By Robert Wilson
Jeffery Pittman has been a difference maker at every stop in his football playing career.
He helped Taylorsville High to back to back MHSAA Class 2A state championships as a junior and senior (MVP in both games), had 1,412 yards and 21 touchdowns as as senior in 2020 and played in four state championship games, winning three of them.
Pittman gained 1,865 yards and scored 33 TDs in his two seasons at Hinds Community College, was the No. 1 rated running back in the state and No. 29 in the country as a sophomore.
At Mississippi State in 2023, he made two starts and played in 11 games, had 268 rushing yards and one TD (a 59-yard run against Southern Miss), had caught 13 passes for 91 yards and two TDs (his first catch was a TD in overtime to beat Arizona), did not commit a penalty and did not have any fumbles all season.
After not playing in 2024 at MSU, Pittman transferred to Southern Miss. And he had his best game yet this season Saturday night in the Golden Eagles’ 42-25 victory over Jacksonville State.
The 6-foot-1, 215-pound Pittman gained a season-high 80 yards – the most by a Golden Eagle running back since Rodrigues Clark gained 115 yards against South Alabama in the next to last game last season – and scored two TDs. Pittman’s TDs (1 and 3 yard runs) were the first two scores of the game in the first eight minutes to give Southern Miss early momentum and a 14-0 lead.
The redshirt junior has now gained a team-high 206 yards on 43 carries and scored four TDs for Southern Miss. The four scores is tied for third in touchdowns per game in the Sun Belt Conference.
Pittman’s big first quarter helped ignite Southern Miss to the victory and rebound from last week’s loss at Louisiana Tech.
“He did a good job of being physical,” first-year Southern Miss coach Charles Huff said on the Golden Eagles postgame radio show with John Cox, Lee Roberts and Jason Baker. “We talked about physicality in the run game and I thought he started that. He made some statement runs. The statement runs are not always the 60 and 70 yard runs. Some statement runs are the 3 and 4 yard runs when you get behind your pads. Those lead to some of those bigger runs down the road.”
“We watched a little more film study, practiced a lot better with more energy and it showed,” Pittman said the postgame news conference Saturday night. “Hard work goes with winning, and it goes with losing and learning. At the end of the day, you’ve got to attack it again and just as much as you attack the time when you lost physicality. I feel like it’s a different flow for us to put the ball on the ground and be a lot more physical and control the game. The O-line was physical and was on board with us running the ball. Being able to substitute backs allows us to be as healthy as we can be in a long season and we can stay fresh and fast.”
Pittman gives credit to Coach Huff to being able to put together dozens of new players (65 senior college transfers, including 21 from Marshall) into one unit.
“Coach Huff is amazing,” said Pittman on the Golden Eagles postgame radio show. “He brought all of us together from all different places and found people who could relate to each other. We all have the same goals. When we win, it makes it so much more special. There is nothing like winning.”
Pittman, who also scored two TDs against Appalachian State in Southern Miss’ first Sun Belt game this season in Hattiesburg, had helped the Golden Eagles to a 3-2 record, two more wins than all of last season.
Southern Miss has a bye week this week before getting back into conference play Oct. 9 with a trip to Georgia Southern.
Pittman’s rise to Southern Miss started in Taylorsville, a town of 1,100 people, 45 miles north of Hattiesburg. Southern Miss has had a long tradition of getting great athletes from towns around Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama like Taylorsville and becoming stars for the Golden Eagles.
“Jeffery played quarterback in junior high school,” said Mitch Evans, who coached Pittman in junior high and high school at Taylorsville and now is in his fifth year as head coach at Seminary. “We had Ty Keyes playing running back and when Jeffery got to high school we flipped them. During Jeffery’s four high school years (2017-2020) we played for four state championships and won three (didn’t win in 2018 when Pittman was a sophomore). He played special teams mostly as a freshman, played a good bit at running back as a sophomore and was really, really good as a junior and senior. Jeffery was the MVP of the state championship game as a junior and senior. He asked me to play defense, too, as a senior and we put him in on the line. He had about 8 to 10 tackles in the state championship game as a senior. He was a part of a goal line stop at our 3-yard line, then the next play he ran 97 yards for a touchdown. Jeffery is super smart. He understands the game. One day I believe Jeffery will be a coach. He loves the game. Jeffery was always asking questions and had suggestions. He was a good basketball player, too, and had a 40-inch vertical leap.”
