Will Hall noticed a worrying trend once he arrived at USM. He has a message for fans
Will Hall has been the Southern Miss football coach for just shy of eight months, but it didn’t take long for the former Tulane offensive coordinator to recognize a sense of doubt that has crept in for some of the Golden Eagle faithful.
Some question whether USM will ever regain the level of relevance that the program experienced during the days of Bobby Collins, Jeff Bower and Larry Fedora. They worry that USM can no longer be a giant killer or capable of bullying the rest of Conference USA.
Hall relayed a message to those fans as he started his speech Tuesday night on the University of Southern Mississippi’s Gulf Park campus.
“The biggest shock for me taking over this job was how many people just walked around with a feeling, ‘You know what, I just don’t know if we can do it anymore. I just don’t know if we can be a championship program anymore,’ ” Hall said. “I’m here to tell you if you run into those people, you look them dead in the eye and say, ‘You’re wrong. We can, and we’re fixing to again.’ ”
With a list of accomplishments projected on the screen behind him, Hall then rattled off why Southern Miss is a program that deserves to still be considered among the best Group of 5 programs in the nation.
Will Hall wants Southern Miss fans to buy in
In an auditorium full of 200-plus Golden Eagle fans, Hall was mostly preaching to the choir.
The Southern Miss Alumni Association, which is presenting the “Will Hall Introductory Tour” this summer, moved Monday’s event to the Fletcher Education Center to accommodate the larger-than-usual crowd.
Hall seemed comfortable in the venue, giving a well-prepared speech backed up by the numbers on the screen behind him. It was a very different spiel than USM coaches gave in the past on their annual summer trips to the Coast and elsewhere.
While Todd Monken was good at getting a message across to the fan base and Fedora could put a charge in a room, it’s hard to imagine either of them showing up with an in-depth PowerPoint presentation to explain his approach as a coach and why Golden Eagle fans still have something to be proud of.
In the question-and-answer portion, Hall was asked what he was going to do to make sure that M.M. Roberts Stadium is again buzzing with large crowds for home games. He pointed out that it’s not as simple as winning record in season No. 1.
“A lot of it is what I’m doing today, right?” Hall said. “We wake up on fire every day doing everything we can to sell belief, to see that we can get back to what we were. Everybody I run into, I try to impact in a positive way.
“I can’t do it by myself. I’m trying, but I can’t.”
At that point, Hall began pointing around the auditorium, repeatedly saying, “I need you.”
In the past, USM would bring assistant coaches and players to engage with Golden Eagle fans and sign autographs. The lone man mingling with fans and standing on the stage Monday was Hall.
It’s obvious the Amory native wants to build a brand as a coach that Golden Eagle fans recognize and appreciate.
USM football seeks rebound under Will Hall
The Golden Eagles are coming off a 3-7 season that will be remembered most for chaos than anything — the resignation of two head coaches (Jay Hopson and Scotty Walden) and plenty of distractions and cancellations from the COVID-19 pandemic.
When a member of the media pointed out that USM was picked by members of the media to finish fourth in the Conference USA West this season, Hall flashed a grin.
“Well, I wish they would have picked us last,” he said. “Those things don’t matter. We’ve got a lot to prove. We understood that from that moment we got here. We’re looking forward to having that opportunity.”
Asked to place expectations on his first Southern Miss squad, Hall said he simply wants to be in the mix down the stretch.
“I want to play 12 games that matter,” Hall said. “We haven’t done that in a while here. We want to go into games nine, 10, 11 and 12 with everybody looking at the standings and saying, ‘Man, Southern Miss is playing this team this week … UAB, La. Tech, UTSA, Rice.’ Just like we did in baseball this year going down the stretch, we want to play games that matter and still be in the hunt.”
While a winning football team would go a long way to getting USM fans to start believing, Hall is determined to have the faithful understand that he has a vision for the program.
Long term, he made clear that he’s thinking big.
“We’re going to be the best Group of 5 program in America,” Hall said. “We’ve been that before. We will be that again.”
This story was originally published July 20, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
