The Unofficial Furman Football Page

As we head into the meat of our SoCon schedule, I think it's time to assess the season this far - especially in light of some scores during our hiatus.
Game 1 CLEMSON - that says it all. Our defense played well for most of the first half. encouraging.
Game 2 - ELON - at the end of last season, Furman and Elon were two very evenly matched teams. Obviously, Elon has made a quantum jump. In beating James Madison this weekend, Elon is now clearly in the running for the national championship. FU, for the many reasons already discussed on this board, has not made that jump. Getting clobbered by Elon does not seem to be the disaster it appeared to be at the time. FU is simply not at their level as yet.
Game 3 - ETSU - turns out to be a pretty good team and yet we found a way to hand them a game we certainly should have won. Mistakes, poor pass defense, poor play calling, etc. allowed ETSU to steal a game from FU. All correctible on the part of our staff though. We made a senior QB who had lost his job to a freshman look like Tom Brady in the second half. wide open receivers- zero offensive effort by FU-
Game 4 - WCU - once again, easily could have been a great signature win for this young team. A porous pass defense was again a large factor in allowing WCU to come back against us but it was also a Western QB playing the game of his life. This week, WCU imploded against Samford in the 1st quarter and he was never a factor. Paladins showed some guts when WCU mounted a comeback and answered with a very timely score that insured the win. Good progress all around though. Offense looking much better against a poor defense.
Game 5 - Wofford is the best team in the league. …..but it is a typical Wofford team apparently. They run the ball and play solid defense. We usually defend the run option pretty well. Even last year they had to resort to throwing more than usual as I recall. Their short passes hurt us a great deal. It is likely to be their game plan once again. I think our defense will come up big against Wofford. They sure have plenty of incentive. The Furman offense has looked much better against lesser defenses in our last 2 games. Roberts does a nice job of running this offense. But the playbook needs to be fully open and stay open for FU to have a decent chance of scoring enough points to win. This game will likely determine our direction for the rest of this year. Win and we continue a quest for the league title. Lose and we likely use the balance of the season as a building year. I know that this is the game the kids have been pointing for and that incentive should play a big factor. We can win this one.
All in all, things are not as good as we expected this year....but they also are not nearly as bad as they appeared following the Elon blow out. We need to stop shooting ourselves in the foot with airhead mistakes and missed assignments and play hard thru the entire game and this team can still have a very good season. We will know by Saturday evening.

I suppose some silver lining is that in the two SoCon games we've played, Furman has jumped out to big leads.

Ideally, we want to jump out to a big lead and keep it there.

Makes me wonder if Elon's leap and our decline can be directly related to the fact that they returned an all-CAA QB and we lost our all-SoCon QB? I'm still not sure Blaze would have made up a 38-point difference against Elon, but I do believe we would be 2-2 with a better than average shot at running the table and a second playoff appearance. Other losses for Furman certainly play a factor too, but I didn't dig any deeper into Elon's returning starters to look for correlations.

fufanatic wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 08, 2018 2:33 pm

Makes me wonder if Elon's leap and our decline can be directly related to the fact that they returned an all-CAA QB and we lost our all-SoCon QB? I'm still not sure Blaze would have made up a 38-point difference against Elon, but I do believe we would be 2-2 with a better than average shot at running the table and a second playoff appearance. Other losses for Furman certainly play a factor too, but I didn't dig any deeper into Elon's returning starters to look for correlations.

Elon's better than we are, but not 38 points better.

The difference to me is their OL. According to their preseason writeup, Elon returned 4 of 5 starters on the OL with a combined 109 starts. 3 of those 4 are seniors. Elon's RT is ranted as an NFL draft pick.

Besides experienced starters, Elon has three sophomores and two freshmen on their preseason two deep.

Compare that to Furman's OL. We have zero seniors. We start four sophomores and a junior. By my calculations our five starting OL has 46 combined starts (again, compare that with the 109 for the four guys for Elon). Our depth chart currently has two juniors, two freshmen, and the rest sophomores.

The good news is, in a year or two, we'll be where Elon is now, with a deep, talented OL filled with guys with a bunch of experience.

