Ruffled Feathers

Some dates are etched in your mind.  12/7/41.  11/22/63.  9/11/01.  For me, 10/10/81 is one of those.  On October 10, 1981, I was there when we tied the Bear.

Southern Miss (as we were then known in Alabama, but not yet in Hattiesburg, where it was still USM or Southern exclusively) travelled to Birmingham’s once legendary Legion Field, which in those days served as Paul “Bear” Bryant’s Crimson Tide’s primary home field, to take on 7th-ranked Alabama.  College football was a different game in 1981, as TV broadcasts were yet to be torn from the iron grip of the NCAA.   ABC owned exclusive live rights to broadcast games in those days.  One of the familiar locations from which you heard Keith Jackson calling the action was Legion Field.  For a 13-year-old college football fan, it was treading on hallowed ground.

A subtext of the game was Bryant’s pursuit and ultimate catch of Amos Alonzo Stagg’s coaching record of 314 wins.  The Southern Miss game was supposed to produce victim #311.  In 1980, Bobby Collins fielded a 6-0 team, ranked for the first time at #20 only to be overwhelmed by the Tide in Tuscaloosa by a score of 42-7.  The Golden Eagles came into Birmingham 4-0, having beaten a less-than-impressive lineup of Southwestern Louisiana, Tulane, Richmond and Texas-Arlington.  In short, few expected an upset.

However, there was one wild card- one Reggie Collier, the junior quarterback from D’Iberville.  The previous week, against Texas-Arlington, Reggie had 164 yards rushing after two carries.  That is not a misprint.  Reggie went on to become the first Division 1 quarterback to rush and pass for 1,000 yards in a season.  10/10/81 would be just another Saturday lost in the shuffle for Southern Miss fans if not for Reggie Collier.

27 years on, details of the day and game are harder than I expected to recall, but I do remember getting up early to meet Token, his father and a mutual friend to drive to Birmingham.  It had been raining earlier, but stopped in time for the game.  I remember getting to the stadium early and watching warmups.  Bear Bryant walked around the field, watching his Tide warm up.  When he stopped and leaned against the goal post, everyone in the stands stopped what they were doing and watched him watch his team.

Game details are hard to recall, but I do remember it being a close, hard-hitting game all the way.  I do recall that in the waning seconds of the game, Reggie Collier drove the Eagles, trailing 13-10, down the field from his own 20.  The drive stalled, and on came sophomore placekicker Steve Clark, who booted a 40-yard field goal to tie the game.  Alabama failed to move the ball and it was over, a 13-13 tie.  The headline in the Hattiesburg American on 10/11/81 read “Much Better Than Kissing Your Sister- USM 13-Alabama 13″.

A tie may be like kissing your sister, but that day, it felt like a win, and all the Southern Miss fans in attendance celebrated that way.  Token and I have been through many Southern Miss football days since, but the first one will always be remembered by me as the best one.

So tomorrow night, when #10 is so deservedly retired, my thoughts will run immediately to 10/10/81, when I saw Reggie Collier tie the Bear.  Congratulations on an honor that is a long time coming, Reggie.

1) No punts in the UTEP game.

2) Offense ranked 20th in total yards per game.  Last year?  64th.  Anyone who cannot see improvement in the offense is blind or loyal to a man over a school.

3) Coach Fedora, after a tough loss, walked out and greeted fans on Loyalty Field, thanking them for their support and asking them to hang in there.

Here’s an open invitation to all the Toters who can’t let go of their bippy to follow wherever the bippy goes. It will be good riddance for true Southern Miss fans, I can assure you.

Here’s how it goes around my house on an off day.  Since the temperature has moderated, that means football on the deck.  Unfortunately I haven’t gotten a way to do HD setup there, so my little LCD flat screen will have to do.

I’ll start on ESPN and ESPN2 at 11:00 with Michigan State/Indiana and North Carolina/Miami.  Army/Texas A&M and Ole Miss/Florida join the fray at 11:30.  I’ve found some Leinenkugel’s Summy Shandy brew left to enjoy while watching the early games.

At 2:30, the evil-but-entertaining SEC game of the week is on CBS- Tennessee at Auburn.  Hate ‘em or hate ‘em, they are fun to watch, especially with a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale in hand, and I have those in the beer fridge.  I’ll fire up the gas grill for the first time and have some grilled Conecuh sausage for an appetizer.  Also at 2:30, Arkansas/Texas is on ABC.

