The widespread sentiment from USM on Facebook and their Rivals board is that:
1 - Kentucky is really good
2 - NIL makes it impossible to compete with SEC teams
3 - Southern Miss needs a new coach
Clawedballs: Well, looks like we’ve been sold another bill of goods. Kentucky has a really good team. But this football team and program are trash. I was on acid when I predicted a 31-17 score. We look every bit as bad as last year. Will Hall cannot coach. Our players act like street hoodlums at times. The overall talent is far worse than we’ve been led to believe. Everybody else in the Sunbelt is better than us.
Where it goes from here is anybody’s guess, but I’m done with it. Not following this embarrassment anymore…
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Scotteagle6706: The rushing yard stats tell it all. Oline got dominated but it’s hard to know how they will do going forward due to the talent disparity between SEC/BIG10. If we can’t run and protect against USF in two weeks then Hall needs to go
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NastyBunch37: O line is still trash. We can’t run the ball or keep the qb from getting hurt. Still some head scratching coaching and mental errors. Probably won’t learn much more about ourselves versus SELA next week. We shall see. It was 31-0, would have been 49-0 if we played a full game. Disappointing. Not giving up, but disappointing
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CaptOle: A couple positives from it being called...
1. The score was only going to be worse
2. Like Heath mentioned...someone was gonna get hurt; probably Rodemaker
Plus if it had continued, and the score run up more (as it undoubtedly would've been) the calls for Coach Hall's firing would be louder. Oh some are already calling for it, but the score as is, I believe, will give him a few more weeks before any such calls become deafening. Next week will be very vital for him.
There were flashes of real potential tonight, but we killed ourselves with stupid, unforgivable mental mistakes each time. They'll work on them of course, and the season is long, but dropped passes in your hands at crucial moments and dropped INTs that hit you in the hands (with 60 yards of clear field in front of you for a guaranteed pick six!) are not acceptable at our level. Just aren't.
Can't wait for Heath to ask the coach why they'd try a fake punt at our own 30 with 1:56 left to play in the first half down by 24 points.
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CaptOle: At least we got paid a lot to be whipped and exposed
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Heath Hinton: Good news, Kentucky is the best team USM will play. Bad news, Kentucky is not a powerhouse program and USM shouldn't be beat this bad.
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Birmingham Eagle: we look worse than last year. No way KY is better than FSU of last year
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Ben Milam: Eagles are outmatched in size, speed, talent departments, but they’re also getting out-coached by a mile.
Disappointing in year 4.
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RockyMtnEagle: Will Hall ain’t Larry Fedora…….fire his dumb ass before he gets on the plane
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James Smith: I see alot of uneducated college football fans talking about our team. Kentucky is now legally buying some of the best football talent in College Football. Over $10 million dollar NIL budget.
This Kentucky defense is far and away the best defense we will see this season. The talent on this Kentucky offense is good. Our team looks better. We've played okay, not good damn sure not great but okay.
This isn't your daddy's Kentucky Football Team anymore. No they're not Alabama, but they are a Top 8 team in a 16 team SEC. Meaning they'd probably be a league champion in the Big 12 and ACC.
I'm not saying we're going to win the Sun Belt, but what I'm seeing is better play from our team. Coaching is suspect, i thought the punt fake would've been better earlier in the game.
But here's the deal, it should be 24-14 right now. Our coaching staff didn't throw that INT in the red zone. Our coaching staff didn't drop that Pick Six we missed on.
24-14 we wouldn't have been able to sniff that competitive play last year.
Go Eagles
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Forrest Hatcher: It's time for a change, Southern Miss fans. Last night was tough, but we can't afford to wait any longer. We need a new head coach who can bring discipline and leadership to our team. Will Hall has proven to be ineffective, and his lies and deceit have hurt our team. We have a rich history, but we've been failing lately. We need a coach who can restore our team's greatness and lead us to victory.
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Clay Purvis: 31-0 post-mortem. I saw SOME of the things I wanted to see. We have the tools to make some plays on offense. Our defense has it in them to make some stops. I think the QB can get it done. BUT. We kill ourselves with turnovers, mistakes,and lack of discipline. It still appears that we make ZERO adjustments during the game. The QB does not appear to make ANY reads when he throws. He’s locked in on one receiver. Maybe something that will improve with experience I hope. ALL of these things are things you might typically see in a first game and say “well if we can get this cleaned up we have some potential this season”. The problem is many of these are the same issues we have had EVERY year of the Will Hall era. And we don’t ever seem to “clean them up”. Maybe this year will be different. I sure hope so. It looks like we have a talented enough roster to win games on our schedule. We had opportunities last night. The score should have been 10-3 going late into the second quarter. Or even 10–10 (dropped pick-6). Even 17-3 at the half would have felt better than 24-0. I am just afraid it feels like more of the same “woulda-coulda-shoulda” we’ve been looking at for four years now. I hope not.
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James Smith: Most college football writers had Kentuckys defensive line ranked as one of the top 10 in the NCAA this season.
They're going against a young USM offensive line. The results are as expected. Kentucky is paying multiple players six figure pay checks. We may have 1 guy making that at Southern Miss.
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Van Muth: I think there should be a new requirement announced at the beginning of each college athletic event. The total payroll including NIL and direct payments to the starting players. Yes. That way when a power 5 school destroys a group of 5 team by 60 points people will have a clear picture of the reason.
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David Young: Here is where I'm at. I've been a Southern Miss fan all my life. I remember the days of Reggie Collier and Brett Favre. But back then, we didn't have to compete with the UAB'S and TROY'S and SOUTH ALABAMA'S. We were able to get the players that are now staying closer to home. We used to get the bubble players that were almost good enough to play for LSU or ALABAMA. Now we have to much competition for those players. SOUTHERN MISS ain't what it used to be, which was a refuge for players with a huge chip on their shoulder. We were relevant because the big boys passed them up, and we were there to scoop them up. All those years under Bower when we were going 7-5 or 8-3 and I thought we were better than that and calling for his head, we made a huge mistake. He had talent back then and we had on blinders. We are smack dab in the middle of 3 power houses, and we were more than relevant. Anyone remember us being known as Giant Killers? Nobody wanted to play us now they schedule us for homecoming. Hard to see anything changing.
