After finishing the season 1-11, multiple sources inside the Marshall athletic department confirm that Southern Miss is expected to announce current Thundering Herd frontman Charles Huff as the school’s 23rd head coach. 

Huff, whose current team clinched a Sun Belt East Division title game appearance with an overtime win over James Madison on Saturday, is reportedly moving on to coach in Hattiesburg. An announcement could come as early as Monday, but the timeline is muddied with the title bout set for December 7.  

In four years at Marshall, Huff has led the Thundering Herd to a 31-20 record, including a 9-3 mark through the 2024 regular season and the first Sun Belt championship game appearance in the program’s history.  

BREAKING: Marshall’s Charles Huff is expected to be announced as the new head coach at Southern Miss as early as Monday. pic.twitter.com/wHwKcWvjUv

— SuperTalk News (@SuperTalkNews) December 1, 2024

Previously, the Maryland native coached running backs and worked as the assistant head coach from 2019-2020 under Nick Saban at Alabama. Huff made his way to Tuscaloosa via a single season in Starkville under former Mississippi State head coach Joe Moorhead. Assistant coach positions at Penn State, Western Michigan, and in the NFL for the Buffalo Bills dot Huff’s resume.

Amid initial reports of the move, Matt Zenitz of CBS Sports issued an apparent denial from Huff:

Reached out to Charles Huff re: the reports about him accepting the head coaching job at Southern Miss, which he said aren’t accurate. The full rundown of what he said: pic.twitter.com/9FiK2TrND8

— Matt Zenitz (@mzenitz) December 1, 2024

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After Huff’s statement, sources continued to confirm the move would be made.

Considering the flurry of names that were brought up as potential candidates, Southern Miss tabbing Huff as its next lead man would come as a surprise to many. Reeling in a division title-winning head coach from a conference mate would reveal a major push from a program that is just 58-101 since 2012. 

Former Illini star Andre Curbelo is back in the news this weekend — and it’s not for his wizardry play on the court.

According to the Hattiesburg American, Curbelo has been suspended indefinitely by Southern Mississippi due to “disciplinary reasons.”

Curbelo is in his second season with USM after starting his career in 2020 with Illinois and leaving for St. John’s after two seasons.

The Big Ten’s Sixth Man of the Year in 2021, it’s been challenging for Curbelo ever since. He was suspended multiple times during his 2022-23 season with St. John’s and was forced to miss the first 10 games last season in Hattiesburg as he waited on a NCAA eligibility waiver.

He’s also had a few concussions in his career, but did record a triple-double in January against Georgia State.

This is his final year of eligibility, so we’ll see if he makes it back on the court, but he was averaging around 10 points and 5 assists per game for the Golden Eagles so far this season.

We’ll always remember Curbelo for his flashiness on the court, but it’s hard to think about what could have been if he stayed in Champaign for his entire collegiate career.

Mississippi State football had an ugly 2024 season, and among the biggest reasons for that was their defense. The Bulldogs fielded one of the very worst defenses in the country. Their 34.1 points per game allowed ranks 118th. They’re 127th in total defense at 456.4 yards per game allowed.

Those numbers are some of the very worst in program history. And when you start digging into the stats for a notable position group on the defense, it gets even uglier.

There’s very little debate about which position group was the worst for Mississippi State. Their defensive line was the worst that it’s been in decades. They got bullied by nearly every opposing offensive line they faced, even the non-SEC ones. They’d get blown off the line of scrimmage against the run, and they could not generate pass rush at all.

Just how bad was their pass rush? The Clarion Ledger’s Sam Sklar put out a stat that speaks volumes to how horrendous they were at pressuring opposing quarterbacks.

On the year, Mississippi State defensive lineman combined for 4.0 sacks total. FOUR. There are 13 defensive lineman on the roster. Now obviously not all of those guys played, and the defensive line did deal with considerable injuries throughout the year. But having just four sacks from that position group is absurd.

And it gets worse. Out of the six Bulldog defensive lineman to register at least 0.5 sack, you know who led the group? Kalvin Dinkins, who only played in one game the entire year! Dinkins recorded 1.0 sack in the season opener. He got injured in that game and missed the rest of the season. And yet that 1.0 sack was enough to lead the position group.

That is flat out embarrassing. Now it should be acknowledged that a few of the MSU linebackers play hybrid roles in which they’re effectively acting as defensive ends. But even accounting for that, you only add 2.5 more sacks to the total. That doesn’t make it any better.

As a team, Mississippi State managed just 10.0 total sacks. That was the second-worst total in the entire country. The Bulldogs were the only team in the SEC to not record at least 22.0 sacks this year. If you’re curious how the in-state rivals did, Ole Miss led the country with 52.0 sacks. They were literally 5.2x better than State at getting quarterbacks on the ground. That’s the difference between having legitimate NFL talent up front and trotting out whatever MSU did this season.

It’s the understatement of the century to say that Mississippi State can’t afford another season being that bad along the defensive line. Their lack of talent in that room is far and away the biggest reason the defense was so bad in 2024.

They’ve got some pieces at linebacker. They’ve got some pieces in the secondary. But when your line is getting pushed back with no resistance on every run play and they give quarterbacks all day to throw, you have no chance at having success on defense.

It is a must that they land multiple high-level transfers along the defensive line. It is a must that they sign multiple defensive lineman in their 2025 class that can make immediate impacts next fall. They simply cannot run it back with the group from this season. If they don’t improve the talent in the defensive line room, you won’t see a noticeably better defense in 2025.