At 6:30, the charcoal grill smokes up, and some friends are coming over to watch Georgia/Alabama on ESPN, with sneak peaks at MSU/LSU over on the Deuce.  We’ll burn some red meat and have some good red wine and smoke a few stogies.

The old song is wrong.  Christmas isn’t the most wonderful time of the year.  College football when the air is getting crisp and the games are getting hot is.

“Give Marshall a lot of credit. They were the better football team today. Their coaches did a great job of preparing them to play at our place, and they beat us. We were outplayed and outcoached in every phase. We have a lot of work to do as a team.” - Coach Larry Fedora’s post game remarks, quoted on southernmiss.com

Three games into the Fedora reign, Southern Miss is 2-1, with a rout over a team of questionable strength in UL-L, a somewhat competitive loss to an SEC power in Auburn, and a by-the-skin-of-your-teeth win over an opponent who seems to be on the come in Arkansas State.

Remarkably, last year, substitute Tennessee-Martin, Tennessee and ECU for the teams above and you have a comparable start to 2007, under the previous regime, same 2-1 record.

So what’s different? 

• Thankfully, instead of playing on a Thursday night 2,000 miles away and coming home for a Wednesday night game, the next two will be on Saturday with an open date wedged in between.
• The game vs. Tennessee in 2007 was relatively close for a while and the Vols pulled away as the Eagles ran out of gas.  The Auburn game started off looking like a blowout but adjustments were made, confidence was built and the Eagles finished stronger than they started
• USM won the ECU game with a drive in the last minutes of the game.  This past Saturday, the Eagles built a big lead and nearly let is slip away due to lack of defensive depth as Arkansas State possessed the ball for 20 minutes in the second half.

Sitting at 2-1, with an entire month before having to endure any more road games, seems to be a good place to be for this young, not-too-deep team.  Defensively, the thin depth would be helped with improving tackling technique, as several were missed at ASU.  Offensively, time at home against teams who are not as talented should help pad the offensive statistics.

If the Eagles play up to their potential, Boise State should come to Hattiesburg to face a team whose record is 4-1.  It should be a fun month of home games.

Duty calls louder than normal at work in recent days, so blogging is limited due to brain overload.  Just a couple of thoughts on the Auburn game:

• The never give up attitude in the fourth quarter was encouraging
• The stage fright of the first quarter was alarming, but understandable
• The conservative play calling?  I think all of our team was nervous, coaches included
• Playing better at the end than the beginning was refreshing
• Seeing Austin Davis and DeAndre Brown mature in front of our eyes was nice
• Seeing the defense rise up after the shaky start and play well despite being tired
• Shawn Nelson looks like a motivated player right now

Arkansas State looms.  It will not be an easy game.

A couple of other random thoughts:

• Ed Orgeron couldn’t coach, but he could recruit
• A flag should, by the rules, have been thrown on Jake Locker
• The rule is the problem, not the guy throwing the flag
• Mark May is still a moron, saying that Locker “flipped the ball over his shoulder”
• ECU should enjoy Skip Holtz while it can.  He talked to WVU before they inexplicably hired Bill Stewart to provide clueless expressions on the sideline.
• Vandy is 2-0, but isn’t certain to make a bowl
• Our friends at MSU still are unhappy with Crooms
• Renewing with Louisville is a nice addition to the schedule

Will resume more normal blogging as time allows…

Random thoughts on the past weekend in college football (except that Tennessee-UCLA is about to kick off, so I’d better be quick)

It’s good to be the king

Larry Fedora and Houston Nutt had wildly successful debuts in the state of Mississippi.  Fedora’s offense set new total yardage and rushing records for a game.  Nutt, well, he didn’t make a stupid face on the sideline.

It’s good sucks to be the king

Mike Sherman loses his debut at aTm (remember kids, Larry Fedora is from College Station- to quote Eagle78, “just sayin’”) and Bobby Petrino’s Arkansas Razorbacks had to score late to hold off Western Illinois 28-24. 

