(02-25-2024 07:22 AM)sdcritter Wrote:  Probably the worst passive/aggressive post I've ever seen from another conference poster. Go home. You're drunk.

The original post was not meant to be passive aggressive.

The Southern Miss fans that I used to know would refer to the SunBelt as "The Belch."

Please don't take offense by that fact.

Golden Eagles fans back in the day were a very arrogant bunch (in the early 2000s), due to their winning ways.

So many of the replies in this thread are revealing... of an Eagles fanbase with their feet firmly planted in the ground.

It's good to see.

(02-25-2024 01:24 PM)HarborPointe Wrote:  we became leaders in founding CUSA, which somewhat ironically immediately accentuated just how strange some of the bedfellows we’d made for other sports were. As a Deep South, college town, football school, we just didn’t share a lot of the same priorities as our urban, basketball-first mates.

I see your point.

Teams like Louisville, Memphis, Tulane, TCU, Houston, Cincinnati, UCF etc, were not Southern Miss's natural peer group.

(02-25-2024 08:18 PM)HarborPointe Wrote:  There were far worse outcomes for us than landing in a cohesive league of true peers that, unlike most, is ascending.

I agree 100% with this.

Southern Miss fits in seamlessly in The Belt. USM and South Alabama share a lot of commonality, and will be a good rivalry for the SBC for years to come.

When there was still an NCAA video game in 2005, Southern Miss was always my Dynasty team.

For all intent and purposes, the Golden Eagles have finally created their own "Dynasty League" with teams that their fans feel greater kinship with.

(02-25-2024 01:24 PM)HarborPointe Wrote:  Following up on my previous post…

The past decade of doldrums on the field has been self-inflicted with poor coaching hires, in turn caused by an institutional insistence on looking for the next guy who’ll be the face of the program for 20 years when no such person exists in today’s climate.

As for the off-field aspects and being in the current Sun Belt, I actually found a more succinct take I’d authored in a thread that was about Houston, Cincinnati, and UCF heading to the XII as our plans to join the SBC were in motion:

I said it on the CUSA board when the rumors first started flying: We’re going back to our roots. Southern Miss football as we know it was born in the Gulf States Conference (we took 3 of its first 4 championships). We then went football independent to fry bigger fish and did fine for ourselves for decades, but that became untenable so we became leaders in founding CUSA, which somewhat ironically immediately accentuated just how strange some of the bedfellows we’d made for other sports were. As a Deep South, college town, football school, we just didn’t share a lot of the same priorities as our urban, basketball-first mates. We were out of place, but at least we had history with most of the football-playing side, and the benefits outweighed the negatives.

Then came the changes. Round by round, starting in the early 2000s, we lost even the schools with whom we shared a past, and eventually, CUSA’s just a jigsaw puzzle of schools with nowhere else to go. Now we’re still out of place, but without even the roots of past relationships and not much at all in the way of incentive to sustain it.

So in the immortal words of Eric Cartman seen in my sig, “Screw you guys, we’re going home,” back among schools just like us in places just like ours and with athletic priorities like ours. We have come full circle.

Some folks poo-poo joining the SBC as a concession of our failure to make the “big time.” Hell, maybe it is. But I’ve never been as concerned with where we are on a scale as I am with just being the best Southern Miss we can be. And there is zero doubt in my mind that the SBC is the place that gives us the best shot at that.

You still got us Brother!

So.Miss and Marshall to the Sun Belt = Posted 2019
https://csnbbs.com/thread-888896.html

(02-29-2024 03:59 AM)Big12HoopsHeaven Wrote:  

(02-25-2024 01:24 PM)HarborPointe Wrote:  we became leaders in founding CUSA, which somewhat ironically immediately accentuated just how strange some of the bedfellows we’d made for other sports were. As a Deep South, college town, football school, we just didn’t share a lot of the same priorities as our urban, basketball-first mates.

I see your point.

Teams like Louisville, Memphis, Tulane, TCU, Houston, Cincinnati, UCF etc, were not Southern Miss's natural peer group.

As far as teams, we had a lot in common in football and a good bit in common in other sports. I still think of Louisville as the biggest football rival we’ve ever had. Institutionally, though, was a different story. When we set out to form a football conference and Louisville, Cincinnati, & Memphis ended up bringing along the rest of the Great Midwest with them, that’s when the differences became more accentuated than the similarities. Under no circumstances should we have ever been in the same conference with DePaul and Marquette.

(03-01-2024 10:09 PM)HarborPointe Wrote:  

(02-29-2024 03:59 AM)Big12HoopsHeaven Wrote:  

(02-25-2024 01:24 PM)HarborPointe Wrote:  we became leaders in founding CUSA, which somewhat ironically immediately accentuated just how strange some of the bedfellows we’d made for other sports were. As a Deep South, college town, football school, we just didn’t share a lot of the same priorities as our urban, basketball-first mates.

I see your point.

Teams like Louisville, Memphis, Tulane, TCU, Houston, Cincinnati, UCF etc, were not Southern Miss's natural peer group.

As far as teams, we had a lot in common in football and a good bit in common in other sports. I still think of Louisville as the biggest football rival we’ve ever had. Institutionally, though, was a different story. When we set out to form a football conference and Louisville, Cincinnati, & Memphis ended up bringing along the rest of the Great Midwest with them, that’s when the differences became more accentuated than the similarities. Under no circumstances should we have ever been in the same conference with DePaul and Marquette.

These were the best of times.