It’s hard to believe it’s already mid-October, but we sit at the halfway point of the college football season.
Another weekend is in the books, and some teams have already thrown in the towel.
Three FBS head coaches were fired Sunday, but none more—well, I wouldn’t say shocking, but just hard to believe—than James Franklin at Penn State.
Franklin was leading his team out of the tunnel in a top-10 matchup in front of more than 110,000 people just three weeks ago. Now, he’s out of a job. Life comes at you fast.
But the world presses ahead. Week Eight of the college football season brings plenty of intriguing matchups nationally, but from a Southern Miss perspective, the Sun Belt has a huge week ahead.
Let’s start by looking at the conference contenders, beginning in the East.
James “Damn” Madison (I’m going to keep calling them that until they lose) sits atop the standings at 3-0 in league play and 5-1 overall. Coastal Carolina is surprisingly right behind at 2-1.
The Chanticleers might be the most up-and-down team in the Sun Belt. They were blown out last week at Old Dominion, then turned around and handled a hot ULM squad 23-8.
Old Dominion, meanwhile, looked nearly unbeatable through the first month and a half of the season. Its only loss came on the road at now–No. 3 Indiana, 27-14. But last weekend, the Monarchs went to Huntington and were blown out by a mediocre Marshall team, 48-24. Now 1-1 in conference, they’ll travel to Harrisonburg to play James Madison in what was expected to be the game to decide the East—and still might be—but even with a win, ODU would have to be perfect the rest of the way.
The two biggest games in the East start with that one in Harrisonburg: Old Dominion at James Madison. As of now, JMU is a 2½-point favorite over the Monarchs. That’s a massive game for the division race and a must-win for ODU if it hopes to stay alive.
Who should Southern Miss fans be rooting for? Old Dominion. You want East teams to lose, period. An undefeated JMU in conference would almost certainly host the Sun Belt Championship Game.
The second big game in the East didn’t seem all that important until Coastal Carolina’s rebound last week. The Chanticleers travel to Boone to face Appalachian State, which sits at 1-1 in conference play. The Mountaineers are heavy favorites (-10½), but Coastal has shown new life.
Who should Southern Miss fans be rooting for? Appalachian State. Here’s why: if App State makes a late run—they still have ODU and JMU on the road—it could help Southern Miss down the line. The Mountaineers’ one Sun Belt loss came to Southern Miss, meaning the Golden Eagles would hold the head-to-head tiebreaker in a tight race.
On the West side, there are two more games that could shape the standings down the stretch.
First, in Monroe. Troy stunned Texas State in overtime last weekend in San Marcos, with quarterback Tucker Kilcrease throwing for a career-high 415 yards and five touchdowns. The Trojans now visit ULM, which has quietly had a strong start to the season. The Warhawks’ only losses came to Alabama and Northwestern, but they stumbled last week in a 23-8 loss to Coastal Carolina.
This game carries real implications for Southern Miss. If ULM wins, it comes to The Rock next week at 2-1 in conference. If Troy wins, there’s a real chance the Trojans roll into Hattiesburg at 6-1 in league play by season’s end.
Who should Southern Miss fans be rooting for? ULM. You always want the undefeated or one-loss teams to take a hit.
Finally, in Lafayette, Louisiana looked solid last week at James Madison, even leading 14-7 at halftime.
Quarterback Lunch Winfield is starting to find his rhythm and will present a tough challenge for the Golden Eagle defense.
If Southern Miss wins, it would sit at 3-0 in conference—a remarkable turnaround to consider.
And speaking of big wins, how about what went down right here in the Pine Belt on Friday night? Petal finally broke through in one of Mississippi’s best rivalries, taking down Oak Grove 28-21 at Warrior Field.
The Panthers, who hadn’t beaten the Warriors since 2019, did it the hard-nosed way—controlling the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball and rushing for more than 200 yards. Their defense forced Oak Grove sophomore quarterback Kellen Hall to throw 40 times and never let the Warriors’ ground game find traction. It was the kind of rivalry win that can redefine a season and showed how far Marcus Boyles’ group has come since August.
And on the national stage, Texas finally lived up to the hype—for at least one weekend. After a sluggish 3-2 start that had fans wondering if the preseason No. 1 ranking was more about the “SEC” patch on their shoulder pads than production, the Longhorns delivered their most complete performance of the season.
Arch Manning looked poised and in command, leading Texas to a 23-6 throttling of Oklahoma in Dallas. The Longhorns looked physical up front for the first time in weeks.
Anyway, there’s a lot of good football ahead this weekend—both in the Sun Belt and across the high school ranks.
See you out there.
