Once one of the most feared and respected mid-major football programs in the country, Southern Miss went on a three-year walkabout in the wilderness.

It’s now one win away from emerging on the other side.

Southern Miss can clinch the Conference USA West Division championship Saturday by winning at Louisiana Tech. The Golden Eagles (7-3, 5-1 C-USA) are already bowl-eligible — a remarkable feat by itself, considering they went 4-32 the previous three seasons — and now can take the next step in rebuilding their once-proud tradition.

“It’s just one more step. It’s all about steps and getting this program back to what it was built on and that’s bowl games and championships,” Southern Miss coach Todd Monken said during his weekly press conference. “This program has more C-USA championships than any other team in the history of the league. Jeff Bower started that and Larry (Fedora) continued it. We have to live up to that legacy and build our own legacy.”

This weekend will feature the first half of a tournament, of sorts, for the Conference USA championship. The winner between Southern Miss and Louisiana Tech will get the West Division title, while Western Kentucky and Marshall will play Friday for the East crown.

“For Conference USA, I do not think there could be a better script than the top two teams in the East and West are playing,” Louisiana Tech coach Skip Holtz said. “What we are looking at is a semifinal matchup. The loser is done and the winner goes on to play again. We are in a four-team, single-game elimination tournament for the conference championship, which is exciting.”

Southern Miss has won five C-USA championships, the last under Fedora in 2011. The program quickly cratered, however, after that.

In 2012, Southern Miss went winless for the first time in 87 years. It won once in 2013, and three times in 2014. With an improving roster and the emergence of junior Nick Mullens as one of Conference USA’s best quarterbacks, it surpassed that three-year win total by the end of October this season.

The Golden Eagles will ride a five-game winning streak into Ruston. Monken was confident they have at least one more victory in them to complete the transformation from sad sack to division champion.

“We have earned this moment. It wasn’t a gift,” Monken said. “We lost one conference game on the road against a good Marshall team when we didn’t play our best. We are good enough and that’s what I want our guys to know. Let’s take advantage of this opportunity.”

Saturday’s game will feature two of the best offenses in Conference USA. Southern Miss ranks first with 533.0 yards per game, and Louisiana Tech (7-3, 5-1) is third at 471.3 yards.

Mullens has been one of the league’s breakout stars. Now in his third year as a starter, the junior from Mobile, Ala., has been named the Conference USA Offensive Player of the Week twice and ranks second in passing yards per game with 325.3. He’s thrown 32 touchdown passes and only eight interceptions in 416 attempts.

“They are really doing a nice job offensively,” Holtz said. “They are putting up a lot of points and video game-type numbers. They are getting better as the year goes on. It has been impressive to watch them grow.”

Louisiana Tech features Florida transfer Jeff Driskel at quarterback and senior Kenneth Dixon at running back. Driskel has thrown for 3,220 yards and 21 touchdowns while Dixon has rushed for 972 yards and a league-best 17 touchdowns.

Dixon has terrorized Southern Miss throughout his college career. In 2013, he rushed for 207 yards and a touchdown in Louisiana Tech’s 36-13 victory in Ruston. USM held him to just 41 rushing yards last season in Hattiesburg, but Dixon caught six passes for 124 yards and scored three touchdowns as the Bulldogs won 31-20.

“He is a really tough football player. When you watch him run he rarely goes backward. We did a good job on him last year until he caught that check down that kind of broke our backs. He took that check down around 85 yards for a touchdown. That kind of sparked them,” Monken said. “He can do it in a number of ways, but the main thing with big powerful backs is, can you make them go sideways. Most of the time those big backs aren’t as effective when they are going sideways.”

Southern Miss at Louisiana Tech

Saturday, 11 a.m.

Radio: 105.1 FM

At stake: The winner will claim the C-USA West Division championship and a berth in next week’s conference title game