Southern Miss hits bottom ... again

[Harry]

HATTIESBURG, Mississippi --- Say this much for Southern Miss: at least the Golden Eagles are consistent.

The trouble, of course, is that Southern Miss is consistently bad. The Golden Eagles lost 55-14 to North Texas at home on Saturday, a week after losing at East Carolina by a score of ... 55-14.

It was the fourth time this season and third time in four games Southern Miss has given up 55-plus points. (For those interested, the others were a 56-13 loss at Nebraska on Sept. 7 and a 60-7 pummeling at Boise State on Sept. 28).

Southern Miss has long prided itself on fielding a consistent winner, and with good reason. The Golden Eagles finished with a winning record for 18 consecutive years from 1994-2011.

But that's all over. Saturday's loss dropped Todd Monken's Golden Eagles to 0-7, which means they'll finish with a losing record in back-to-back years for the first time since 1933-34.

The Golden Eagles' coach back then was one-time Alabama Rose Bowl hero A.T.S. "Pooley" Hubert, who has been dead since 1978. Teams on Southern Miss' schedule in 1934 included Millsaps, Delta State, Spring Hill and Poplarville Junior College.

(It would be a cheap shot to ask if Southern Miss could beat those teams now. After all, Spring Hill hasn't fielded a football team since 1941).

Read more: http://blog.gulflive.com/mississippi-press-sports/2013/10/creg_stephenson_southern_miss.html

[FirefightnRick]

And remember, this isn't exactly a world-beating North Texas program. Mean Joe Greene ain't walking through that door.

North Texas is in its first year in Conference USA after eight consecutive losing seasons as a member of the Sun Belt Conference. The Mean Green's three-game winning streak after Saturday is its longest since 2004 (a seven-gamer ended by Southern Miss in that year's New Orleans Bowl, incidentally).

Hmmm, sort of wished we'd bullied them for another 20 points or so.

Rick