TTT
#SMTTT
Posts: 5,326
Joined: Mar 2010
Reputation: 226
I Root For: USM & G5
Location: The Burg
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RE: Curious... would you say your school's fan base overall has grown...
(08-14-2019 10:17 AM)Old Blue Wrote: (08-14-2019 09:47 AM)JoeJag Wrote: (08-14-2019 09:33 AM)UAB Schnauzer Wrote: (08-14-2019 09:01 AM)TTT Wrote: I made this long post a few months ago on another board and I'll share it here. It's pretty much the backstory to what all happened to USM starting around the end of the 2011 season up to today:
Quote:If you're wondering what the hell has happened to Southern Miss since we went 12-2 and won CUSA in 2011, here's a breakdown of what happened. ESPN could literally make one of the greatest 30/30 episodes about this:
2011: HC Larry Fedora leads USM to 12-2, T25 ranking, CUSA Champions, and wins the Hawaii Bowl and then bolts for the HC job at UNC. After the Bowl season is over, USM President and AD are both fired because USM had the choice to go to the HOD Bowl and play Penn State but Fedora/AD/Prez (who all knew Fedora was going to jump ship to UNC) accepted the Hawaii Bowl invite vs Nevada instead which pissed off the ENTIRE USM community because hardly anyone can afford to travel to Hawaii to see us play Nevada...compared to the Heat of Dallas Bowl vs. Penn State. So, head coach, AD, and Prez are gone and only a few of the key guys from this championship team (QB, OL, WR's) will be graduating in the spring.
2012: USM (w/ an interim President and interim AD) hires the absolute worst HC in all of college football, Auburn DC E-loss Johnson who turns around and hires HS, JUCO, & SWAC coaches AND a realtor for our S/C coord (a REALTOR as our S/C Coord. who hasn't worked in D1 athletics since the 80's!!! I kid you not!). Meanwhile, during Eloss' first meeting with his new team (while going over team rules and whatnot) he tells the players "No walkmans allowed in the fieldhouse". True story. I sh!t you not. Long story short, he plays HIS guys who he recruited that spring instead of the much more talented juniors/seniors already here recruited under Fedora and we don't win a single game that year. Players are constantly thrown under the bus in post-game pressers and so naturally, every decent player on the team starts to transfer out and thus it starts the mass exodus of our roster. At the conclusion of the 0-12 season Elloss Johnson is fired. Essentially, the 2012 season was a death penalty for USM football. No doubts about it.
2013: USM finally names a new President, Rodney Bennett who later names new USM AD Bill McGillis from USF and enter new HC Todd Monken who inherits an absolute MESS! He literally is working w/ like 50 scholarship players and as a result we "improve" to 1-11. Of course this is also the start of teams leaving/entering CUSA coupled w/ the fact we've won 1 game in 2 years...fan apathy is at an all time high because no one knows who the hell is in our conference anymore and we've only won ONE game over the past 2 years...
2014: We finally start to see a semblance of a FB program. We started the season 3-4 and then our QB (future NFL San Francisco QB Nick Mullens) goes down for the season with an injury and we end up losing the remaining 5 games. We finish this season 3-9. At this point it's hard being a USM fan, 4 wins in the past 3 years....ugh.
2015: USM football is back. We go 9-5. We win CUSA West but ended up losing to WKU in the CUSA CG and Washington in the HOD Bowl. It took a few years but nevertheless, USM football is finally back to being a respectable program and has a lot to build on for the years to come.
2016: A week before national signing day USM HC Todd Monken resigns to become the OC for the Tampa Bay Bucs. Enter new (and current HC) Jay Hopson. He assembles an ok staff all things considered and he manages to keep some of the recruits that were committed to Monken. First game of the season USM wins at Kentucky 44-35 (after trailing 35-10 right before halftime). We have a ton of injuries throughout the year on defense and we end up going 7-6 and are NOLA Bowl Champions. Still, USM is back to being a respectable program.
