Southern Miss Golden Eagles at Old Dominion Monarchs
Norfolk, VA
By Bush StaffUpdated 27d ago·1 min read
USM
ODU
AT
11:00 PM CT
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Southern Miss closes out the regular season in Norfolk against a Sun Belt East power that just won 10 games and a bowl. Blake Anderson's first season as a full-time head coach ends against the toughest team on the schedule.
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FRI NOV 27 · 11:00 PM CT
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Southern Miss
Old Dominion
This one lands on Friday, November 27, as the final tune-up before the Sun Belt title game the following week, and it's a legitimately lopsided storyline on paper. Old Dominion is coming off a 10-3 season that ended with a Cure Bowl win over South Florida. Southern Miss finished 7-6 and got run out of the New Orleans Bowl by Western Kentucky, 27-16. Both programs enter 2026 with real questions at the most important position on the field.
Blake Anderson isn't new to Hattiesburg, but he is new to the job. He spent 2025 as Southern Miss's offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach after Charles Huff bolted for Memphis, then got promoted to the full-time gig once the season ended. Anderson has a real track record — two Sun Belt titles at Arkansas State, a Mountain West title at Utah State, 74 wins across those two stops — but this is his first crack at running the whole show back at his old program, and preseason forecasters have the Golden Eagles at fifth in the Sun Belt West.
Old Dominion isn't standing pat either. Colton Joseph, the dual-threat quarterback who helped power last year's 10-win run, left for Wisconsin in the portal. Ricky Rahne, entering his seventh season, replaced him with Washington State transfer Jaxon Potter, a 6-foot-5 pocket passer who changes the shape of the Monarchs' offense from a run-first attack to something more vertical. That's a real adjustment for a team replacing its best player, even one with a proven staff and a roster that just won a bowl game.
