Southern Miss to fire head coach Will Hall, name interim head coach

Southern Miss has fired their head coach in Will Hall.

ESPN’s Pete Thamel tweeted the latest from sources regarding the decision on Hall. On3’s Pete Nakos has since confirmed the report regarding the head coach of the Golden Eagles.

With that, Thamel reported and Nakos has again confirmed that Reed Stringer will be the interim at Southern Miss. He is currently the assistant head coach and general manager on their staff.

Now, Southern Miss themselves have announced all of these decisions regarding their team.

“We are grateful to Will and his family for their dedication to Southern Miss over the past four years,” AD Jeremy McClain said. “Will poured his heart and soul into this program and into shaping these young men. Unfortunately, the results on the field didn’t align with our shared goals and expectations.”

This comes a day after the Golden Eagles fell to 1-6 this season. In that 16-point home defeat to Arkansas State, M.M. Roberts Stadium had some chanting for this to take place while others wore paper bags with slogans over their heads.

Over their start, Southern Miss had two of the worst units in the country on each side of the football. Their offense averaged just 18.3 points, 123rd in the nationally, while their defense has allowed an average of 34.1 points, which is 119th nationally. This comes despite playing one of the lesser schedules in the country to start with only one power opponent so far in Kentucky – with that game ending just after halftime due to a weather delay.

Hall was fired with a 14-30 overall record while in Hattiesburg. That includes a pair of 3-9 finishes with this one on pace to be the same, if not worse. They started at at least 1-6 in all three as well as 1-7 in 2023 and 1-9 in 2021.

As for the new interim, Stringer is in his fourth season with Southern Miss. It’s a promotion from what he has been doing for the team which, per the program, was ‘the daily management of the football program and all its administration pertaining to academics, player personnel and general duties in an effort to keep things running smoothly for both players and staff’.

Now, tied for last in the Sun Belt, the Golden Eagles have five more games this season, including several against some of the better competition in the conference. That starts with a game this weekend at James Madison before a bye so they can really settle amid this in-season coaching change.

After that, Southern Miss will begin a search for their 23rd head coach in school history.

“Our immediate focus is twofold: first, supporting our student-athletes throughout the remainder of the season, and second, conducting a comprehensive national search to identify the next leader for Southern Miss football,” said McClain. “This is a proud program with an outstanding history and a premier job in college football. We will find the next leader to usher us into a new era of championship success.”