The State of Furman Football

[apaladin]

I guess Vegas learned a lesson tonight. We were a 20 point favorite.

[The Jackal]

I guess I'm just not as worried as the rest of you about the "state" of the program. We lost a ton of players off last years team. I do not believe anyone thought we were going to blow out Charleston Southern. They nearly beat us the last time we played them, too.

My guess is the coaches have decided to roll with Hedden. Jones has been given opportunities, and perhaps has not separated himself.

My experience has been that if you play a freshman QB, you are going to have games like this. Some days they will look fantastic. Other days they will look rough. The biggest gap, sometimes, is realizing that ball security is important and they simply cannot make every play against college defenses like they were able to against high school defenses.

Go back and look at the box scores when Darren Grainger was a freshman. It was a roller coaster every week.

From my observations, we made a ton of mistakes yesterday and still could have and probably should have won the game.

- too many turnovers.
- dropped passes
- giving up points before the half
- fumbles
- penalties on scoring plays
- getting a delay of game in a two minute offense coming out of a time out cannot happen.

All of that has got to get cleaned up. We're in for a long season if we play like that.

In my view, we'll get right some against Stetson, who is not very good. We'll have an opportunity to get this taste out of our mouths against William & Mary. Then we'll have nothing but SoCon games. I'd rather look like crap against Charleston Southern in week 2 than turn the ball over four times against a SoCon opponent.

Our goals are still in front of us, but gotta do better than we did yesterday.

[Davemeister]

Burn the black uniforms.
Never play another night game at Paladin Stadium.. the lighting is frankly an embarrassment to the institution.

Yes and yes!

When darkness settled on our fair stadium I could not make out our numerals at all.

At past Night Games we have rented auxiliary lighting. The extra illumination was sorely missing last night.

[The Jackal]

I sort of feel like Ole Miss beat us twice.

All the mistakes we would have made against a competitive opponent in Week 1 we made in Week 2.

[Thorny]

I sort of feel like Ole Miss beat us twice.

All the mistakes we would have made against a competitive opponent in Week 1 we made in Week 2.

We made plenty of mistakes week 1.

I don't know what all of the problems are but right now we are playing fairly sloppy and that is both not expected and on the coaches.

I really thought our coaches would have Furman up to speed. Yes, they have green/inconsistent qbs, a green o-line, a green secondary but Furman has some really good looking athletes if someone could put it all together.

[jesse174]

[*]The end zone camera was horrible and blurry probably due to bad lighting...and seeing Hedden continually throwing to receivers that were covered was concerning..seems like they could script a few throws to the tight end..just simple button hooks that anyone can complete..I would like to see short throws mixed with runs and occasional play action throws...but design the plays in practice so the QB doesn't have to think a lot..

[apaladin]

Burn the black uniforms.
Never play another night game at Paladin Stadium.. the lighting is frankly an embarrassment to the institution.

At past Night Games we have rented auxiliary lighting. The extra illumination was sorely missing last night.

IIRC the only time auxillary lighting was used espn brought it in not FU. Think it was for a playoff game years ago. We went a long time without night games and we have not had any extra lighting the last 3 years. It just looked darker than normal last night.

[Harbinger]

I agree about the cyclical part of any sport but part of the coaching staff job is to look ahead re replacements and development so to a certain extent I have to put it on them.

[FUATT]

Welp. Was at the game. Spent the 3rd Q in the end zone getting that perspective (and some Wicked Weed product) and rest in the stands. Will try to summarize thoughts beyond the obvious, which is if you are -4 in turnover margin you are going to lose a lot of games, even if you outgain the other team.

1. As I said in another thread, the secondary is a major issue. We lost 4 all conference level players and have had two major injuries. We are deeply inexperienced and thin. 6 fried us out to the corner twice for 14 points, just physically beat our guy. Coaches are going to have to find a way to scheme up pressures and other coverages because if we play quarters coverage like that against SoCon teams the wrong side of the scoreboard is going to light up too much.

