Perennially underrated, here’s how Southern Miss plans to prove the doubters wrong. Again
It’s been three years since a freshman was inserted at the top of the Southern Miss lineup, sparking a red-hot April that propelled the Golden Eagles into the NCAA’s postseason, and the school’s first home super regional.
It doesn’t feel all that long ago for Carson Paetow, who is now a two-time unanimous team captain and has helped guide USM to a national ranking heading into each of the last three regionals — despite being unranked in the preseason polls twice, including ahead of his freshman season in 2022.
Befitting of tradition, the reigning back-to-back Sun Belt Conference champion, two-time Super Regional host since 2022, and participant in eight consecutive national tournaments is again heading into a new spring without a ranking tied to its name.
“For us not to be ranked in the top 25, yeah, it’s not the coolest thing in the world, but it doesn’t determine how we play our season,” Paetow told the Sun Herald. “If someone were to come up to you and say, ‘you’re not a top 25 team,’ they don’t know what they’re talking about. It doesn’t mean a thing. It all matters what happens at the end of the season, that’s what counts.”
Since 2021, the Golden Eagles have opened outside of the polls three times in four seasons and finished the regular season ranked on every occasion. Southern Miss would be a top-10 team in both 2022 and 2023.
But walking into February overlooked isn’t taken as a slight, but rather a welcome challenge.
“We honestly want that target,” pitcher Landen Payne said. “We kind of like that. It’s a big bull’s-eye. It all matters at the end of the season when we’re the ones still standing and all those other teams that were ranked high up, they’re already out.”
How do they do it?
Southern Miss has forced itself into the national conversation each year of the transfer portal and Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) era despite being an outspokenly developmental program.
The roster routinely goes against the grain of the top programs it inevitably finds itself competing against at the end of the year. But it’s more than just by design, it’s by culture and a process of year-to-year growth and individual continuity that has become scarce around the landscape.
“We’re going to get one or two guys every year, but we’re not pulling in 10 or 15 guys from the portal,” Paetow said. “That’s just not how we do things around here. You have to give credit to coach (Christian Ostrander) and his staff because they’re running a tight ship. The fewer players you bring in, the more time you have to build relationships.”
Culture is the cliche foundational piece of every program, but how does USM’s differentiate? While programs in the SEC load up every off season with the top mid-major players in the country, the Golden Eagles have managed to remain largely unscathed by poachers despite high-level success and multiple draft picks on an annual basis.
Since the new era began, USM has lost only one player to the climb-the-ladder trend when eventual first-round draft pick Hurston Waldrep left for Florida ahead of 2023.
Paetow points to the leadership provided by former coach Scott Berry and current second-year coach Christian Ostrander as a primary reason why the team glue is strong at Pete Taylor Park.
“(Ostrander) teaches us to be good young men,” Paetow said. “Whenever you’re good young men and you love each other and you’re not worried about chasing a check or worried about what school you’re going to go play at next summer, you have time to develop a relationship and play for each other and not just play for money.
“Some of these schools have 15 or 16 guys coming in and out every year and they’re just bouncing from school to school. We don’t do that here.”
The staff uses the majority of its NIL allocation on retention, rather than recruiting. That show of faith and trust strengthens the ties between player and staff, according to Paetow.
Power of Friendship baseball
Paetow has 177 games under his belt at USM. The Vancleave product has become a fan favorite from right field is coming off a season in which he posted career-highs in batting average, slugging percentage and OPS.
The senior’s outlook on his final season lies in the clubhouse, where he finds the reason for the program’s past and future success.
“If you look at our team in ‘22, we did not have very many ranked prospects but we hosted a regional and we won it,” Paetow said. “People don’t think about the culture and the relationships you build. That’s how we’re going to get the edge on people.”
Paetow is the embodiment of the difference between a Golden Eagle and everything else. A star slugger who has won multiple conference championships, played in super regionals and earned numerous accolades finds the most rewarding moments of his career not in personal achievement, but in the success of his teammates.
When Gillespie was redshirting, it was Paetow who pushed him through his first season on campus. When Gillespie got his chance in 2024, he racked up 69 hits in 57 games.
“It’s probably what’s the coolest thing for me,” Paetow said. “Seeing some of your best friends get over that hump or take a big step in their career, that’s probably the coolest thing for me.”
Southern Miss opens the season with four home games against Lafayette beginning Feb. 14. The Golden Eagles will have one off day before hosting in-state SEC foe Mississippi State the following Tuesday.
It’s a busy first leg of a challenging non-conference slate that features series against Louisiana Tech and at TCU and midweek games against Ole Miss, Alabama and Tulane.
“If we can learn to just stay in the moment and play for each other, we’ll win a lot of ball games,” Paetow said.
