For the second time in about a year, Southern Miss has hired a new head coach.
Charles Huff was hired as Southern Miss’ coach after the 2024 season and brought many of his players with him from Marshall, where he won the Sun Belt Championship a season ago. But now Huff has gone to Memphis to lead the Tigers.
Which left USM looking for a new head coach. Huff turned the program around in a short amount of time, as the Golden Eagles went from 1-11 in 2024 to 7-5 this season – and they were a win over Troy away from appearing in the conference title game.
New Customer Offers at BetMGM
Bonus Bets Expire in 7 Days. One New Customer Offer Only. Add’l Terms
With that success, USM decided to hire a head coach that provided some continuity and had familiarity with the program by hiring Blake Anderson.
Anderson was USM’s offensive coordinator this past year after spending 2021-23 at Utah State. He went 23-17 during his time there with three bowl appearances and a Mountain West Championship in 2021.
Anderson was fired by USU, however. According to a statement from Utah State, Anderson was fired after a “thorough external review of alleged noncompliance with university policies that implement Title IX, which require full and timely reporting of disclosures of sexual misconduct — including domestic violence — and prohibit employees from investigating disclosures of sexual misconduct themselves.”
Anderson went to USM as an assistant after that and is a head coach once again.
This won’t be the first time Anderson’s been a head coach in the Sun Belt. He went 51-37 at Arkansas State. He led the Red Wolves to two Sun Belt Championships in 2015 and 2016.
This also wasn’t the first time he’s coached at Southern Miss, as he was an OC there from 2010-11, was a quarterbacks coach from 2008-11, and was a run game coordinator there from 2008-09.
After his playing career, first as a quarterback and wide receiver at Baylor and then as a wideout at Sam Houston, Anderson began his collegiate coaching career at Eastern New Mexico. He was a graduate assistant there in 1992 and then coached wide receivers in 1993 before moving on to coach wideouts at Howard Payne in 1994. After that, he was a recruiting coordinator who coached quarterbacks, wide receivers, and defensive backs at Trinity Valley Community College from 1995-97 and was the team’s offensive coordinator in 1998.
He’s been an OC at Louisiana (2007) and North Carolina (2012-13) and a co-offensive coordinator at Middle Tennessee (2002-04). He also coached wide receivers at New Mexico in 2001 – where he also coached running backs from 1999-2000 – and Middle Tennessee. He mentored QBs at Louisiana in 2007 and at North Carolina from 2012-13.