2. The Offensive Line is a massive work in progress. Again, lack of experience and depth is an issue. I heard Furman thought it was going to run the ball going into this game. Myion looked good at times but generally this was not the rushing effort we expected. 2.7 YPC. Further, we did not protect as well as we need to. Now, some of that is on the 8 car (Hidden) but still, the fact is that we will not get Harris (2) more involved in the offense until we can give the QB time for his routes to develop. And the holding call on Myion's TD was the play of the game. Change that call and we win.

3. The team needs a bona fide starting quarterback and we need to give that player all the 1st team reps and we need to commit to an offensive identity. Right now we are basically platooning and its because 5 has not really "won" the job and 8 is young and a little jumpy and all feast or famine.

It is not up to FUATT but if I had to wager, I think we are about to hand the keys to 8. The fact is, he can do some things and make some throws that we have not seen a Furman QB make in a long time. There were two throws in particular that say to me "he's the guy." First one was near the end of first half and its 3rd and 14 looks like punt and 8 steps up in the pocket around midfield and is about to cross the LOS and then he sees Harris coming across the middle and just fires a flick of the wrist dart for a 30 yard first down. We went on to score on the shovel pass to 1.

The second throw was the long throw to 87 where he's flushed out of the pocket to the right and just fires a laser across his body that was a 64 yard gain. A few plays later he fires a shot to I think Holbrook and then Myion goes in and that was a TD drive too.

ThIs is the kind of stuff that I think the more we play him the more we get. And we are going to need it until the OL comes together and we can run it better.

But... man, we are going to have to endure some "watch him pull the pin on the grenade" moments as he grows into the role. The two fumbles were devastating. They cost us six points, one taking away a chip shot FG for us and one giving them a chip shot. Now, had we not had a holding call on Myron's TD BEFORE that fumble we also probably win the game. But see above 2. OL play.

But we are going to get some WTF moments with Hedden for a bit and we are just going to have to hope for more "DID YOU SEE THAT" moments to outweigh. That's my opinion, its time to go with him, give him the reps, let him work it out vs. Stetson and lets see where we are against W&M.

We are going to have to score a lot to win games. You can throw on Furman and until we either figure out how to get more pressure (hard) or change to a scheme more favorable to personnel (very hard at this point), we got who we got.

This Furman offense is going to look different from the Furman offenses of old because we have a potential cheat code in 8. We are going to throw it. 8, 1, and 2 are the best players on offense and we need to turn them loose. We just need the staff to coach 8 up and eliminate the cringe worthy decisions. If we can do these things, we might be really dangerous by the end of the year.

[The Jackal]

I think we are going to need to assume our secondary is going to struggle at times, but our offense should pick up some slack.

Defense has some lapses but played well enough to win. We can’t cough the ball up over and over on offense and expect to keep things right.

[gofurman]

I guess I'm just not as worried as the rest of you about the "state" of the program. We lost a ton of players off last years team. I do not believe anyone thought we were going to blow out Charleston Southern. They nearly beat us the last time we played them, too.

My guess is the coaches have decided to roll with Hedden. Jones has been given opportunities, and perhaps has not separated himself.

My experience has been that if you play a freshman QB, you are going to have games like this. Some days they will look fantastic. Other days they will look rough. The biggest gap, sometimes, is realizing that ball security is important and they simply cannot make every play against college defenses like they were able to against high school defenses.

Go back and look at the box scores when Darren Grainger was a freshman. It was a roller coaster every week.

From my observations, we made a ton of mistakes yesterday and still could have and probably should have won the game.

- too many turnovers.
- dropped passes
- giving up points before the half
- fumbles
- penalties on scoring plays
- getting a delay of game in a two minute offense coming out of a time out cannot happen.

All of that has got to get cleaned up. We're in for a long season if we play like that.

In my view, we'll get right some against Stetson, who is not very good. We'll have an opportunity to get this taste out of our mouths against William & Mary. Then we'll have nothing but SoCon games. I'd rather look like crap against Charleston Southern in week 2 than turn the ball over four times against a SoCon opponent.

Our goals are still in front of us, but gotta do better than we did yesterday.

Jackal, I like you,... you bring A LOT to this board. But you really really backstep.. A LOT.

