09/12/2026
SOUTHERN MISS QUARTERBACK ETHAN HAMPTON HAS BEEN A PART OF A BIG UPSET BEFORE, BEATING NO. 5 NOTRE DAME IN 2024 WITH NORTHERN ILLINOIS, LOOKS AT ANOTHER UPSET WITH A TRIP TO AUBURN THIS WEEKEND
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College football fans remember possibly the biggest upset in the 2024 season was when Northern Illinois, a four touchdown underdog, shocked No. 5 Notre Dame 16-14 at South Bend.
Ethan Hampton was the starting quarterback of the historic upset, the first time a Mid-American Conference team had defeated an AP Top 5 team in history.
Fast forward to this fall, and Hampton, now in his sixth year of playing college football and a graduate student, won the starting quarterback position at Southern Miss and led the Golden Eagles to a 49-3 victory over Alcorn State last week in the season opener at Southern Miss in Hattiesburg.
The 6-foot-3, 220-pound Hampton completed 13 of 23 passes for 180 yards and one touchdown, a 38-yard completion to Mario Sanders in the second quarter. Hampton was the seventh different starting quarterback on opening day, dating back to the start of 2020 season when Jack Abraham started from 2018-2020, the last quarterback too start in consecutive seasons.
Hampton - an Elburn, Ill., native who has previous experience at Northern Illinois and Illinois before transferring to Southern Miss - beat out redshirt senior Landry Lyddy and redshirt sophomore John White. Lyddy started one game and played in six games last season after transferring from Alabama-Birmingham. White, who is starting his third season at Southern Miss, has played in five games at Southern Miss and is Mississippi’s high school (career leader with 15,529 passing yards and to go along with 177 touchdown passes at his career at Winona Christian School (eighth grader) and Madison-Ridgeland Academy (freshman through senior year).
“Ethan made really, really good decisions,” first-year Southern Miss head coach Blake Anderson said. “His leadership and his experience is really what ended up getting him the nod. All three of those guys are playing well, and the battle between him and Lyddy was so close. You just go back to how many games he's played and played in big games and decided to
go with experience. Lyddy didn't do anything wrong, but I thought Ethan did a really good job. Couple throws he's going to want to have back, but didn't put the ball in harm's way and didn't put it on the ground. We got a chance to win games that way, especially if we can run the ball. It was great to get both Lyddy and John real reps, especially Lyddy. Those drives were normal offense and normal tempo.”
Lyddy was 2 of 2 for 46 yards and White was 0 for 2 against Alcorn State.
Hampton had a bone bruise injury to his throwing hands during the preseason scrimmage and missed almost two weeks, but when he returned he was still taking reps with the first team.
“I think you know anytime you're dealing with an injury, it's not what you want to be doing,” Hampton said after the Alcorn win. “But I was blessed that it wasn't anything major and just kind of a something I could get back from in a week or week and a half. And luckily, I showed what I could do throughout spring, throughout fall. I'm super blessed. I came here to win games and play for this university, and I believe in Coach A and his vision for this program, and where we're going to go. What stood out to me (in the Alcorn game) really is overwhelming, and this is our first game, especially coming with a whole new team. Just see how everybody played together. wasn't really a lot
of like yelling at each other, bickering at each other. Just everybody motivating each other. They mess up, get it back next play. Just how tight we came together as a family for the first game.That was what I was.”
Before coming to Southern Miss, Hampton had passed for 2,595 yards and 21 TDs. He was at Northern Illinois from 2021 to 2023 (played in two games as a backup in 2021 and was redshirted, started three games before a season-ending injury in 2022 and received a medical redshirt, played in four games as backup in 2023, 10 starts in 2024, including the upset of Notre Dame) and at Illinois in 2025 (played four games in a backup role).
Illinois coach Bret Bielema, who used to coach at Arkansas, and Anderson, who used to coach at Arkansas State, know each other.
“Coach Bielema knows Coach Anderson, and he told me, ‘Hey, this guy’s worth checking out,’ because I got in the portal later than most,” Hampton said in an interview with Tim Doherty in a story Friday on southernmiss.com. “A lot of schools had already taken guys, but, luckily, Southern Miss was still open. They (Southern Miss coaches) said, ‘We love what you’re about, we love your film, and we want to get you down here,’” Hampton said. “So, a couple of days later, I flew down, spent the day here, and it was home. I ended up committing the next day. At NIU, if I played a whole game, I threw it, maybe, 25 times because it’s more prostyle there. Here, I played two drives in the second half (against Alcorn) and I threw it 23 (times) I think it was. So, I wanted to spend my last year somewhere I could have a good impact on a team and throw the ball around a little bit.”
Hampton and the Golden Eagles travel to a much bigger stadium Saturday when Southern Miss visits SEC member Auburn at 6:45 p.m. on the SEC Network. Auburn’s Jordan-Hare Stadium seats 88,000, the fifth largest on-campus stadium in the country. Auburn, which edged Baylor 17-16 in its opener last week, is a 32.5-point favorite over Southern Miss.
Hampton has been to big stadiums before. Not only did he lead Northern Illinois to its historic win at Notre Dame, he has backup quarterback at Illinois when they played in Big 10 stadiums like and when he played for Northern Illinois they played at Kentucky, Boston College, Vanderbilt and Michigan.
“It’s the same game you’re out there practicing, right,” Hampton said in the interview with Doherty. “If you’re playing in front of no one or playing in front of 100,000, it’s the same game, and you’ve got to go out and perform and execute the details. Don’t let the noise get the best of you in the moment because you only get one of these a year. So, make the most of the moment and prepare for it like you’ve never prepared before.”
Hampton could possibly lead Southern Miss to an upset like he did against Notre Dame when he threw for 198 yards and one TD. Northern Illinois kicked a 35-yard field goal with 31 seconds to play, then blocked a 62-yard field goal attempt by Notre Dame as time expired.
Hampton earned a bachelor's degree in management and marketing at Northern Illinois in 2024 and is expected to finish a masters in business at Southern Miss.
“I like to take academics very seriously,” Hampton said in the interview with Doherty. “Football’s not forever, and I know that, and I want to do as much free schooling as I can to set me up for life. That’s the goal, and I’ve spent six years doing it so far.”
