Early competition turns Southern Miss' Nick Mullens into C-USA's newest star QB

HATTIESBURG -- Nobody denies that Southern Miss football coach Todd Monken loves to compete.

That goes for games, practices, game plans, he even sees the matchup between him and opposing coaches as competition.

"I get to go up against a real good football coach," Monken said about Washington's Chris Peterson, who he will match up against at 1:20 p.m. Saturday in the Zaxby's Heart of Dallas Bowl. "I challenge myself -- how do I do it better than he does? How do our players do it better than they do it. That's the thing that I'm excited about."

Another instance of competition helping involves Golden Eagle junior quarterback Nick Mullens.

Four months ago, Mullens was fighting for a starting position. A couple of weeks ago, Mullens was named the Conference USA Offensive Player of the Year.

Behind Mullens, USM broke single-season school records for completions (312), passing yards (4,263), total offensive yards (6,758), touchdowns (67) and points (528). He ranks second in Conference USA in yards passing (4,145) and touchdown passes (36) and is sixth nationally in touchdown passes.

Mullens is the first Southern Miss player to be named Offensive Player of the Year in the USM's 20-year history in the league.

But that kind of success didn't come overnight.

Mullens battled with Tyler Matthews to start at quarterback in Southern Miss' most talked about competition of the preseason.

Although he was the incumbent, having started six games as a freshman and all except for a couple when he was hurt as a sophomore, Monken said that Mullens was in a legitimate competition with Matthews for the starting spot.

"Tyler is a good player," Monken said. "You've seen him throw it. There was a quarterback competition and Nick won it. Part of (Mullens' improvement) was because of the quarterback competition. We can win a lot of games with Tyler. I feel bad for him because he's a good player and came here to play, but Nick played better and that's been proven.

"I'm happy for Nick, he's worked hard at it. Nick's gotten older, Nick's matured and we played better around him."

Mullens has evolved from a bright-eyed, sometimes overwhelmed freshman trying to do and say the right things to, well, the Conference USA Offensive Player of the Year.

And he knows that success didn't come automatically.

"Just a lot of hard work, honestly," Mullens said about his improvement. "You've got to realize that college football is a process. It's giving everything that you've earned -- a lot of hard work, trusting your coaches and teammates, just development, being able to work hard, trusting your teammates, do the extra work.

"I knew I always had potential. It was just a matter of putting it together and coming together as a team. I thought we did that as a team this year."

While Mullens has been a focal point, most other positions had better competition this season, too.

"You're allotted 85 scholarships, and the more of those 85 guys that are talented guys that you're going to push the other players, the better you're going to be," Monken said. "You want a really good team? Have 85 scholarship guys you like and have everybody be at their best every day to play."

This story was originally published December 24, 2015 at 11:38 AM with the headline "Early competition turns Southern Miss' Nick Mullens into C-USA's newest star QB ."