FLA. @ FLA. V. TECH @ V. TECH N. C. STATE @ USM _______________________ I guess N.D. and U.S.C. were unavailable. I give them credit. When they say "Anybody, Anywhere, Any time," they seem to mean it.
Jeff Bower was a qb for USM many years ago. He has had great success there as coach. USM people do not expect to be NC. They want to be a success in their conference, compete well when playing much larger schools, and help their young men. Sure-- a NC would be great---almost impossible. Jeff Bower will never - never - leave USM. He had a daughter with some kind of sickness (unless I'm wrong here) I think she died. USM stood by him through thick and thin. He has donated money back to USM in large amounts. He is old enough, rich enough, that "IF" USM wanted to fire him, he would resign and live out his life in Hattiesburg. AND HE HAS HAD HIS OFFERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Jeff Bower's daughter was killed in a tragic car accident. She was a senior in high school at the time. Southern Miss coach grieves daughter's death By Mike Bass, Post staff reporter Publication date: 10-29-97 Jeff Bower's thoughts inevitably drift toward his daughter. His Southern Mississippi football team is newly ranked, he has to find a way Saturday to win at the University of Cincinnati for the first time, but there's no escaping the death of 17-year-old Kristen in a car accident last month. ''I think about it all the time,'' the coach says. Kristen was driving home early Sept. 13 after spending time with her friends following a Friday night high school football game, the same day she had taken her senior picture. ''Somehow, she just lost control of the car,'' said Bower. ''They have no idea what happened.''
Yeah Kristen was actually dating a good friend of mine at USM when she died. Took him quite a while to get over it. She was a very smart, beautiful girl . Bowers is definately underrated, and produces a top quality product with limited resources. His record is 96-67-1. 47-14 Conference USA record. The mind boggling part about it is that only 65 of those 164 games were played at home! Mix that with the fact that Hattiesburg is sandwiched by 2 SEC Teams in the state, and LSU, Alabama, Memphis, Tulane, UAB, and Auburn are within driving distance. He's USM's Joe Pa or Petrino. My best memory of USM football was my Sophomore year: that team had Patrick Surtain, TJ Slaughter, Rod Davis, Adalius Thomas, Perry Phenix, Harold Shaw, Todd Pinkston, John Nix, DeQuincy Scott. John Thompson was Defensive Coordinator, with Dave Wommack as Assistant DC. The defense they schemed "the Crazy Eagle" is now used across the league by many teams. More on Bower. http://southernmiss.collegesports.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/bower_jeff00.html Thanks for the USM love :yelwink2:
