Southern opens 2028 with a Team Rating of 71, up four points from a year ago, and a roster that includes two headline transfer additions for the first time in program history. The preseason rank hasn't caught up yet — No. 89, identical to where last season started — but everything else about this roster looks different. This is the full preview: the schedule and a game-by-game prediction for every matchup, the new faces, the biggest transfer haul this program has tracked, and the questions still open after the biggest roster turnover it's ever had.
In This Preview
- The Full Schedule
- Game-By-Game Predictions
- The Two Headline Transfers: Flowers And Jones
- The 2028 Signing Class Arrives
- Coach Graves On The 2028 Class
- Filling The Holes: Who Replaces Whom
- Preseason All-Conference Honors
- Heisman Watch: A Blank Slate
- The Ratings Jump, By The Numbers
- Does The Run Defense Finally Turn?
- Molinich's Third Season
- Foxworth, Year Two As A Starter
- Breakout Candidate
- From The Coach
- Storylines To Watch
- The Takeaway
The Full Schedule
| Wk | Opponent | Site |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kentucky | Home |
| 2 | North Texas | Home |
| 3 | Army | Away |
| 4 | USF | Away |
| 5 | ECU | Away |
| 6 | Louisiana | Home |
| 7 | No. 16 Texas | Away |
| 8 | Navy | Away |
| 9 | Bye | — |
| 10 | Temple | Away |
| 11 | UAB | Home |
| 12 | Memphis | Home |
| 13 | UTSA | Home |
Kentucky is a brand-new opponent for this program — no history between these two anywhere in three tracked seasons. Louisiana is the first time Southern has scheduled its in-state recruiting rival, the same program that beat Southern out for 2027 recruiting target Yiannis Uwazurike. And Texas in Week 7 is, by a wide margin, the most dangerous team on this schedule: a preseason Top 25 team (No. 16) finishing 9-4 a year ago.
Game-By-Game Predictions
Every pick below is built from the full three-year matchup history against each 2028 opponent — not just last season — plus the defensive ratings jump from 69 to 78 and the two headline transfer additions now on the roster. Site matters as much as the head-to-head record: several of these predictions hinge on whether the 2028 game is being played at the same location as a prior result. Where there's genuinely no history at all, that's called out honestly instead of guessed at.
| Wk | Opponent | Site | All-Time | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kentucky | Home | 0-0 | Toss-Up | No tracked history with this program at all — genuinely no signal either way. |
| 2 | North Texas | Home | 1-2 | Lean Win | Lost the road games in 2025 and 2027, but blew them out 54-13 at home in 2026 — the same site as this game. |
| 3 | Army | Away | 2-1 | Lean Win | Won away 42-14 in 2026 (same site as 2028) and at home in 2027, but a 6-59 blowout loss at home in 2025 shows the real variance in this series. |
| 4 | USF | Away | 0-1 | Lean Loss | Only one prior meeting (a 2025 home loss), different site this time, and USF just won the AAC title at 9-4. |
| 5 | ECU | Away | 2-1 | Lean Win | Won at ECU 27-10 in 2026 (same site as 2028), plus a 2025 home win; the only loss (2027) came at home. The road version of this series favors Southern. |
| 6 | Louisiana | Home | 0-0 | Toss-Up | First-ever meeting, but Louisiana enters as the reigning 2027 Sun Belt champion. |
| 7 | No. 16 Texas | Away | 0-0 | Loss | No history, and it doesn't matter — a ranked power on the road is the clear outlier on this schedule regardless. |
| 8 | Navy | Away | 0-1 | Lean Loss | Only prior meeting was a 2025 home loss; different site this time, but no winning history to lean on. |
| 10 | Temple | Away | 2-1 | Lean Win | Won at Temple 21-20 in 2026 (same site as 2028) and at home in 2027; only loss came at home in 2025. |
| 11 | UAB | Home | 3-0 | Win | Southern has never lost to UAB in three tracked seasons, including a 2026 home win (38-34) at this exact site. |
| 12 | Memphis | Home | 2-1 | Toss-Up | Won road games in 2025 and 2027, but the one home meeting (2026, same site as 2028) was a 24-59 blowout loss. |
| 13 | UTSA | Home | 1-2 | Toss-Up | Won on the road in 2025, but lost the 2026 home game in 3OT (53-55, same site as 2028) and the 2027 road game in 2OT. Two straight heartbreakers. |
Factoring in the full history changes the picture in both directions from a 2027-only read: North Texas and ECU look better than last year's results alone suggested, while Memphis and UTSA look shakier once their site-matched history comes into it. That's five games leaning win (North Texas, Army, ECU, Temple, UAB), three leaning loss (USF, Texas, Navy), and four true toss-ups (Kentucky, Louisiana, Memphis, UTSA). Splitting the toss-ups two-for-Southern, two-against lands the projection at 7–5 across the 12-game slate.
The Two Headline Transfers: Flowers And Jones
The player Southern lost as a high school recruit years ago, now arriving as the No. 5 overall-ranked transfer in the entire country — the highest-rated transfer add in program history.
The other headline transfer addition in the same class, already named 2nd Team All-Conference in the preseason before playing a down. Steps in at free safety as the roster replaces DJ Hill-Smith's departure at the position.
The 2028 Signing Class Arrives
Alongside the two headline transfers, the 2028 high school class brings three 4-stars to campus — Will Johnston (SS), Jaelen McCracken (ATH/DE), and Danny Johnson (CB) — tying the 2026 class for the most 4-stars this program has ever signed in one cycle. The class finished ranked No. 75 nationally, a step back from 2027's No. 36 — the high-school haul didn't keep pace with the transfer portal this cycle.
Coach Graves On The 2028 Class
Reporter: Flowers and Jones have been through a full camp now. Are they living up to the billing?
Graves: Flowers looks like a No. 5 overall transfer, honestly. He's matched up with our best receiver every day of camp and held his own more often than not. Jones has been exactly what we hoped — that preseason All-Conference nod wasn't a courtesy, he's earned every bit of it before playing a real down.
Reporter: Where does the high school class fit into the two-deep right now?
Graves: Johnston and McCracken are both going to play early, probably more than a normal true freshman would at their spots, just because of where our depth sits. Danny Johnson's still working his way up the corner room behind some older guys. And watch Deshawn Hall — three-star corner, Louisiana kid, further along than guys we signed at twice his rating.
Reporter: You've talked before about the misses in this class. Anything change your mind on those since signing day?
Graves: No. Bowen and Houston both would've helped us, and both are good players somewhere else now. What's changed is we've got actual film this fall on what we did land, and I like our hand better than I liked it in February.
Reporter: Twenty-one players departed after last season, including two All-Conference starters. How do you fill that much at once?
Graves: You don't replace Byron Allen and DJ Hill-Smith with one guy apiece, that's why we went and got two of them. Ricardo Jones steps in for Byron at safety, and between Jones and the corners we're bringing in, we think we've covered Hill-Smith's loss in the back end too. Christian Martin graduating hurts up front, we haven't settled that one yet. But that's the job every offseason — you lose good players because they earned the right to move on, and you go find the next ones.
Filling The Holes: Who Replaces Whom
Twenty-one players departed after 2027, including two All-Conference starters. Here's the most direct handoffs:
Replaced by Ricardo Jones, LSU transfer, already 2nd Team All-Conf. preseason.
Secondary depth now leans on Jones and the incoming CB haul (Flowers, Danny Johnson).
Offensive line loses its top pass protector from 2027; no clear returning replacement yet identified.
Receiving corps still returns Gavin Hoffman and Matt Brown, both All-Conference in 2027.
Preseason All-Conference Honors
HB · preseason
WR · preseason
OLB · preseason
CB · preseason
WR · preseason
FS · preseason, before playing a game
Molinich's preseason billing (2nd Team All-American) is actually a step down from his usual 1st Team recognition — worth watching whether that's just a preseason formality or an early sign the national conversation has cooled on him further.
Heisman Watch: A Blank Slate
The 2028 Heisman Watchlist opens with five names: Stephon Benjamin (Auburn), Jaray Rask (Iowa St., the reigning winner), Kevin Washington (Notre Dame), Thomas Teague (LSU), and Deshawn Bernard (Iowa St.). Molinich isn't among them at this earliest checkpoint — too soon to call it a snub with the season not yet played, but after a mixed track record on this list (on it in 2027, off it in 2026), it's the first thing worth checking once Week 1 numbers are in.
The Ratings Jump, By The Numbers
| Metric | 2027 | 2028 |
|---|---|---|
| Team Rating | 67 | 71 |
| Offense Rating | 65 | 64 |
| Defense Rating | 69 | 78 |
The jump is almost entirely defense — nine points, against an offense that actually ticks down a point — which tracks with where the two headline transfers actually play. Whether that finally moves the run defense out of the national bottom 10 after three straight years stuck there is the single biggest question this preview can't answer yet.
Does The Run Defense Finally Turn?
