Familiar foes meet again in New Orleans for the first time in five years.
Southern Miss and Western Kentucky shared the Conference USA from 2014-21, squaring off four times with WKU winning all four. Now
the former CUSA opponents await a fifth matchup at the 2025 New Orleans Bowl.
Southern Miss (7-5, 5-3 Sun Belt) clinched a bowl game for the first time since 2022, experiencing one of the most impressive turnarounds in all of college football. The Golden Eagles transformed from 1-11 to 7-5 in the course of a season, earning an opportunity to punch a ticket to the Sun Belt Championship Game during the final week of the regular season. The mastermind behind the turnaround was first-year head coach Charles Huff, who won the 2024 Sun Belt title at Marshall. However, Huff is off to Memphis, thrusting offensive coordinator Blake Anderson — who formerly served as head coach at Arkansas State and Utah State — as the interim for this game.
Southern Miss is 12-11 all-time in bowl games, winning its latest matchup over Rice in the 2022 LendingTree Bowl, behind Frank Gore Jr.’s bowl record 329 rushing yards. This is the Golden Eagles’ seventh appearance in the New Orleans Bowl. They’re 4-1 in the game — only trailing Louisiana in appearances and wins — most recently making the trek to the Superdome for the 2016 installment, where they knocked off Louisiana.
WKU (8-4, 6-2 CUSA) is bowling for a school record seventh-consecutive season — all seven years of the Tyson Helton era. The Hilltoppers fell one game short of a second-straight CUSA Championship Game appearance this year, falling to Jacksonville State on a time-expiring field goal in Week 14. WKU still logged its fifth-straight 8+ win season and can secure Helton’s fourth 9-win season with a win in New Orleans. The Hilltoppers are 4-2 in bowls under Helton and 7-4 all-time, and they’ve played in some wild ones such as the 2014 Bahamas Bowl and 2023 Famous Toastery Bowl.
The Hilltoppers are making their second trip to the New Orleans Bowl, where they dominated South Alabama 44-23 three years ago. That victory launched a three-game win streak for the CUSA over the Sun Belt in this bowl game.
This is the 11th-consecutive New Orleans Bowl to feature the traditional CUSA vs. Sun Belt matchup. WKU and Southern Miss kick off from the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans on Tuesday, Dec. 23 at 5:30 p.m. ET / 4:30 p.m. CT, and the game will be viewable on ESPN.
