 when he has a thrown at least one pick, and 4-7 when he’s thrown two or more.

The game on Saturday? My goodness.

The video above is the final play, as shot by yours truly, on UCF’s 2-point conversion. Pretty sure I use the word “ridiculous” 17 times.

Southern Miss decided to have some fun in 2011, moving to flat black helmets and switching up the sticker designs every three games. The latest version leaked today, and it might be my favorite, with this one coming in a close second.

Try not to cry. I dare you.

Football is the best.

[via reddit]