Three straight seasons, Southern's run defense has finished ranked 135th, 132nd, and 132nd nationally — the single most stubborn problem this program has tracked, surviving multiple full transfer classes aimed directly at fixing it. This year's headline additions, Flowers and Jones, are both defensive backs, not the front seven — the portal class does add front-seven depth too (Zach Gray and Greg Salguero at DT, Emmanuel Karmo at DE, David Shorter and Anthony Webber at linebacker), but none of them carry the pedigree of the two secondary names, the same mismatch between where the headline roster investment goes and where the actual problem lives that's plagued every previous transfer class. Prediction: it doesn't turn. A fourth straight season in the bottom 10 nationally against the run is the most likely outcome unless one of those lower-profile front-seven adds emerges.
Molinich's Third Season
Molinich's rushing total has declined each season he's been the feature back — 2,349 yards as a true freshman, 1,669 last year. If that trend continues, expect a total closer to 1,300–1,500 rather than another national-leader campaign, especially with a full backfield now including Carlos Allen entering his second season. That's not a decline in quality so much as a shift toward a more balanced offense — and it could actually help his case if Southern is winning more games instead of needing to feed him 25+ carries just to stay competitive.
Foxworth, Year Two As A Starter
Foxworth closed his first full season at 130-of-246 (52.8%) for 2,067 yards, 21 touchdowns, and 10 interceptions. A sophomore leap in completion percentage is the single most common development-curve pattern for a young starting quarterback in this dynasty's own data — both Foxworth's own in-season improvement from his first spot start to his last, and Molinich's own freshman-to-sophomore refinement, point the same direction. Expect the touchdown total to climb and the interception rate to drop, even if the yardage total stays similar.
Breakout Candidate
FS transfer from LSU, already preseason 2nd Team All-Conference before playing a game. The clearest path to instant, obvious production on this roster.
The No. 5 transfer in the country. If the redemption story matches the recruiting profile, he's a Southern star by midseason.
The program's first 5-star HS signee enters year two still unproven in a featured role — this is the season that storyline needs to resolve one way or the other.
From The Coach
Reporter: Two portal additions, a defense that jumped nine points on paper, and a run defense that's finished bottom-10 three years running. Does this finally fix it?
Graves: We'll find out in September like everybody else. I'm not going to sit here and declare it fixed off a roster card. What I'll say is we finally have the pieces at the right spots to find out for real, instead of hoping depth covers for it again.
Reporter: No bowl last year, the biggest roster turnover this program has had, and now you open with a brand-new opponent in Kentucky. How do you reset a locker room after a season like that?
Graves: You don't reset anything. Same two rules we started with in 2025. New faces, same plan. Kentucky's a clean slate for both sides — neither of us has anything on the other to go off of, which is exactly the kind of game where what you've built shows up or it doesn't.
Storylines To Watch
Flowers and Shelton are penciled in, but Danny Johnson, Deshawn Hall, and redshirt freshman Addison Tolefree are all fighting for the same handful of reps behind them. Southern has lost defensive backs to the portal before — Devin Sanchez to Texas Tech, Siale Siverand to Oklahoma State — and whoever loses this fall's battle has a real shot at being the next name on that list by spring.
The program's first five-star high school signee is entering Year Two still unproven behind Molinich. Another season buried on the depth chart and the question stops being about his talent and starts being about whether he sticks around long enough to find out if it ever shows up here.
No transfer portal splash at tackle, no five-star signee waiting in the wings — just Christian Martin's empty spot and a room of unproven names (Jose Cox, Rodney Warmack, Chancellor Powell) who haven't had a signature moment yet. The flashiest roster turnover in program history could still get undone by the one position nobody's talking about.
Southern usually loses the portal battle up front — Benedict Umeh left for Stanford two cycles ago. Weathersby flips that script: a two-star edge piece who originally committed to Alabama before landing at Southern instead. No hype attached, but he's the kind of name that turns into a real story by October if the pass rush needs him.
The Takeaway
This is, on paper, the most talented roster this program has ever put on the field — two headline transfer additions, the biggest portal haul this program has tracked, and a returning core that includes the reigning national rushing leader and three All-Conference performers. The preseason rank hasn't caught up to any of that yet, still sitting at No. 89. If the defensive jump translates on the field, particularly on a run defense that's needed it for three straight years, this could be the season this program finally breaks out of the range it's occupied since the very first tracked year.
The game-by-game math lands on 7–5: five games leaning win, three leaning loss, and four true toss-ups that actually decide the season. USF is the one clean gap the roster upgrade doesn't obviously close; Texas is a talent-gap loss regardless of history. Break the four toss-ups — Kentucky, Louisiana, Memphis, UTSA — right and this is a 9-win team. Break them wrong and 5–7 is the realistic floor.