Take that one step further and realize our first two games we played Clemson and Elon (who surrenders fewer than 20 points a game). Since then, we put 27 up on ETSU in three quarters (and fell apart) and scored a bunch against WCU. I think we are getting guys in the right spots and are going to continue to improve up front.

The Jackal wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 08, 2018 3:39 pm

fufanatic wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 08, 2018 2:33 pm

Makes me wonder if Elon's leap and our decline can be directly related to the fact that they returned an all-CAA QB and we lost our all-SoCon QB? I'm still not sure Blaze would have made up a 38-point difference against Elon, but I do believe we would be 2-2 with a better than average shot at running the table and a second playoff appearance. Other losses for Furman certainly play a factor too, but I didn't dig any deeper into Elon's returning starters to look for correlations.

Elon's better than we are, but not 38 points better.

The difference to me is their OL. According to their preseason writeup, Elon returned 4 of 5 starters on the OL with a combined 109 starts. 3 of those 4 are seniors. Elon's RT is ranted as an NFL draft pick.

Besides experienced starters, Elon has three sophomores and two freshmen on their preseason two deep.

Compare that to Furman's OL. We have zero seniors. We start four sophomores and a junior. By my calculations our five starting OL has 46 combined starts (again, compare that with the 109 for the four guys for Elon). Our depth chart currently has two juniors, two freshmen, and the rest sophomores.

The good news is, in a year or two, we'll be where Elon is now, with a deep, talented OL filled with guys with a bunch of experience.

Take that one step further and realize our first two games we played Clemson and Elon (who surrenders fewer than 20 points a game). Since then, we put 27 up on ETSU in three quarters (and fell apart) and scored a bunch against WCU. I think we are getting guys in the right spots and are going to continue to improve up front.

Tomlin is now listed as a backup at RG, next season we'll bring in another tall athletic lineman Evan Jumper a 2 star with offers from APP, Coastal, UNCC, Old Dominion, plus the usual SoCon schools. I have no doubt Clay and Lusk will get the o-line on track and make it formidable for years to come.

I agree, Jackal. Elon is not 38 points better than us with HR at QB. We would have scored more on them and maybe used up more time. But we were not stopping them at all from my repressed memory. Beating JMU puts them on another level to me. It will be important for us to be competitive with the apparent class of our league.

Season in a nutshell for me:

OL that is a work-in-progress. I underestimated the impact of losing two all-SoCon performers.

Inexperience at QB.

Learning curve of the new OC. Although present for and no doubt instrumental in creating the new system, he did not call the plays. Last years OC had been doing that for years and so had a better feel for play selection. He also had experience coaching QBs for this offense.

Defense not performing to expectation. Offensive woes contribute to this.

JohnW wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 08, 2018 11:02 pm

Season in a nutshell for me:

OL that is a work-in-progress. I underestimated the impact of losing two all-SoCon performers.

Inexperience at QB.

Learning curve of the new OC. Although present for and no doubt instrumental in creating the new system, he did not call the plays. Last years OC had been doing that for years and so had a better feel for play selection. He also had experience coaching QBs for this offense.

Defense not performing to expectation. Offensive woes contribute to this.

Yep. Those two OL and QB loss are killing us. Next man up is only good so far as it goes. From all-SoCon to sophomore is just too big a drop off on the OL. As you all say we need to become a more mature program where we don't have these recruiting gaps. So we aren't good once every 3 years ...but rather we get 7+ wins every every year and playoffs 2 out of 3 years at least

The defense lapses - especially in the secondary and pass coverage back there - completely confound me. How do DBs who looked for the ball and turned their heads at Clemson NOT do that vs Western Carolina ??????? No excuse for age or experience there. I am dumbfounded on that front. We are getting good pass rush and the DL is doing a good job. I think our run D is pretty good - we will face the best run O this weekend. It's almost as if we have become a team that when we face the pass if our pass rush doesn't disrupt the play then we are in big trouble bc our corners are letting receivers make too many easy catches... Or interference is called bc we don't look for the ball. On that note Samford and VMI air-raid scare me. We better get that junk fixed.

Cmon guys. Extra week to prep for option. Bring it and shut down Wofford !

