Will Hall didn't hold back as the Southern Miss football program officially embarked on the fourth year of the head coach's tenure.
"There is a lot of urgency in our program going into Year 4," Hall said. "I think there is an extreme urgency starting with me all the way through the rest of our program."
NEW COORDINATORS
A sign of the necessity to win this upcoming season after finishing 3-9 was the hiring of two new coordinators, with both sides of the ball having new faces leading the offense and defense.
This past offseason, Hall hired Chip Long to take over the offense, with Clay Bignell becoming Southern Miss' third DC in as many seasons.
Long was teammates with Hall at North Alabama, but the duo have never coached together despite sharing previous familiar job history, with both having been at Memphis and Tulane.
"Chip and I played together, but we haven't coached together," Hall said. "I guess it's been 21 years since we were in the same arena together. We had always kept up with each other… We've followed each other before. I followed him at Memphis when he left and then he followed me at Tulane when I left there.
"He knows exactly what he's looking for and what he wants. We'll be more versatile in our sets. There will be a lot more motion, a lot more movement and a lot more shifts. It's less of just lining up. We have good competition in all of the positions. I'm probably more excited about offensive line more than any other time or of any position because of how we recruited there."
Long's hiring will be Southern Miss' first official season that Hall will be handed off from the offense after he relinquished play-calling midseason.
"We'll be different, and we need to be different," Hall said. "I recognize and understand that. I'm excited about having him, and I'm excited about me getting out of the offense altogether and being in charge of the whole program in its totality.
Bignell brings a new but familiar defensive scheme for Hall, as the former Eastern Illinois defensive coordinator will run a 4-2-5 scheme. At Hall's previous head coaching jobs at West Alabama and West Georgia, his defenses ran the same scheme.
"It's been a great marriage so far with what I want to do," Hall said. "I wanted to go back to what I had done when I had been a head coach before, which had worked so well in the six years I had been a head coach prior to here.
"I believe in it, and I know how to coach it better. I know how everything fits together better. I went down to the FCS, Division II level, and looked at about 10 to 12 guys that were really doing well. I wanted guys that have called it before. Clay's name is just kept becoming available. You'll see a lot more zone and see a lot more eyes on the quarterback, hands-on balls, leveraging, and those types of things."
ANOTHER QB BATTLE
Hall did not announce that there was a solidified starting quarterback and that it was a four-man race for the job.
A new name in the mix is Florida State transfer Tate Rodemaker, who threw for 510 yards, five touchdowns and no interceptions last season. Returners Billy Wiles and Ethan Crawford and early enrollee true freshman John White are also in the mix for the job.
"He's a guy that has played 23 games," Hall said. "He's played against some elite competition and won.
"You have four guys really competing for that spot. We have gone from having one scholarship quarterback to having a lot and a lot of people wanted. We have to continue to grow them and develop them, but we have to play better around the quarterback."
BUILDING NIL
Since the further changes of Name, Image and Likeness, Hall has worked at growing Southern Miss' NIL partnership program, To The Top Collective.
"They used to say recruiting is like shaving; if you skip a day, you look like a bum," Hall said. "It's kind of the way NIL is. If you skip a day, you'll end up looking like a bum. It's all tied together with the health and well-being of our program".
Hall's goal is to have 1,000 members in the collective before the end of the calendar year.
"With all of our Southern Miss people, we have to keep banding together and keep embracing this," Hall said. "This could be our edge. You are seeing Group of Five coaches and administrators running away from this. At Southern Miss, we are attacking and embracing it."
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