Southern Miss Golden Eagles at Old Dominion Monarchs

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.

Bush’s Picks

USMODU

USMODU

OverUnder

Best BetOld Dominion

Old Dominion enters as the far more proven program — a 10-win, bowl-winning roster with continuity at head coach — against a Southern Miss team breaking in a first-time full-time head coach off a middling 7-6 finish. The gap in program trajectory favors the Monarchs even with a new starting quarterback to work in.

Southern Miss

• +Blake Anderson has two conference titles on his resume
• +Went 7-6 and made a bowl last season
• +Anderson already knows the roster from 2025
• −First season running his own program full-time
• −Picked fifth in a competitive Sun Belt West
• −Lost the New Orleans Bowl by 11 points

Old Dominion

• +Coming off a 10-3 season and a Cure Bowl title
• +Ricky Rahne returns for a seventh season of continuity
• +Sun Belt East runner-up-caliber roster returns largely intact
• −Losing dual-threat QB Colton Joseph to the portal
• −Jaxon Potter is unproven in this offense
• −Shifting offensive identity from run-first to pass-first

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.

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USM Southern Miss

ODU Old Dominion

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.

Southern Miss Golden Eagles

(0)

Fully healthy — no injuries on ESPN's report

Old Dominion Monarchs

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Fully healthy — no injuries on ESPN's report