Blog Article
Is Blake Anderson a Good Hire for Southern Miss? Yes. Is He a Great Hire? Probably Not.
When Charles Huff bolted for Memphis after just one season, Southern Miss had a choice to make.
Swing big on another rising star. Roll the dice on an unproven coordinator. Or promote the 56-year-old offensive coordinator who already had the keys to the building.
Athletic Director Jeremy McClain chose door three. Three days after naming Blake Anderson interim coach, he removed the interim tag entirely.
The message was clear: stability over splash.
But does the data support that decision?
Anderson’s résumé is exactly what G5 programs dream of.
Ten seasons as an FBS head coach. A 74-55 overall record. Three conference championships—two Sun Belt titles at Arkansas State (2015, 2016) and a Mountain West title at Utah State (2021). Nine bowl appearances. A .663 winning percentage in conference play.
That last number matters. Conference record is where coaches prove they can win the games that define their programs, not just schedule soft non-conference opponents and pad their overall numbers.
Anderson knows how to win league games.
He also knows Southern Miss.
This is his second stint in Hattiesburg – he served as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach from 2008-11 under Larry Fedora. When McClain announced the hire, he cited Anderson’s “respect of the players and the staff throughout the Duff Center” as a key factor.
Translation: the locker room wanted this. That matters more than people think in the transfer portal era.
Here’s where things get interesting.
We ran Anderson through our Splits Profile – a scoring system that measures how coaches perform across different game contexts. The breakdown:
| Category | Blake Anderson | Charles Huff |
|---|---|---|
| Overall W–L | 74–55 (.574) | 39–25 (.609) |
| Home W–L | 40–30 (.571) | 25–17 (.595) |
| Away W–L | 31–18 (.633) | 13–6 (.684) |
| Neutral W–L | 3–6 (.333) | 1–2 (.333) |
| Late season W–L | 24–18 (.571) | 13–8 (.619) |
| vs Ranked W–L | 2–8 (.200) | 1–2 (.333) |
| Bowls W–L | 4–6 (.400) | 1–2 (.333) |
| Splits Profile | 8.0/10 | 8.0/10 |
Same score.
On paper, Anderson and Huff grade out as the exact same type of coach. Both strong in overall and road performance. Both weak in big-stage games against ranked opponents. Both solid late-season closers.
The difference is sample size. Anderson’s numbers come from 129 games over a decade. Huff’s come from 64 games over five years. Anderson’s track record is deeper—but it also shows more clearly where his ceiling might be.
That ceiling question is the crux of this hire.
At Utah State, Anderson won 11 games and a conference title in his first season (2021). Then the Aggies went 6-7 in 2022. And 6-7 again in 2023. Classic Year One spike, followed by regression to the mean.
Anderson didn’t leave Utah State because of those 6-7 records.
He was fired in July 2024 over Title IX policy violations – the university alleged he improperly handled a domestic violence situation involving a player. Anderson disputes the findings and has filed a $15 million wrongful termination lawsuit.
That’s separate from his on-field performance. But it does explain why a three-time conference champion was available to be an offensive coordinator in 2025.
And as Southern Miss’s OC, Anderson delivered.
His passing offense ranked first in the Sun Belt. The Golden Eagles went from 1-11 in 2024 to 7-6 in 2025—a six-win turnaround that included a five-game winning streak and a Sun Belt title game that came down to the final week.
Yes, Huff built the roster. But Anderson ran the offense that made it work.
The immediate challenge is significant.
Southern Miss had 31 seniors on the 2025 roster. Key contributors like linebacker Corey Myrick (91 tackles, 2 INTs) and defensive end Zae Ponder have already entered the transfer portal. Wide receiver Tychaun Chapman—third on the team in receiving yards—is gone too.
Anderson is essentially inheriting a shell of the team that won seven games.
His staff tells you how he plans to rebuild.
Kyle Cefalo comes in as offensive coordinator—he’s worked with Anderson for nine years across Arkansas State, Utah State, and now Southern Miss. Joe Bolden gets promoted to defensive coordinator after one season as special teams coordinator. Bobby Dodd arrives from Pittsburgh to run special teams.
It’s not a splashy staff. But it’s an experienced one. Cefalo’s offenses at Utah State ranked sixth nationally in total yards last season. Bolden has stops at Ohio State, USC, and Michigan on his résumé.
Anderson is betting on continuity over chaos.
Here’s the honest assessment.
This hire makes sense for what Southern Miss is trying to accomplish right now: protect the floor Huff built, maintain locker room stability during a brutal roster transition, and give Anderson a chance to prove his Utah State results weren’t a fluke.
Anderson has rebuilt programs before.
At Arkansas State, he took over a team that had just lost Gus Malzahn to Auburn and immediately won nine games. At Utah State, he inherited a 1-5 pandemic-shortened roster and won 11 games the next season.
He knows how to take over a broken situation and win quickly.
But Southern Miss isn’t broken anymore.
The question is whether Anderson can take a functioning program and make it better—or whether he’ll settle into the 6-7 to 7-5 range that defined his final years in Logan.
The splits say he’s an 8.0/10 coach. That’s good. That’s bowl-eligible most years with an occasional division title shot when the roster peaks.
But it’s not Huff-level upside. Huff was a rising star who turned Marshall into a conference champion and then repeated the formula at Southern Miss in a single season. Anderson is a known commodity—a veteran who’s done this before and will probably do it again, just not necessarily better than before.
The Verdict
Is this a good hire for Southern Miss? Yes.
Is it a great hire? Probably not.
Southern Miss needed someone who could stabilize the program, retain players through a chaotic transition, and compete in the Sun Belt next season. Anderson checks all three boxes.
But fans hoping for a continuation of the Huff trajectory should recalibrate expectations.
This is a floor-protection hire, not a ceiling-raising one.
Anderson will almost certainly keep Southern Miss bowl-eligible. He’ll probably win the Sun Belt West at least once. And he’ll do it without the drama of chasing the next hot coordinator who might leave after one season anyway.
For a program that went 1-11 just two years ago, that’s not nothing.
It’s just not everything.
