University of Southern Mississippi Athletics
Lee Roberts Looks Back on Memorable 1996 Season
9/29/2016 12:00:00 AM | Football
HATTIESBURG, Miss. -- Southern Miss' 1996 Conference USA Championship team will be honored during Saturday's 6 p.m. football game versus Rice. We checked in with letterwinner Lee Roberts, who took over the starting quarterback reins mid-season and eventually became a team captain in 1998. Roberts is currently the color analyst for the Southern Miss IMG Sports Network.
The bonds that Roberts had between his teammates and family are what he remembers most, and it all started with his first-career start: the Golden Eagles' sixth game of the year at East Carolina.
"It was a great trip," he said. "I was obviously looking forward to playing and my sisters had made it out there. My parents, wife, in-laws, they all drove out there. It was fun. It was a night where everyone rallied around me and it was a fun time."
There was a lot at stake based on the team's hot start to the season. Roberts had begun the 1995 (his freshman) season as the No. 2 quarterback, getting some "mop-up work in" as well as a few plays at home. He had seen big games before, including the Southern Miss game at Tennessee that season, but admittedly took more snaps as a 1995 backup than he had in 1996 before his first start.
But he was more than ready.
"We were 4-1 at the time," he said. "We had beaten Georgia earlier in the year and the only loss was at Alabama. I took over the starting role, and we had an off-week then the Thursday night game. I was the starter during that off-week, so I had time to prepare."
The Golden Eagles smacked East Carolina 28-7 in what would be the 8-3 Pirates' last season before joining Conference USA. Roberts completed 13 passes in a row at one point to finish 14-for-16 on the ESPN2 Thursday night broadcast.
Roberts is also quick to credit all of his teammates for not only helping Southern Miss to some big wins in a significant era, but also because of what they meant to his development.
"Defensively we really had some guys that could fly around," Roberts said. "The secondary had Patrick Surtain and Jamal Alexander. Those guys were the beginnings of what became a nasty defense that could make plays. Going against them each week made me better. You could see how good those guys were. Marchant Kenney was the center of that defense from the 1996-97 season. Other guys like Adalius Thomas and Jeff Posey were great too."
All of those individuals there enabled Roberts to become an x's and o's student of the game, but his quick introduction in the celebratory 1996 season also helped him and the rest of the Golden Eagles transcend what legacy they had previously set.
"Everything I had done once I stepped on campus from the time I started to when I stepped off, I tried to be a leader either vocal or by example," he said. "The first two years I was in a role where I wasn't playing every game. I had to be prepared in case someone went down, but the 1996 season was the beginning of me becoming a leader and ultimately being a captain in 1998.
That same mindset was the same one the entire team embraced as it reignited the tough-as-nails persona Southern Miss so happily donned in its next 15 consecutive winning seasons under Jeff Bower and Larry Fedora. The program saw just one conference loss in Roberts' last three years.
One thing hidden under the radar amidst that 1996 season? The aforementioned Georgia game which included a momento that required historical and fortuitous timing.
"It was the first game after the 1996 Olympics and they had redone all the hedges in the stadium. We took some pieces of it back."
