Teams illegally asked Frank Gore Jr. to transfer. Why he stayed with Southern Miss football.

Southern Miss football running back Frank Gore Jr. settled on his choice to put off his professional career fairly swiftly. A conversation with his coach, Will Hall, helped him decide to wait another season.

But the modern college football world offers a new temptation, especially for standouts at the Group of Five level such as Gore, who ran for 1,382 yards last season. There were programs that − illegally − asked Gore to jump into the transfer portal, Hall said. Gore shrugged off those overtures, too.

"He’s a guy that plays running back," Hall said of the 5-foot-8, 195-pound son of former NFL running back Frank Gore. "He’s also a guy that’s close to graduating. He’s also a guy that has a chance to leave a lasting legacy. And so, he can see all those things. He wants to be a college graduate. He wants to be a legend. He wants to be from somewhere. He was able to kind of look at that from an old soul with a lot of maturity, and we were able to help him.

"He wants to be a Southern Miss legend. He certainly should be. I know this: Our people love him. And they’re going to love him even more because of this."

Gore, who arrived at Southern Miss for a 2020 season played in a pandemic, averaged 5.9 yards per carry as a freshman for a team that won three games in a campaign that saw three different coaches take charge. He stayed.

Gore spent his 2021 season behind an undermanned offensive line in the first year of Hall's tenure. He was asked to play quarterback down the stretch for a team that intentionally moved its offense at a snail's pace because it did not have the depth to play a fully-fledged college football game toward the end of the season. He stayed.

In 2022, Gore played even more quarterback snaps for a team that could not stay healthy at the game's most important position. Behind a tenacious defense and Gore's strong will on offense, Southern Miss made its first bowl game since 2019. Gore ran for a record-breaking 329 yards and two touchdowns in a 38-24 win over Rice in the Lending Tree Bowl. He threw a touchdown, too. He stayed.

Big goals remain at Southern Miss

Now, in 2023, he has big goals. And they don't involve his own stat line.

“I don’t try to focus on individual statistics," Gore said. "I just try to focus on each and every day, winning. My main goal is at the end, have the Sun Belt Championship. I feel like, me and my teammates, we’ve all worked hard for it. We all deserve it, and knowing everything that we’ve been through, I feel like it’s our time to prevail."

Gore used the word "explosive" to describe the Golden Eagles' offense in preseason action. Hall and his staff feel they have solved their quarterback woes with the transfer duo of Billy Wiles and Holman Edwards. Not including Gore's Super Back package, where running backs take the snaps, Southern Miss used five different quarterbacks in 2022 and seven in 2021.

None of them have translated into a quality offense. Southern Miss finished 129th nationally in yards per play in 2021 and 87th in 2022 with a more filled-out roster. An upgrade to "explosive" would be quite a jump indeed.

"I think we're fixing to play good at quarterback," Hall said. "Possibly really good.

"We’ve got to play real offensive football. We’ve gotta do what’s gotten me and this offensive staff every job we’ve ever had. I think we’re going to. I feel really good about it. But we gotta get over that hump offensively."

Even a functional offense would, in theory, set off a positive chain reaction for the Golden Eagles. Only eight teams in college football gave the ball away more frequently than Southern Miss last season. A reduction in that department would surely also lead to a defensive improvement, giving that unit better field position to work with.

If Southern Miss scores more points, as Hall hopes, it can play defense a bit differently, too. Taking risks to help out a sputtering offense in 2022, the Golden Eagles defense gave up far too many explosive plays for Hall's liking. A good offense would allow USM to play "bend-but-don't-break" defense under new coordinator Dan O'Brien, Hall said.

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And, of course, a better offense would mean better opportunities for Gore – not just to run the ball, but to illustrate solid receiving and pass-blocking skills Hall says he already possesses. Doing so could prove vital to his NFL Draft stock. He has shown evaluators he can run the ball. The Southern Miss offense hasn't given him the chance to show much else ‒ besides an ability to play quarterback.

"He’s going to show he can do those things," Hall said. "It’s going to give him a chance to show those skills. He’s good at both. We just haven’t been able to do it a whole lot."

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Frank Gore Jr. stuck with Southern Miss football despite pleas to transfer