Southern Miss football coaching candidates: Who could replace Will Hall?

Will Hall's expected firing from Southern Miss, which had been rumored for weeks, came Sunday after another double-digit loss. That game against Arkansas State dropped the Golden Eagles' record to 1-6 on the season, making Hall 14-30 in four seasons in his home state.

Given Hall's track record as a coach – a combined 56-20 at West Georgia and West Alabama – and his strong ties to the state, it's surprising the hire didn't work out. The next coach will be Southern Miss' sixth in the last 12 years.

Larry Fedora won at Southern Miss. Ellis Johnson flopped after a terrible season. Todd Monken pulled the program out of a rut and then won nine games in his third season before leaving. Jay Hopson's tenure was up and down for five seasons before the school left him. It will be interesting to see where Southern Miss goes from here. This position was posted just hours after the job was posted in East Carolina, which is a larger position that pays more, but industry sources say some overlap in the candidate pool is expected.

Former UAB coach Bill Clark has a lot of experience as a head coach and could play in both positions. He withdrew from UAB before the 2022 season due to health reasons. A source said this week that the 56-year-old was in great shape and spirits and wanted to coach again. He has an impressive track record as a head coach. In 2018, he was named the Eddie Robinson National Coach of the Year after leading the Blazers to an 11-3 record in a place that presented significant challenges. In six seasons at UAB, Clark posted a 32-12 record in Conference USA and a 49-26 record overall. He knows how to win and execute a program despite all sorts of program problems.

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Kane Wommack, Alabama defensive coordinator is another name to keep in mind. The 37-year-old former Southern Miss player did an outstanding job as South Alabama's coach, posting a 22-16 record and leading the program to a 10-3 season in his second year. Wommack jumped at the chance to join his old buddy Kalen DeBoer at Alabama as the Tide's defensive coordinator. It's been an up and down six months for the Tide defense, but Bama is No. 5 in the SEC in yards per play allowed (4.79). The Tide were No. 3 in the SEC last year but allowed more than 5.0 yards per play. But the loss to Vandy and the 40-point loss to the Commodores angered fans who aren't used to fighting.

SOuthern Miss Great Patrick Surtainnow Florida State's defensive line coach, left his alma mater as a second-round pick and played a decade in the NFL before becoming a top high school coach in South Florida. The 48-year-old spent one season with the Miami Dolphins as an NFL assistant before joining the FSU staff in 2023.

Florida State defensive line coach Patrick Surtain is a former Southern Miss standout. (Ehsan Kassim/USA Today Network via Imagn Images)

LSU offensive coordinator Joe Sloan He is expected to be at ECU but could find some traction at Southern Miss. The 37-year-old is a former ECU quarterback. He spent nearly a decade under Skip Holtz at Louisiana Tech before being hired as quarterbacks coach at LSU, where he helped Heisman winner Jayden Daniels transform into a superstar. Sloan took over the Tigers' offense this fall after Mike Denbrock returned to Notre Dame. Despite having to replace Daniels and two wideouts in the first round, the Tigers rank 11th nationally in third-down offense and 28th in yards per game and lead the SEC in points per game (33.0) in conference play.

Georgia assistant head coach Todd Hartley39, is someone Kirby Smart has leaned on to help improve the program since Hartley's arrival in 2019. Hartley is another coach who is on the radar of many athletic directors. He would likely be there if the Marshall head coaching position opened up.

Buster Faulkner, Georgia Tech offensive coordinator43, is considered a strong option. He is a former offensive coordinator at Southern Miss and helped the team to a seven-win season in which they made major strides on offense. Faulkner could be in play at ECU. He helped take Tech from the No. 11 ranked offense in the ACC to the No. 3 ranked offense last year. In 2022, the year before he was hired in Atlanta, Georgia Tech ranked last in the ACC in red zone offense. Last year it was ranked 6th. This year it is ranked 1st.

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Southern Miss fires head coach Will Hall after a 1-6 start

Freddie Roach, defensive line coach and assistant head coach at Alabama is a former Tide linebacker who worked his way up in Nick Saban's program from strength and conditioning assistant to director of player development at Bama before being hired as defensive line coach in 2020. The 41-year-old is a former Mississippi junior college coach and was Ole Miss' defensive line coach for three years.

A wildcard option could be here Holtz, the coach of the UFL's Birmingham Stallions. The 60-year-old won two USFL titles before winning the first UFL championship this spring. As a college coach, he is 151-121 and has led FBS programs from UConn to ECU to South Florida to Louisiana Tech for nearly a quarter century.

(Top photo by Bill Clark: Wesley Hitt / Getty Images)