Agreed that this game determines the path forward. A win still has us focused on beating the next team up and possibility being atop the Socon (outright or a tie) while maturing toward playoffs. A loss has us focused on maturing young starters, winning the close games, and ending the season ranked so we don’t have a hole to climb out of in 2019. I don’t want to think of any other scenarios.

There are 7/8 seniors on our 44 two deep depth chart and no seniors as specialists. To say we are young is an understatement. The future looks very bright, and after yesterday so does the rest of this season.

FUPlayer74 wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 14, 2018 10:32 am

There are 7/8 seniors on our 44 two deep depth chart and no seniors as specialists. To say we are young is an understatement. The future looks very bright, and after yesterday so does the rest of this season.

I totally agree with you, 74. Very bright indeed. And we have a very high quality recruiting class coming in. The only caution I see is the need once again to develop a new QB. It looks like we will be in the middle of a playoff run right now so we will be relying on Mister Roberts for most of the remaining games and that does not give any of our freshman QB's any PT. That makes practice snaps even more important. Making the playoffs and winning a game or two would be very beneficial to them because of the number of additional snaps that would give them during the extended season. Unless, of course, we get lucky enough to get a qualified transfer from an FBS program to enroll in time for spring practice. I don't think we can count on that though. I would love to see a blowout win in one of our remaining games but I don't see that happening either.

That ETSU meltdown really comes into play now. ETSU is still undefeated and they have to lose twice for us to win the SoCon. A win vs. ETSU would have put us in the drivers seat instead of ETSU and we could afford one loss. Now we have to run the table. I think we all are nervous about Sammy's passing attack this weekend. We've seen that act before. One game at a time. If we play soft pass coverage it will be a LONG day.

Beating Wofford totally changed my perspective.
I was not thinking things were going to turn out good this year; but ETSU is better than I thought and
Elon is way better than I thought.

So I'm glad to be wrong. LOL!

We scored almost at will against Wofford. Our defense was soft at times, but we held Wofford under their season averages in yards and scoring. I liked all that I saw.

DO NOT EVER COUNT CHICKENS BEFORE ...

Great win!!!! Super

But we still haven’t shown the ability to stop the pass. ETSU w Henrik... WCU come back. Wofford is a different animal. As PaulC and I always say I would rather us play a running team than a passing team...

I say we finish 5-5. (5-4 Vs FCS bc Clemson). I would be happy w that. Especially if we are getting votes near top 25. This may not be popular but it’s my view after watching that BAD pass D the prior weeks. Beat Samford and I change my view. Plus if Kroeber is out our OL just took a hit.

I LOVED yesterday. So happy. Hate Wofford.

Math for us to win out:
V Sammy I’ll say 50% odds to win. They scare me.
AT Citadel I’ll say 70%. Great option D !
V Chatt I’ll give 80%
AT VMI I’ll give 80%
AT Mercer ill say 50%

So you know the odds for us to win every game from here out? 11%. ELEVEN. 89% we DONT win every game from here out. Put Sammy and mercer Both at 60% win chance for us and that moves the bar to about 17 % chance we win out. Playoffs ? That’s a big ask.

Asterisk - Part of the issue lies in the cancelled Colgate game. IF we had won that we could take another loss - probably - as we got in at 7-4 last year. This year we don’t have that luxury. 6-4 in a ten game season? Prob not my gut says. That does stink. Because you have to wonder if playing Colgate and getting extra reps maybe gets us a few more first downs vs ETSU and we win that one too?

I VERY MUCH HOPE TO BE WRONG AND WE WIN OUT. Beat Mercer and I’ll start to really believe

To the point of how hard it is to win several weeks in a row - ask 4 of the top 8 FBS just yesterday (and Clemson didn’t play). UGA. WVA. Washington and Penn State. ALL LOST. It’s a tough game. And Texas and Central Florida escapee. Just ask Wofford how tough it is. - LOL .

(Sidenote. We HAVE to get past these bad. September starts of 1-3. 0-3. That is jut killing us. What’s weird is this year we had 2 extra games of reps in the 2017 playoffs and we still got off to a 0-3 start.. I know Roberts was out but our D was just BAD Vs Elon. Bad- missing tackles etc. anyway. Let’s beat Samford. This will be TOUGH)