In the eye of big-time football

former Central star Mitch Craft has experienced hurricanes and the thrill of being surrounded by 80,000 fans.

A redshirt season last year helped former Central football star Mitch Craft adjust from high school quarterback to Division I linebacker at Southern Mississippi University.

But nothing could help him prepare for this fall.

"I've lived a year in a month," Craft said.

Craft's progress in the football program has been lost in the shuffle of a chaotic start to the season for the Golden Eagles. Southern Mississippi players had to evacuate their campus temporarily after Hurricane Katrina and have had two of their four games postponed due to Katrina and Hurricane Rita.

Between all that, Craft battled an early-season injury to make his collegiate debut Sept. 17 in a victory against McNeese State.

"It's always what I wanted to do," Craft said. "I'm living the life I pictured myself living when I started playing football."

Of course, no one on the Southern Miss football team could have pictured this season. The players found out about a week before the opener against Tulane that the game would be rescheduled due to Katrina. Craft and his teammates waited out the hurricane on the Southern Mississippi campus, going without power and water for three days.

"We were there the whole time," Craft said. "The power went out about noon on Monday. The whole football team lived together 'til Thursday. We lived without power and without water."

The team was temporarily relocated to Memphis University while the city of Hattiesburg recovered. Players and coaches returned to Hattiesburg a little more than a week later.

Craft said due to the storm and cell phones being down, some players were unaccounted for during the hurricane.

"We basically had no way of knowing," he said. "We were missing four or five guys when we went to Memphis."

The Golden Eagles finally opened with a nationally televised game at Alabama. The Crimson Tide won 30-21, and Craft watched from the sidelines with a hamstring injury.

"I remember sitting in the lockerroom -- I could here them stomping," Craft said of the crowd at 83,818-capacity Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, Ala. "It was kind of like the 'Gladiator' movie. ... Just to look around and see all those people, it's what you dream about."

Craft may not have been able to play in the game, but that did not stop him from getting a little TV time.

"After the game, I got a million calls from back home and from people around campus saying they saw me," Craft said.

Nearly five weeks after suffering his injury, Craft made his debut.

An all-state quarterback at Central, Craft has grown used to the idea of chasing the quarterback. With his time in the weight room during his freshman year, he has bulked from 212 pounds as a high school senior to 241.

"To be honest, it would be odd to go back to quarterback and throwing the football," Craft said.

Craft believes he made the right decision to walk-on at Southern Mississippi. Coming out of high school, he had scholarship offers, including one from Southeast Missouri State.

"When I first came here and walked on, I didn't know what to expect," Craft said. "I had a lot of people telling me don't do it, it's not smart.

"Now they're talking scholarship, talking money, and I'm really lucky and blessed to have stuck with it."

Southern Mississipi won its conference opener on Saturday at East Carolina 33-7. The Golden Eagles host Tulsa this week.