2025 Southern Miss Predictions on the HG
Jake Wimberly
Ross Gaskin Contributing:
What’s to like:
New Head Coach Charles Huff and his Golden Eagles will be looking for massive improvements in 2025 as 2024 was a terrible year for Southern Miss Football. They thankfully were able to get a great QB to transfer from Marshall in Braylon Braxton. Braxton in 2024 threw for 1,624 yards and 19 TDs while adding 610 rushing yards and 4 TDs.
Braylon Braxton will also be bringing along 2 WRs with Carl Chester and Tychaun Chapman. Along with the offense looking promising, the defense also has young stars like LB Chris Jones. Jones in 2024, his freshman year, had 46 tackles, 2.5 TFLs, 1 INT, 1 sack, and 2 FFs. Chris Jones did all of that in only 9 games with minimal reps, so who knows what type of numbers he could put up as the full time starter.
What’s not to like:
There are plenty of things not to like about Southern Miss because they went 1-11 last season resulting in them losing a ton of players in the portal. The Golden Eagles lost so many starters to the portal and graduation along with a lot of their depth guys.
The biggest pieces they lost were their RBs Rodriguez Clark and Kenyon Clay who both combined for 991 yards and 8 TDs in 2024. Southern Miss will also be losing a ton of players on the defensive side of the ball, but Charles Huff, so far, has done a good job at bringing in guys as replacements and getting his team ready for 2025.
What does the Hourglass say?
Southern Miss- SBC (9-3)
Power ranking 64.14. 2nd toughest schedule in the SBC.
2025 Southern Miss Analytics
National recruiting rating (three year metric): #78- outside the boundary of a National Championship Roster.
National Coaching Ranking:
Jeff Traylor- 60th in G5 and 14th in the SBC.
2024 coaching value= -3 (average 2025 G5 coaching value=3.58) Jeff Traylor ranks at the lower level for coaches in college football.
ODE analytics 2024 Nationally:
Offensive Ranking: 131st
Defensive Ranking: 128th
Quarterback Play: Braxton- ranked 6th in the G5, 3rd in the SBC; 2024 QB value= 19.6 (G5 average- 9.4)
Impact Ball Catcher Metric: Southern Miss has an Impact Ball Catcher Metric of 3. This puts the Golden Eagles at the lower level for the SBC in this metric.
From Vegas:
Southern Miss ATS in 2024: 4-8
Southern Miss at home: 3-3
Southern Miss on the road: 1-5
Southern Miss site: 0-0
Final thoughts:
The word that can describe this Southern Miss football team is potential. They have a brand new head coach with the potential to turn this team around. They have a bunch of young talented players with the potential to become superstars. We predicted their record based on the amount of potential they have. If that potential is fulfilled, expect a great season. If it is not, expect more of the same out of Southern Miss in 2025.
2025 Schedule analysis:
Projected Hourglass W/L record: Games in red denote games that could be a one possession game or even a different outcome than projection.
Editors Note: All photos courtesy of 247sports.com
