Bobcats Make Last Stand In Hattiesburg

Bobcats Play Spoiler In Bid To Keep Their Own Bowl Dreams Alive

Jakob Rodriguez
November 17, 2025

To start, I must sincerely apologize for essentially abandoning this newsletter this season. But after five weeks of straight-up losses, I was running out of things to say.

Going back to my days at The University Star and even season one of Squarin’ Around, I have always believed that whatever team is the hottest deserves the most coverage.

That’s because it is a lot easier to write about a team that is winning than to continuously beat a dead horse. And honestly, a dead horse is a pretty apt metaphor for what the team was up until this past weekend in Hattiesburg.

The ‘Cats were something like 4.5 - 7.5 point dogs when they flew out to play the team that will, in all likelihood, suit up to play to represent the West Division in the Sun Belt Conference championship game.

After weeks of chasing their own tail: Losing in overtime, double overtime, getting blown out, losing by a field goal — things finally clicked for the ‘Cats with a 41 - 14 win over the Golden Eagles. I literally had to put my beer down and pay attention at Wurstfest.

It had become almost too easy to write off the Bobcats, even though the team still has one of the best offenses in the Sun Belt, troubles or honestly gaps on defense and missed cues and missed field goals on special teams kept more than a few wins off the record books.

But, this being a show that is bankrolled partially by Dave Campbell’s Texas Football, football does get top billing usually. But honestly, I was ready to move on after what we had seen this season.

You can go back to the show last week. I was actually convinced that Southern Miss was going to put the final nail in the coffin for us and send us out to pasture. We were set to become the laughing stock of the Sun Belt and the reformed PAC-12. We lost five games in a row. Can you blame anyone?

Things finally clicked for the Bobcats. You can chalk it up to added pressure, a one last stand situation for seniors or even personnel decisions and coaching calls that did seemingly change results on defense.

At the end of the day, football is about a group of people coming together to accomplish something bigger than themselves. That’s what happened on Saturday.

Now, the Bobcats are still surprisingly in charge of their own destiny with two more weeks to play. They’ll finish out the season against the two worst teams, aside from themselves, in the west in ULM and South Alabama.

I like the ‘Cats’ chances of winning out in front of home crowds and earning the right to go bowling. After the creative work they have done this season to find ways to lose, it feels good to dream up a scenario where they win.

That’s the thing, though, they need to win. We need that team from Saturday to show up at least two more times. Three if you count the bowl win itself. Welcome back to newsletters, I finally have something to write about again!