Southern Miss

Golden Eagles · Sun Belt

Head coach Blake Anderson Year 1 with Southern Miss

Year-1 HCs (2015-2024) averaged -0.19 W vs. preseason expectation

Season Projection · 2026 W0

10,000 sims

4.9

Expected wins

5-6

Proj record

2 to 8

Win range (90%)

#98 (75–120)

Final rank (90%)

Make playoff

Win conference

Path to Glory

Tap a win or a loss on each pivotal game to see how the playoff probability shifts. Leave any game unset to average across both outcomes.

Make the playoff

Baseline projection.

vs Alcorn State

Home · Sep 5
vs UConn

Home · Sep 19
vs Arkansas State

Home · Oct 17
vs Louisiana

Home · Oct 24

Pivotal games are the 5 with the largest playoff-probability swing, ranked by the model. Math: chained Bayesian log-odds update from the conditional simulation set; gets the directionally right answer but won't perfectly capture cross-game correlations until the full Monte Carlo pipeline lands.

Returning production · 2026

81 score

Quarterback 100% (5/6 )
Offensive line 94% (17/18 players)
Skill (RB/WR/TE) 84% (23/28 )
Front 7 (DL/LB) 50% (23/31 )
Secondary 32% (10/17 )
Special teams 100% (9/9 )

Share of last season's production each unit returns. Higher means more continuity: 70%+ is healthy, 45–70% a normal rebuild, under 45% a major turnover.

If QB1 is out (Braylon Braxton)

GIE projects a -5.2 rating drop and a -20.8pp shift in playoff probability if Southern Miss loses its QB1 for an extended stretch. (n=1 historical samples; pooled across recent seasons.)

Situational efficiency · 2025

FBS percentile rank

3rd-down conversion 35.8% 42th — below avg
Red-zone TD rate 17.0% 72th — strong
4th-down aggression 38.4% 62th — average
Late & close 3.4 yds/play 17th — bottom tier

Percentile is across all FBS teams with play-by-play data for the season. "Late & close" is yards per play in Q4+ with a one-score margin — a proxy for clutch offensive performance.

Schedule

Full 2026 slate. Tap a row for the matchup breakdown.

Latest Stories

Stories about Southern Miss will appear here as they're published. Check back during the season for analysis, hot takes, and game write-ups.

More coming

Per-team pages get the full treatment in Phase 3: current rating, season projection histogram, schedule with win probabilities, and live overlays on Pylon stream days. For now, this page exists so stories and news have a permanent home as content rolls in.