Southern Mississippi (USM Golden Eagles)
Located in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, USM has 16,506 students on campus and was founded in 1910. Formerly known as such lovely names as the Confederates and the Normalites (among others), USM has won a share of five Conference USA titles, boasting a 9-5 bowl record as C-USA members. They had arguably the league's best coach in Larry Fedora before he ran off to NCAA compliance misfit North Carolina. You should know that Brett Favre is a former Golden Eagle. Reason enough to hate right there. I'm afraid of UTSA females receiving dick pics from Golden Eagle quarterbacks. Southern Miss will be rekindling a great rivalry with Lousiana Tech known as Rivalry in Dixie. USM dominates the series 32-13. Southern Miss finished their 2011 campaign with a 12-2 record and finished admirably in every measurable statistical category. They'll kick off their 2012 season against Nebraska.
I suspect UTSA and Southern Miss will get along quite nicely.
The only online source of Southern Miss coverage I could find is their Rivals site http://southernmiss.rivals.com/. Here's their beat writer Patrick Magee. The Hattiesburg American gives USM much more coverage than the majority of their C-USA affiliates receive, so many kudos to them.
While Hattiesburg has a mere 50,000 people inhabiting it, it was distinguished as one of America's fastest growing markets recently. The zoo is the biggest tourist attraction in town, per wikipedia. Woah! If Brett Favre wasn't enough reason for you to dislike Southern Miss, take comfort in knowing BP CEO Bob Dudley (who was in charge during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill) hails from Hattiesburg. They churn out upstanding Americans like it's no one's business. Jimmy Buffet is also from Hattiesburg, so maybe that cancels out. Flying into town is a real pain in the ass, as the only airport in town has just one airstrip, serviced by Essential Air Service. Good luck with that.
I may have been overly negative in this post, as Southern Miss is a terrific program to be associated with-- They've been to ten consecutive bowl games. They smashed Houston in the C-USA championship last year, therefore costing their (and the rest of C-USA) a couple thousand dollars in BCS revenue. The Golden Eagles finished the year ranked #19 in the coaches poll and #20 in the AP. An embarrassing road loss to an under-performing UAB squad likely cost them a good five spots or so in the polls.
I tried my best to find some pretty pictures of Hattiesburg but all I found were Favre comics and pictures of hotel rooms: https://www.google.com/search?q=hattiesburg&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=07OoT7HJF-iU2gXw35CmAg&biw=963&bih=920&sei=1bOoT7fMK8Lu2gXTxommAg
