Eagle Droppings

Well 2008 has certainly been a wild year to say the least. Southern Miss football replaced a perennial winner with an unproven coach to start off the football season. The end result, a winning record and a bottom tier bowl game. Why are you so happy you say? Because the wheels are turning and the pieces are in place to return Southern Miss back to it’s past prominence in the world of Non-BCS teams. This year showed 1. a team that   would not quit. Being 2-6 the team pulled together and won out to finish with a 7-6 record. 2. a coach that would not be satisfied. Southern Miss returned to trying to score with 2 minutes before halftime and going for it on 4th and 1 rather than punting. 3. A coach that would not be afraid to recruit against the SEC. Coach Fedora pulled several commitments from top players in the south with his in your face attack style. 4. Southern Miss is on its way back up. Southern Miss beat eventual C-USA champion ECU, stomped UAB to the tune of 70-14, beat defending champion UCF, and mounted an amazing comeback against Sun-Belt Champion and 4 point favorite Troy in the New Orleans Bowl despite having 2 touchdowns called back as well as losing their leading receiver in the 1st quarter.  Basketball is in a wierd stage. It is in a stage where I can’t tell if we are actually making progress or if we are just lucky. Southern Miss lost to a New Mexico team on a buzzer beater while the same New Mexico team thumped Ole Miss by 30 points. It’s hard to tell if we are just catching good teams on bad nights or if we are actually improving. The signing of international players continues to be a point of concern especially with the lack of inside presence. The team’s vocal leader Sai-Quon Stone is done for the year despite not even reaching conference play yet. the team approaches a do or die game against in state rival Ole Miss this week. Hopefully the team can have more fight in them than Andy Kennedy against a taxi cab driver. Baseball comes in with lofty expectations. Picked preseason #34 in the country ahead of both Tulane and Mississippi State, one would expect Southern to be picked 3rd in C-USA baseball due to only Rice and ECU being ranked higher nationally. So that brings us to the next big question. What does 2009 bring? Here are my humble hopes for 2009 at Southern Miss in the chronological order in which they would occur if they all happen

1. Southern Miss football has another top 40 ranked recruiting class

2.Softball makes it to post-season play again

3. Men’s basketball makes the NIT or better

4. Women’s Basketball makes the big dance at the NCAA Tourney

5. Baseball makes it to Super Regionals (Hosting is what’s important so i’m told)

6. Football rolls through their schedule and attains a Liberty Bowl berth after crushing their C-USA opposition

7. I finally graduate and head on to grad school

Lofty goals but all are attainable. I feel like based on academics and athletics at Southern Miss, I have never been prouder and there has never been a better time to be a Golden Eagle.

So as the CUSA players of the year have been announced, one would be devoid to not notice that all but one are from the Western Division. It seems ridiculous that this would be the case. It almost reminds me of Survivor. It appears as if the Western coaches got together and said vote for this guy and i’ll vote for your guy. Houston had a good season don’t get me wrong, but it is ridiculous to not acknowledge the only freshman bringing national attention to your miserable pathetic little conference. The fact that Houston has the Freshman of the Year is a joke. That guys numbers are nothing compared to DeAndre Brown’s.

Okay so ladies and gents, the bandwagon is leaving. I say this because now that Southern Miss is having the difficulites that everyone but the blind casual observer knew would happen people are jumping ship. It’s hard for me to bail on the sinking ship. I simply don’t view this as a sinking ship. I view this as more like a US Coast Guard Cutter boat. The boat is flipped upside down but if given time will right itself.  Are we struggling? Yes. Will it get worse before it gets better? Yes. Will Southern Miss eventually return to the greatness it is accustomed to? Yes. One season does not make Southern Miss. We have been fortunate to have very few losing seasons throughout our history. It in a way has spoiled the fan base to expect to win the same way that the fan base was spoiled into thinking that 7-6 seasons were okay. While I hate sitting there and watching us lose each game more and more, I still every single game return to the Rock to watch and support USM. It saddens me that I am hearing rumblings of certain groups especially specific fraternities planning to “White out” the Blackout game. Last year that was intended to make a statement that many shared. I guess the people doing it this year don’t understand how a coaching cycle works. Who knows maybe it will cause us to prove Van Arnold right. maybe we will going cowering back to the feet of Jeff Bower begging him to take us back. I appreciate everything Bower did for Southern Miss and refuse to be a part of bashing him, but people are so easy to blame Fedora for the problems we are having. It’s just not going to work. There are way too many problems to deal with in one season. The only thing left this year is to try our best to make sure our losses do not include UAB. I for one will be there and support the team.

Okay  so Eaglepost has a fairly good source of blogs. All the writers are gentlemen I deeply respect, but I feel that I should compete for your viewing audience too. Here are the top 5 reasons you should read my blog.

