‘We’re due. We’re ready.’ Southern Miss using transfer portal, NIL to fast-track rebuild
The traditional four-year college football rebuild has long been a thing of the past.
Roster construction has evolved at a breakneck pace and formed its own version of free agency thanks to the transfer portal, Name Image and Likeness (NIL) legislation and the soon-to-be transformational arrival of revenue sharing.
And coaches are aware of the shifting time frame and added urgency to win immediately. This is true for any situation, even in the case of Southern Miss — a team that is coming out of what was statistically the most abysmal season ever endured by any team currently in the Sun Belt.
New head coach Charles Huff not only knows it, but embraces it.
“In today’s college football, I’m not playing with a 1-11 team,” Huff said at his introductory press conference. “I’m playing with the team I recruit.”
What has followed since Huff’s arrival is a mass roster overhaul that promises to continue over the coming months as National Signing Day and the second transfer portal window approaches.
Nearly 30 Golden Eagles from the 2024 roster have entered the transfer portal and nearly the same number have signed on from other four-year institutions.
The 2025 class in total has already eclipsed 30 players in just one month. This represents a stark change from the original construction model, where new coaches were given a “Year Zero” with a roster full of the former regime’s athletes and a typically small signing class with only a handful of players signed by the incoming administration.
Targeted improvement
There’s a nuance to the new game that goes beyond plucking the best available players, but the means of quickly turning around a program is there.
Southern Miss finds itself in a unique spot among its peers when it comes to the help Huff receives in player acquisition.
Peter Boehme runs the To The Top Collective as the only full-time manager of an NIL collective in the Sun Belt and recognizes the opportunity to quickly generate a competitive roster.
“Based on what’s out there and what our needs are, then here it is and there they are,” Boehme told the Sun Herald. “If you don’t have anything holding us back from getting that done, then you’d assume that it can happen really quickly because you’re not really rebuilding anything, you just change the scenery a little bit.”
Fit and relationships are still paramount and particularly so at the Group of Five level for athletes. That’s the case for USM, which has hauled in multiple transfers that are not only instant-starters, but high-level college football players.
The top two additions so far have been former Marshall quarterback Braylon Braxton and Thundering Herd cornerback Josh Moten. Both were sought-after players, but chose USM for fit more than money, by choosing to follow their coach.
Braxton was 8-0 as Marshall’s starting quarterback this past season and Moten had the third-highest coverage grades of all FBS corners, according to Pro Football Focus.
They represent the role that balance plays between a coaching staff, potential players and a collective.
“We were up against a lot, but what was nice about it is (NIL) isn’t what was driving the decision for these kids,” Boehme said. “It was more about who they were playing for, what they just did and wanting to get to most out of their time on the field. We’re not in a position to be buying guys that don’t want to be here for the right reasons.”
Collective growth
Huff and Boehme quickly got to work upon Huff’s arrival on Dec. 8. Since then, the collective has grown by nearly 100 percent from 220 members to 425.
The total budget has ballooned to $975,000 from $500,000 a year ago.
The potential for the sudden growth has been bubbling under the surface. Even during a 1-11 season, USM was third in the Sun Belt in merchandising sales, according to Boehme. Over the last two years, with the football team sporting a 4-20 record, USM was second in the league in jersey sales.
“We wanted to be ready for that 11-1 moment to capitalize on that momentum and unfortunately it was 1-11.” Boehme said. “But we’re not going to let that deter where our focus is or where things are going, this still has to grow. Thankfully we were able to do that.”
As a result of the growth, the collective has hit triple digits on the number of total athletes signed to NIL deals with right at a quarter of all USM athletes affiliated with TTTC.
This includes Boehme’s expected number of 34 football players, both new and returning. Around a dozen players from the 2024 roster will be returning and doing so with an NIL deal.
Roughly 20 of TTTC’s football player partners will be newcomers to the program. That includes Braxton, Moten and Isaiah Gibson.
Boehme says his goal for the collective is to eventually reach 1,000 members. The collective is already top-third in the conference, according to Boehme, but continued growth is imperative at the dawn of revenue sharing, a mechanic that only promises to deepen the divide between the haves and have-nots.
“I’m optimistic,” Boehme said. “I’m excited to see the turnaround whether it’s this year or next year. We’re due. We’re ready.”
This story was originally published January 9, 2025 at 11:43 AM.