Several times over the years you have been called on this. Preseason you will say things like (paraphrase here) "our culture is great under CCH so we will be fine".. or "sure the starters left but the guys who are ready are very talented and have a lot of Snaps - if not starts - and a lot of good game experience". In other words, you imply we are fine. Then we lose and you say "I do not believe anyone thought we were going to blow out Charleston Southern." - which is WRONG. Vegas had half the money on Furman -20 and half on CSU Plus 20. Money talks. And money said we WERE going to blow them out ... also last time we played them in Gville we won by THIRTY THREE. In Charleston we escaped, you are right ... but in Gville we KILLED these guys

[gofurman]

I sort of feel like Ole Miss beat us twice.

All the mistakes we would have made against a competitive opponent in Week 1 we made in Week 2.

Jackal, I totally Agree. I brought this up a week ago. I mentioned this Prior to CSU. That I thought CSU had a better schedule because we couldn't work on things at 70+ - 0. You can't work on SPEED etc. If we play South Carolina or whomever.. maybe we lost 45-14 but there are items to WORK ON. Like last year. At 76-0 I don't know that we learn or can improve. It's like playing an NFL team. You can tell our guy to block a little differently but when the swim move puts us on our butt what do we really learn?

If we coulda played Stetson then CSU then Ole Miss then William and Mary maybe we beat CSU because we learn vs Stetson in some ways even in a win.

[gofurman]

Welp. Was at the game. Spent the 3rd Q in the end zone getting that perspective (and some Wicked Weed product) and rest in the stands. Will try to summarize thoughts beyond the obvious, which is if you are -4 in turnover margin you are going to lose a lot of games, even if you outgain the other team.

1. As I said in another thread, the secondary is a major issue. We lost 4 all conference level players and have had two major injuries. We are deeply inexperienced and thin. 6 fried us out to the corner twice for 14 points, just physically beat our guy. Coaches are going to have to find a way to scheme up pressures and other coverages because if we play quarters coverage like that against SoCon teams the wrong side of the scoreboard is going to light up too much.

2. The Offensive Line is a massive work in progress. Again, lack of experience and depth is an issue. I heard Furman thought it was going to run the ball going into this game. Myion looked good at times but generally this was not the rushing effort we expected. 2.7 YPC. Further, we did not protect as well as we need to. Now, some of that is on the 8 car (Hidden) but still, the fact is that we will not get Harris (2) more involved in the offense until we can give the QB time for his routes to develop. And the holding call on Myion's TD was the play of the game. Change that call and we win.

3. The team needs a bona fide starting quarterback and we need to give that player all the 1st team reps and we need to commit to an offensive identity. Right now we are basically platooning and its because 5 has not really "won" the job and 8 is young and a little jumpy and all feast or famine.

It is not up to FUATT but if I had to wager, I think we are about to hand the keys to 8. The fact is, he can do some things and make some throws that we have not seen a Furman QB make in a long time. There were two throws in particular that say to me "he's the guy." First one was near the end of first half and its 3rd and 14 looks like punt and 8 steps up in the pocket around midfield and is about to cross the LOS and then he sees Harris coming across the middle and just fires a flick of the wrist dart for a 30 yard first down. We went on to score on the shovel pass to 1.

The second throw was the long throw to 87 where he's flushed out of the pocket to the right and just fires a laser across his body that was a 64 yard gain. A few plays later he fires a shot to I think Holbrook and then Myion goes in and that was a TD drive too.

ThIs is the kind of stuff that I think the more we play him the more we get. And we are going to need it until the OL comes together and we can run it better.

But... man, we are going to have to endure some "watch him pull the pin on the grenade" moments as he grows into the role. The two fumbles were devastating. They cost us six points, one taking away a chip shot FG for us and one giving them a chip shot. Now, had we not had a holding call on Myron's TD BEFORE that fumble we also probably win the game. But see above 2. OL play.

But we are going to get some WTF moments with Hedden for a bit and we are just going to have to hope for more "DID YOU SEE THAT" moments to outweigh. That's my opinion, its time to go with him, give him the reps, let him work it out vs. Stetson and lets see where we are against W&M.

We are going to have to score a lot to win games. You can throw on Furman and until we either figure out how to get more pressure (hard) or change to a scheme more favorable to personnel (very hard at this point), we got who we got.

