How Scotty Walden has begun a reboot of Southern Miss football in just 2 weeks
Southern Miss suffered an embarrassing 32-21 loss to South Alabama at home in the season opener on Sept. 3 and the team’s head coach, Jay Hopson, resigned not long after.
Still, the Golden Eagles are 5-point favorites under interim head coach Scotty Walden against a Louisiana Tech squad that has yet to play a game.
If it were a normal season, USM (0-1) would easily be an underdog in Hattiesburg.
Again, the 2020 campaign has already proven to be anything but run of the mill.
While USM has experienced a fair amount of chaos less than two weeks into the season, Louisiana Tech has faced as many hurdles as any team in the nation over the last couple of weeks. Hurricane Laura and the COVID-19 outbreak that followed have upset the apple cart in Ruston.
The Monroe News-Star reported last week that 38 players had tested positive for the coronavirus.
The outbreak forced Louisiana Tech to cancel its opener at Baylor and the team seemed to face long odds to get right in time to make the trip to Hattiesburg.
Southern Miss and plenty of other college programs have had their own battles with COVID-19, but an outbreak of that size will put the brakes on any team.
As of Friday, all appears on schedule for Saturday’s 6:30 p.m. kickoff on ESPN2.
“We had that spike right after the hurricane, but shutting things down and getting our arms around it, the players have done a really good job and the test results have shown from it,” Louisiana Tech coach Skip Holtz said Tuesday. “I really like where we are right now and the number of players with two tests left to go. We had one this morning and we have one again on Thursday morning before we travel.”
Scotty Walden looks to change USM’s mindset
With Walden elevated to interim head coach from co-offensive coordinator/receivers coach, Southern Miss does have an opportunity at a mid-season reboot.
Hopson and Walden are two different personalities in how they approach the game.
Hopson is a defensive-minded coach who still has old-school tendencies. His teams at USM ran a spread scheme on offense, but Hopson often wanted the game plan to set up the defense rather than the offense.
Walden, who is never short of energy at 30 years old, is an offensive-minded coach who wants to see aggressive play from all phases of the game — offense, defense and special teams.
Walden is far more similar to former USM coach Larry Fedora than he is to Hopson.
However, Walden loves to throw the ball a good bit more than Fedora did. In his last year of calling plays as the East Texas Baptist head coach in 2016, his offense averaged 365.3 yards a game through the air.
Matt Kubik is in his first year as the USM offensive coordinator after moving over from Louisiana-Monroe. While he and Walden may differ some in their offensive styles, there are slight tweaks that can be made to make the offense a little more to Walden’s liking.
Entering Saturday’s game, Walden plans to put Kubik in position to make the calls and run his system.
“It’s not fair to the kids to do a lot of manipulating (of the offensive scheme) unless it’s an easy fit,” Walden said. “I believe a clear mind leads to fast feet. I don’t want them to have to learn different terminology. Coach Kubik has done a great job of collaborating. We had to find out what we’re good at and execute. Going forward, we’ll gear our game plan toward that.”
Southern Miss follows lead of interim coach
The term “Unity” has been thrown around a lot this week by Walden as he tries to get everybody on board for the 11 games remaining on the schedule.
There has been more live tackling in practices and he’s conducted different drills to create some badly needed energy, including having linemen do one-on-one battles in the middle of the field.
At one practice this week, he had the USM band play the fight song from the second deck of M.M. Roberts Stadium.
Aside from his efforts to build enthusiasm and energy, Walden is trying to instill a focus in all aspects of preparations.
That includes getting the players to eat better.
“All of our meals are mandatory now,” senior linebacker Swayze Bozeman said. “If you’re off campus, you have to take a picture of what you’re eating for breakfast, lunch and dinner. If you’re on campus, you have to be in the cafeteria. You have to check in and they’ll send us an update of what’s in the cafeteria that day — what to eat and what not eat. We always have to have a jug filled with water, Powerade or a mixture to make sure we’re hydrating throughout the week.”
To start the week, Walden was encouraged by the response of the players.
“I saw our guys really, really attack the practice (Sunday night) and go out with the mindset to go win and dominate and with great energy,” he said. “I really like what I saw starting out.”
How they finish on Saturday could set the tone for the rest of the season and determine whether Walden will be a serious candidate to become the head coach on a full-time basis.
This story was originally published September 18, 2020 at 11:40 AM.
