#77 Southern Miss

Hattiesburg, MS

M. M. Roberts Stadium "The Rock"

August 30, 2025

Mississippi St 34 - Southern Miss 17 (ESPN Recap)

Hattiesburg, MS is an hour away from the Gulfport airport. If you drive North and happen to not have a GPS, you’ll know you’ve reached Hattiesburg once you’ve passed 9 Waffle Houses, 14 Dollar Generals, a correctional facility, and 32 Churches.

Southern Miss was another destination that didn’t attract interest from any of my friend groups, so I continued the weekend solo. On Friday night, stayed at La Quinta a mile from the stadium and posted up at Walk On’s to watch all the Friday games.

Kickoff was 11am local which was the same experience 4 years ago for me and my crew in Starkville. I walked to the stadium and surveyed the tailgate scene, which was a tamer version of the other SMU in Dallas, but had similar on campus vibes. Bought a ticket to upper-deck Section PP on SeatGeek for $24 and sat 11th row at the 40 yard line next to EJ, his wife, and their local crew. It was more difficult to find

lower bowl seats for this game compared to the BGSU game on Thursday. EJ & crew were sweethearts and come from a family divided (half the kids went to So Miss, and half to Miss St… “as long as they don’t go to Ole Miss, we let em come back home”).

I chose this game because: in-state rivalry, SEC opponent, and new HC for Southern Miss (Coach Huff). I probably made the right decision as I heard a few times that “the stadium hasn’t been this full in close to 10 years” and it was the noon ET kickoff on ESPN following Lee Corso’s final GameDay. Interesting, that the combined record of these two teams over their last 10 games is 1-19.

I bet Mississippi St very hard with 1H and full game MLs and an early week ATS number of -11.0 (closed - 14.5). Cashed everything, though the 1H ML was a sweat.

Southern Miss is much improved and probably won’t be a dumpster fire in the Sun Belt, and Miss St is improved from last year, but still should struggle in the SEC. I have never been a big Blake Shapen fan and still believe Baylor dropped the ball playing him over Drones.

The game was over during warm ups where Miss St was doing tackling drills and dancing with swagger and Southern Miss was dodging rolling oversized doughnuts.

Crowd was relevant throughout the 1st half. Miss St scored on a busted coverage RPO bomb down the sideline & 2 mins into the game. However, Shapen threw an INT on his own side of the field, gifting So Miss 3 points mid Q1r. Miss St bombed a 56 yard FG to go back up 7 (weird seeing 2 for 2 on 56 yarders this weekend from random programs), and then the most unlucky play of the game for me occurred as Southern Miss got to 3rd and goal from the +5, rolled left, and threw a pass to the front pylon that was jumped by the defensive back and hit him in the chest. It should have been a pick-6, but it bounced off his chest, and then into the WR’s hands as he fell into the endzone for a touchdown (video below).

That tied the game at 10-10 and led to the 1H sweat. Miss St kicked a FG before half to cash, and then dominated the 2H when they realized they could run to the left at will, putting up 21 unanswered which included an extra possession from a pick right in front of my seats. I liked #1 DB on Miss St and that was about it from the players on the field.

The DJ for the stadium was really into his job, blasting bangers all game, even over the umpire’s PA calls of penalties… and all the penalties on Mississippi St were “sponsored by Dickey’s BBQ Pit” which happened 14 times.

Brett Favre and Ray Guy’s numbers are retired at “The Rock,” the nickname for their surprisingly large stadium.

Missed being able to watch the defensive battle Ohio St won 14-7 over Texas, but worth it. Grabbed lunch at MugShots catching FSU take control over Bama and then hit the road, driving to Harrah’s Biloxi where a free room awaited me. On the drive, I saw this U-Turn sign for Hattiesburg at least 7 times, which was super strange to be driving away from a small town and to be reminded every few miles that the town is the other direction.

The sportsbook at Harrah’s Biloxi is actually really nice and I stayed there until the Utah/UCLA game ended at ~2am et, watching UVA and Utah roll.

Waffle House Saturday morning and then fly back to FL out of the cute little Gulfport airport on my third and fourth Delta SkyMiles tickets this weekend.

Reminder to all that Mississippi is the poorest state out of 50, the second-least college educated, and 4th most obese which is why less than 3m people live there. Off to Pullman this weekend for #78!