This Furman offense is going to look different from the Furman offenses of old because we have a potential cheat code in 8. We are going to throw it. 8, 1, and 2 are the best players on offense and we need to turn them loose. We just need the staff to coach 8 up and eliminate the cringe worthy decisions. If we can do these things, we might be really dangerous by the end of the year.

I was told TWICE our new DBs were great and that we weren't thin back there. I honestly hate that I look to be correct. But - just factual, in FCS with roughly 60 scholarships - to lose ALL FOUR Starters in the DB area (very rare, usually you keep one or two) and two possible next guys go down for the year... WOW. That's DEVASTATING - and not what I want. Especially the injuries. Hate that for those young men. So , in a way, we are on our next 6 guys but with 2 injuries we are really on guys 3-6 with 1 and 2 out for the year. IE, should have had 6 options. 2 down for year. so... CBs are now FR, FR, SO, SO. sheesh. That's unreal youth in a dangerous position. And it cost us that game along with other items.

The thing is the DBs will be YOUNG and inexperienced all year. Hopefully, they are better by years end

[gofurman]

I think we are going to need to assume our secondary is going to struggle at times, but our offense should pick up some slack.

Defense has some lapses but played well enough to win. We can’t cough the ball up over and over on offense and expect to keep things right.

Jackal, completely agree here. Our D is good with a backfield weakness for sure... but decent. Still too early to know as CSU isn't exactly a killer on OL.

The OFFENSE HAS TO IMPROVE or we are in for a long year.

[The Jackal]

I guess I'm just not as worried as the rest of you about the "state" of the program. We lost a ton of players off last years team. I do not believe anyone thought we were going to blow out Charleston Southern. They nearly beat us the last time we played them, too.

My guess is the coaches have decided to roll with Hedden. Jones has been given opportunities, and perhaps has not separated himself.

My experience has been that if you play a freshman QB, you are going to have games like this. Some days they will look fantastic. Other days they will look rough. The biggest gap, sometimes, is realizing that ball security is important and they simply cannot make every play against college defenses like they were able to against high school defenses.

Go back and look at the box scores when Darren Grainger was a freshman. It was a roller coaster every week.

From my observations, we made a ton of mistakes yesterday and still could have and probably should have won the game.

- too many turnovers.
- dropped passes
- giving up points before the half
- fumbles
- penalties on scoring plays
- getting a delay of game in a two minute offense coming out of a time out cannot happen.

All of that has got to get cleaned up. We're in for a long season if we play like that.

In my view, we'll get right some against Stetson, who is not very good. We'll have an opportunity to get this taste out of our mouths against William & Mary. Then we'll have nothing but SoCon games. I'd rather look like crap against Charleston Southern in week 2 than turn the ball over four times against a SoCon opponent.

Our goals are still in front of us, but gotta do better than we did yesterday.

Jackal, I like you,... you bring A LOT to this board. But you really really backstep.. A LOT.

Several times over the years you have been called on this. Preseason you will say things like (paraphrase here) "our culture is great under CCH so we will be fine".. or "sure the starters left but the guys who are ready are very talented and have a lot of Snaps - if not starts - and a lot of good game experience". In other words, you imply we are fine. Then we lose and you say "I do not believe anyone thought we were going to blow out Charleston Southern." - which is WRONG. Vegas had half the money on Furman -20 and half on CSU Plus 20. Money talks. And money said we WERE going to blow them out ... also last time we played them in Gville we won by THIRTY THREE. In Charleston we escaped, you are right ... but in Gville we KILLED these guys

I have never, and will never, much care what Vegas thinks. "It" was wrong. If you want to make your opinions on Furman football based on Vegas, feel free. I don't.

Nothing that I am saying is inconsistent with what I have said in the past. The reality is that I have a different opinion about things than you do. You are entitled to take whatever view you want.

Last years' team - with all its stars and veterans - lost to arguably the worst team on the schedule. Bad games happen. What matters is what you do to fix the problem. I personally have a lot of faith in the coaching staff, and base that opinion over the past 7 years of evidence that they are good coaches and recruit quality players.