2017: USM AD McGillis bolts for the AD position at the Univ. of San Diego. We hire Jon Gilbert from Tennessee. We have another decent year in football. We finish 8-5 and get throttled by FSU in the Indy Bowl.
2018: In Monken's 3rd year he would lead his USM team to 9 wins and west division Champs. For Jay Hopson's 3rd year there's too many close losses, a non-existent running game and a cancelled (weather) game @ App State and we go 6-5 and no bowl invite. USM was 7 points away from finishing 9-2 and hosting the CUSA champ. game. 7 freaking points. Run game was terrible, play-calling was terrible, S/C was suspect...so Jay Hopson replaces our OL, OC, and S/C coaches and the outlook for 2019 looks great!
2019 thus far: We lose our AD to ECU, which most USM fans aren't sweating because he really didn't do much. So, we hire Troy's AD Jeremy McClain who is a USM guy who wants to be here and wants to do good for us. What's also good news is we return nearly everyone from our '18 team that was 7 points away from going 9-2 and hosting the 'ship. What does 2019 hold? I predict we beat in-state foe Mississippi State, win 10+ games, host the 'ship, and possibly flirt w/ the T20 towards the end of the season.
Another crucial thing is that prior to the 2017 season our AD stopped giving away free tix to many of the local business/organizations etc. Apparently USM had been doing this for the past 20 years or so. Naturally our attendance went down but we actually made more money from tix sales.
The first issue that led to the decline was getting rid of Bower
Was a terrible move. Not to mention dumb.
Excuse me, you fired the president of the University over a football game? That's pretty hardcore.
Sent from my LG-H932 using CSNbbs mobile app
I'd suggest you read this Deadspin article about the whole thing. For context:
Martha Saunders - axed USM Prez
Richard Giannini - axed USM AD
Gen. Jeff Hammond - Interim AD hired by Martha Saunders
Doug Rouse - big wig Trustee & big time partner of Southern Bone & Joint (the medical team behind USM athletics at the time)
Here's a snippet:
Quote:In the spring, the athletics department began a nationwide search for a permanent athletic director, and many on the USM committee hoped to hire an outside candidate. President Saunders supported Hammond; a faction, led by trustee Doug Rouse and donors loyal to Giannini, fought her every step of the way.
Rouse may have had it out for Hammond after he was cited for potential ethics violations, which were discovered by Hammond's audit. Rouse lobbied Saunders hard not to hire Hammond, according to a series of texts obtained by the Hattiesburg American.
"How are we looking for a decision on AD by tomorrow?" one text reads. Another says, "Would love to talk about search whenever you have a chance."
And one from April 15 shows Rouse trying to dissuade Saunders from hiring current AD Jeff Hammond before talking to local business leaders.
"Sorry we couldn't connect, but wanted you to know Evan Dillard, Lawrence Warren, Mickey Hudson, Ed Langton and Carl Nicholson called today stating they are against in-house hire for AD position (Hammond)," writes Rouse.
"These are not Richard (Giannini, former athletic director) supporters but people who support the Univ. as a whole, and I hope you will talk to them before hiring."
Some boosters went so far as to threaten to withdraw their funding if Hammond were hired.
Before a decision could be made, Saunders unexpectedly retired. It was obvious to everyone that the battle over hiring an athletic director had grown so contentious that the trustees were willing to take Saunders down for it. Just last week, WLOX-TV uncovered documents indicating that "Saunders' exit was carefully orchestrated by the board." At her goodbye press conference in April, Saunders didn't directly address the reasons for her departure, but she didn't exactly deny the rumors either.
To Buy Out Failed Coach, Southern Miss Sold Home-Field Advantage Back To Nebraska for $2.1 Million
https://deadspin.com/to-buy-out-failed-c...ld-5964003
(This post was last modified: 08-14-2019 10:39 AM by TTT.)
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