1. It’s a student’s perspective: I am currently a student at Southern Miss.

2. I interact with these athletes daily: I am friends with many of the athletes and talk to them from time to tip

3. It’s entertaining: I try to add a little humor to my blogs unless it absolutely requires it to be a serious blog

4. More than just sports: I will do my best to keep you up to date on the on campus happenings besides just sports

5. I fill requests: Got something you want more info about? Let me know, and I’ll search it out for you

Now that I’ve given you a few reasons let me talk about a few things. First off this whole situation with reporting. I think it is definitely possible for 2 Southern Miss boards to co-exist. The difference is in the people. I have a lot of respect for both boards, but I prefer Eaglepost. The gentlemen and ladies at Eaglepost are honest and will call a spade a spade.  Big Gold Nation to me seems to be a little more rubber stampish or at least it was in it’s past incarnation. The information is nice, but not for the price. I enjoy the ability to speak my mind on Eaglepost.  Many on EP don’t have a problem with Big Gold Nation, it seems to be the Big Gold Nation folks that have a problem with EP. I mean maybe I understand why they are mad. I wouldn’t like having to pay for the kind of conversation they have. The simple fact of the matter to me is that I can get better info from a wider variety of sources on Eaglepost. This is now true to an even greater extent with the partnership between EP and Hattiesburg American. The fact that several visitors are attacking Patrick Magee because of his post about someone revealing that Willie Packer was cleared when he wasn’t is complete crap. I assume what happened is someone was let in on a secret. I’m assuming that the secret was that everything seemed a go on Willie Packer and he was about to get clear so they reported it. After it was actually official Patrick reported it. That is called verifying. Reporting something before it is finalized is shooting from the hip and is a pathetic job of reporting. It’s time for everyone to move past this ” I’m part of this board and you are part of that board” crap. Who cares what board you are part of. The only difference is whether you pay for your board or you don’t.

So as now is old news Eaglepost and The Hattiesburg American have formed an alliance. Not the idiotic “survivor” type of alliance but one that will greatly benefit. I will admit I had my reservations at first but this seems to be a win win. Patrick Magee has turned out to be a pretty good writer this summer and has gone after some sources of information. I have been critical of his work as I would expect someone to be of mine, but he has really stepped it up this summer. I’m back at USM and the excitement is amazing. There is a lot more students wearing USM clothing etc on campus and not as many other schools as I have seen in the past. I can’t wait till the first game. Tailgating, beautiful women, and the game of football.

So I know it’s boring for many people waiting on football to come around but its longer for me. I’m helping out around my house waiting to move back to Hattiesburg. I can’t wait till school starts back. It’s going to be a great year for USM football. I’m thinking even with the kinks we need to work out we are going to destroy Louisiana-Lafayette.

So tonight was my fraternities Island Party. Its a free concert we put on for the USM community and city of Hattiesburg, as our way of giving back and to help get our name out there a little. Many generous donations made this years event possible. We were delayed starting 45 minutes as the stage and equipment was covered to let the rain pass. That didn’t stop us after the delay we rocked out until 10:45. We hopefully allowed many people to know what BYX is all about. Good to see some USM alumni stop by and take in the music and food. Tomorrow is the Spring Game. I haven’t been this excited since I don’t know when. I can’t wait. We are doing Tri-Delta Triple Play in the morning before all meeting up and going to the spring game. We are bringing out all our guys for spring game. This is going to be one of the best game days ever. I can’t wait to hear the stadium roaring from people. Also baseball is this weekend. I LOVE baseball. I love the game. The smell of fresh cut grass. The crack of the bat. The thickness in the air on a hot game day. It’s probably my favorite game day experience. On a side note, I ask that everyone keep Corey Stephens in their prayers. He hit the fence hard tonight. He is a very promising player and needs prayers.

Okay the Rice Vs USM game was possibly the best pitched game I have seen in a long time. It was good to see that Sutt finally broke out of his funk and got the game winning homerun. I hope the Eagles have continued success on this road trip. I also attended Dr. Saunders inauguration yesterday. This was an amazing time. I met the Governer as well as the Lieutenant Governer. It was good to see Bishop Ward from the Mississippi Conference of the UMC. All in all it was an awesome day.

So after going to the baseball game I learned something. While Coach Palmer has attained 900 wins as a coach, he seemed no more concerned about it than yesterday. While this is a milestone achievement for any coach, it is nice to see that Coach Palmer places no more significance on that game than the game after. UCF came back with a vengeance. USM thought after they completely dominated the first game that UCF would roll over and die but they didn’t. One other thing that perplexes me. If we had such a successful game on friday, why would we mess with the roster going into saturday? I guess thats why i’m not a coach.

So as I sit here relaxing after enjoying a good baseball game, my thoughts wander. The baseball team seems to show some improvement from last year. While today’s game was a nailbiter, lets not forget that Lipscomb has actually beat some pretty good baseball teams 2 out of 3 last year. I think this weekend showed what the team is capable of. Each day the team won a different way. Friday they came out, tacked on some runs, and left it for the defense and pitching. Saturday they struggled offensively held defensively until the offense came around and won.Then finally today they just fought for everything they had. They decided not to be happy taking 2 out of 3 but wanted the whole sweep instead. Yes my friends baseball is in the air and once again it’s a great day to be a Golden Eagle.