University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Football Ranked In Top 25 In Both Polls
10/10/2004 12:00:00 AM | Football
Football Ranked In Top 25 In Both Polls
HATTIESBURG, Miss. ? After defeating Houston, 35-29, on Thursday night and running its record to 4-0 on the season and 3-0 in Conference USA, Southern Miss made its first appearance in the college football top 25 polls, ranking No. 24 in the Associated Press Poll and No. 25 in the USA Today/ESPN Coaches Poll.
"This is nice, but it is not good enough," Southern Miss Head Football Coach Jeff Bower said. "We still have to continue getting better as a football team. It is a long season and a lot can happen between now and the end of the season. We have to take it week by week, maintain our focus each game and continue working hard."
This marks the Golden Eagles' first top 25 ranking since they dropped out of the top 25 on Nov.19, 2000, after falling 27-24 at Cincinnati, holding a No. 24 ranking at the time. That ended 23 straight weeks of national rankings, dating back Oct. 10, 1999, when the Golden Eagles entered the polls. Since then, Southern Miss climbed to as high as No. 26 at the end of the 2003 regular season.
"We lost seven starters on defense last year and a lot of people said we were going to be down this year," said redshirt senior linebacker Antoine Cash, who was a member of the 2000 squad that was ranked in the Top 25. "Being ranked shows that the coaches and writers from across the country are giving us some respect. Its nice but it doesn't mean a lot, because we still have a lot of games left to play. We have to keep working hard and getting better each week as a team. In fact, we now have to work that much harder in order to stay at that level."
Under the direction of Jeff Bower, Southern Miss has appeared 31 times in the Associated Press Weekly Poll and 28 times in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll. Overall, the Golden Eagles have been ranked 42 weeks in the Associated Press Poll, 34 times in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll and 38 times in the United Press International Poll. Southern Miss has been involved in eight games when both teams were ranked in the Associated Press Poll, posting a 3-5 record.
During the 1999 season, Southern Miss spent more time in the polls than in any other year, spending the last 10 weeks in the poll, ending the season as the No. 13 team in the ESPN/USA Today Poll and the No. 14 in the AP Poll. In 2000, Southern Miss spent the first 13 weeks in the Associated Press Poll and 10 weeks in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll, setting the school record for number of weeks in the polls. The Golden Eagles appeared in the Associated Press Poll for 23-straight weeks, dating back to Oct. 10, 1999, following the 39-22 victory at East Carolina.
The Golden Eagles were ranked 13th in the Oct. 29, 2000 poll, marking the highest a Jeff Bower coached team has ever been ranked in the Associated Press Poll, and the 11th-ranking in the coaches poll is the second-highest ranking the program has ever experienced. The highest ranking was ninth, in the November 17 poll in 1981, after a 58-14 victory over Florida State in Tallahassee, Fla.
Southern Miss travels to Tuscaloosa, Ala., to face Alabama on Saturday, Oct. 16, 2004, at Bryant-Denny Stadium (83,818) at 2:37 p.m. The game will be available on a pay-per-view basis in Alabama, Mississippi and through the DISH Network, DirecTV and ESPN GamePlan.