The ACC- you, you’re not good

Losses by a listless NC State, Va Tech, and Clemson get the conference off to a terrible start.  My crack research staff tells me that no ACC team beat an FBS team on opening weekend (Wake Forest did beat Baylor, but come on, do they count as FBS?)

Sylvester got Croomed

Much to the dismay of the fellas over at sixpackspeak.com, Mississippi State coach Sylvester Croom, he of the doubled salary thanks to an offseason extension, took his version of the Bulldogs up to Ruston, Louisiana (like high school, except it’s Saturday night) and promptly lost to Terry Bradshaw’s version of the Bulldogs, Louisiana Tech, by a score of 22-14.  In the game, he limited star running back Anthony Dixon to 18 carries, replaced his starting quarterback, Wes Carroll, who led the team to stirring wins vs. Alabama and Auburn last year, with a JUCO transfer, and saw MSU turn over the ball five times.  Last year, MSU thrived on creating and taking advantage of turnovers.  Suddenly, Croom is back squarely on the hot seat, extended contract and all.

Tressel: nice call

Leaving Beanie Wells in the game against Youngstown State?  Nice call.  Now Wells is hurt and his status for the big matchup against USC week after next is questionable.

This segment brought to you by Geritol

Bobby Bowden’s FSU Seminoles didn’t play on opening weekend, and their first two games are against Western Carolina and Chattanooga.  That’ll get you ready to play Wake Forest and the rest of the ACC.  (Actually, as bad as the ACC is, that’s actually not a problem.)  Joe Paterno’s team throttled Coastal Carolina and had nobody arrested all weekend.

And finally…

“That feeling right now is just unexplainable.  Watching USM as a child growing up and then getting to play in front of thousands of fans, and score a touchdown, it’s a feeling like nothing that can be described.” - Southern Miss RB and Hattiesburg native Bubba Kirksey, who is a JUCO tranfer who rushed for over 100 yards and scored in his first game for the hometown Eagles.  Looks like he should have been recruited here two years ago.

Today, football is new at Southern Miss.  New coach, new schemes, (practically) new stadium with new suites and new club seats.  The last time someone other than the recently retired coach roamed the sidelines was November 10, 1990- some 6,503 days ago.  The freshman class members were in diapers then.  Saddam was in Kuwait, Bush 41 was in the White House, and Clinton was still roaming the trailer parks of Little Rock.

So remember that you are seeing a rarity- meaningful change at Southern Miss.  Savor and enjoy it, because it does not happen very often.

I was looking at the current Sagarin Ratings, thinking once again how C-USA has steadily become weaker since the changes of 2003.  I was thinking about the “geographic footprint” of C-USA (graphic from www.swampland.com):

 

As you can see, it’s a far flung conference with few schools in easy driving distance.  So I used Google’s map feature and figured the distance from Hattiesburg to each of the C-USA schools.  It turns out that the schools are an average of 517 miles from Hattiesburg.  If you can average 60 MPH, the typical trip would take about 8.5 hours to drive.

The thread I pulled on became this thought:  what if the conference we were in had a smaller footprint?  Heck, we’re all sitting around hoping and waiting for C-USA to get better.  Why not do the same with more regional rivalries that would be easier road trips?

So I looked to adjacent states: 

• Louisiana has five FBS teams.  Obviously LSU isn’t going anywhere, but why not the other four?  UL-L, UL-M, Louisiana Tech and Tulane are an average of 189 miles from Hattiesburg. 
• Alabama has Troy and UAB, with South Alabama on the way.  Those schools are an average of 196 miles from Hattiesburg. 
• Tennessee has Memphis and Middle Tennessee, which average 362 miles from Hattiesburg. 
• Arkansas State is another option, and Jonesboro is 366 miles from Hattiesburg.

In the four states contiguous to Mississippi, that’s ten potential FBS schools.  In order to bring the league to twelve teams and have divisions, I did consider adding one of the current C-USA schools.  However, the nearest C-USA town not already considered here is Houston.  Adding either Houston or Rice would widen the footprint I’m looking to narrow.  So I looked to the Sun Belt one more time and found Western Kentucky, a team that is in the process of joining the FBS.

