December 13, 2007

HATTIESBURG — Grown men wore stylish headwear Wednesday signaling the beginning of the Larry Fedora era at Southern Miss.

The Oklahoma State offensive coordinator showed energy and enthusiasm, firing up the crowd of nearly 800 at the newly built Thad Cochran Center on the University of Southern Mississippi campus. Expectations are high that this son of a barber can lead the Eagles to the promised land — namely a BCS bowl game.

But the first day with the glitz and hoopla is only the start of an arduous journey for Fedora. He shook an army’s worth of hands and heard many offers of assistance on Wednesday. As if it wasn’t enough, here is some more unsolicited advice:

First, it’s the University of Southern Mississippi, not Southern Miss University. One of the things that has plagued Southern Miss is its name. Is it USM, or Southern Mississippi? Some call it Southern Miss University and even others harken back to the olden days when it was Mississippi Southern. Southern Miss, hold the University, is the preferred name, as Ole Miss is to Mississippi.

Second, go buy the most detailed map of this state as you can find because players hide in every nook and cranny from the Delta to the Gulf Coast. Start with towns such as Taylorsville and Mize, Ackerman and Weir, Booneville and Rosedale.

A unique thing about Mississippi football is that the smaller the town, the more dedication goes into playing. Lose a game at Weir or Taylorsville and everyone will have a topic for conversation on Saturday and it’s not what to wear to church on Sunday.

Larger schools produce talented players that most of the big schools around the region already know about. The key is to finding those diamonds in towns without daily newspapers or television coverage. Keep Mississippi’s best here and you will succeed.

Third, do not expect attendance miracles. Brett Favre couldn’t fill up The Rock, neither could the attacking defenses of the mid-1990s that really put Southern Miss on the map.

In September 1992 against rival Memphis, about 12,000 showed up. In 12 years under former coach Jeff Bower, per-game attendance more than doubled. But it still is lousy when compared to other football-playing schools in the Southeast. Put an exciting product on the field and maybe, maybe it won’t take thousands of traveling Nebraska fans to fill M.M. Roberts Stadium up. If Alabama can get 93,000 for a spring game, certainly Southern Miss can find a way to attract 40,000 to a regular season event.

Finally, and I bet Bower can attest to this, never, ever, under any circumstances lose to Rice.

It’s an almost guaranteed reserved seat to the unemployment line.

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Sean P. Murphy is sports editor of The Vicksburg Post. E-mail him at

smurphy@vicksburgpost.com