The result?  Something that looks like this:

• Southern Miss
• Tulane (100 miles away)
• South Alabama (90 miles away)
• UL-Monroe (207 miles away)
• UL-Lafayette (223 miles away)
• UAB (234 miles away)
• La Tech (239 miles away)
• Troy (261 miles away)
• Memphis (297 miles away)
• Arkansas State (366 miles away)
• MTSU (427 miles away)
• WKU (488 miles away)

Only two current of the C-USA teams not listed in this lineup are closer to Hattiesburg than WKU- Rice and Houston.  All of the other teams are farther away.  This group averages 266 miles from Hattiesburg.  The footprint of such a league would be substantially smaller, allowing for reduced travel costs and the ability of fans to travel in greater numbers.

Sure, it wouldn’t be the strongest football conference at first, but then again, C-USA ranked behind the FCS Southern Conference in the Sagarin Ratings.  Familiarity breeds contempt, and contempt in college football means a stronger league.  The proximity of the teams would certainly lead to familiarity.

If we’re going to be in a struggling football league, why not one within easy driving distance?

October 13, 1979.  An 11-year old Boy Scout from Troop 7 in Mount Olive went with the rest of his fellow Scouts to Hattiesburg to be an usher for the USM-Tulane game.  Earlier in the day, the Baltimore Orioles took a 3-1 lead over the Pittsburgh Pirates in the World Series (yes, they used to play day baseball in the Fall Classic.)  The Pirates came back to win in seven games.  My dad, a diehard fan of the O’s, was not happy.  In 1979, the Pine Burr Area Council of Boy Scouts provided ushers for USM football games.

That 11-year old Boy Scout, of course, was me.  The remodeled Rock (as it most assuredly was NOT known as then) was only in its fourth season.  The crowd, listed in the 2007 media guide as 30,028, was the largest announced attendance for an opponent not named Ole Miss or Mississippi State to date in Hattiesburg.  As I recall from working in section LL (then, as until 1987, the student section was on the west side), that number was probably a little overstated.

Dane McDaniel was the starting quarterback for the Eagles.  A little-known freshman who wore #10 was on the bench, waiting on his opportunity, which came weeks later against Arkansas State following a disappointing loss at Bowling Green (a game which was televised back to the area by WDAM- I watched on my maternal grandmother’s black and white set at her home outside of Collins- funny how details like that stick in the mind.)

Bobby Collins was in the middle of his fifth of seven seasons in charge of the Golden Eagles.  His team was coming off a 30-10 win over North Texas State, as they were then known, a game which was televised on a delayed basis by a fledgling television network nobody had ever heard of around Hattiesburg- ESPN.  Earlier in the season, the Eagles had lost at Auburn before 45,226, an unimagniable attendance number some 29 years later.  Whitey Jordan coordated the conservative veer option offense, while Jim “Big Nasty” Carmody led a defense which would knock your ass into the dirt, no matter who you were.

I remember few details from the game itself beyond asking lots of people if they needed help to their seats. I remember it being the second largest crowd of people I’d ever seen at one time (the first being a Saints game in 1976.) I remember the Tulane quarterback’s name, Roch Hontas. It was the first ever meeting between Tulane and USM, the Greenies having looked down their nose at the Eagle program for many years before agreeing to a series.

The 1980 game was televised on ABC on a Saturday afternoon and won by the Eagles 17-14 on a Reggie Collier-to-Marvin Harvey touchdown before 45,000 in the Superdome. That game being televised was a Big Deal for Southern Miss, because only ABC covered any live NCAA football before 1982.

The Scoutmaster decided we needed to leave to beat traffic before the game ended. Tulane won 20-19 when Southern Miss kicker Winston Walker “missed” a field goal in the waning seconds of the game. To this day, Southern Miss folks dispute that the kick was missed. Bill Goodrich sure thought it was good as we listened on the radio, heading back up Highway 49 in the late fall Mississippi evening.

The 1979 USM-Tulane game was a game played in a bygone era of football- before the internet, before cable saturation, before the complete specialization of the game.  Bear Bryant won the last of his national titles in that year.  Woody Hayes had just been forced to resign.  Lee Corso was still (unsuccessfully) coaching at Indiana.  You could see (maybe) two live games per week on ABC.  I remember it like it was yesterday- an impressionable boy watching his future alma mater play football for the first time.  Now, in my 30th season of watching Southern Miss football, I look back and think there- right there- was where it all started for me.