WCU Game Thread

[AstroDin]

To be honest, Covid(extra year) and the portal(Huff and others) were the main reasons for the success in 2022 and 2023 and the reason that kind of success is not likely to be seen anytime soon.

It's not like Furman had some magical advantage vs. other teams. Furman/the coaching staff just did a better job taking advantage of the opportunities presented, but those same opportunities were available to every team.

Correct me if I am wrong, but Huff was a back-up QB at a struggling non-scholorship team. The fact that he would someday be a SoCon offensive player of the year was, at the very least, not obvious to Furman's fan base. Hendrix obviously saw potential though.

Said struggling non-scholorship team was also being led by a gimmicky coach that many of Furman's fan base thought we missed out on. Does anyone here still feel that way?

Our advantage was we had really good players better than other teams, that wanted to stay.

You're missing the bigger picture: why did they want to stay?
They believed in the program; the loss at ICW left a bad taste in their mouths, and those 4-5-year players stepped up to be leaders.

[Davemeister]

The best-tasting mushrooms rise out of the smelliest manure.

That's encouraging, because there was Vicious Stank emanating from Paladin Stadium the last two games.

[gofurman]

I am having a hard time understanding the “cupboard is bare” situation. Someone explain it to me like I’m a first grader.

According to Hero Sports we had the 2nd ranked recruiting class in 2020:
https://herosports.com/football-2020-r ... ings-ajaj/. There are other such rankings during the CH tenure and to my knowledge Hero Sports is a fairly reputable FCS source. These kids, unless they graduated early, should be seniors or redshirt juniors this year. Where did they all go? Surely attrition isn’t that bad, is it?

2020 Signees:

Julian Ashby - LS - Played extensively for us and transferred to Vandy.
Luke Clark - OLB - Still a dude and currently injured.
Dylan Davis - OL - Transferred to Illinois and now plays for Marshall, I believe.
Evan DiMaggio - ILB - Still a dude.
Kelton Gunn - WR - Mostly ended up a special teams player and graduated, I guess.
Noah Henderson - WR - Transferred in, was a contributor.
Bailor Hughes - WR - Has primarily been a special teams player and bounced from WR to RB.
Blake Hundley - OL - On roster. Has started 11 games at multiple positions.
Jeremiah Jackson - DL - On roster. Multi-year starter
Seth Johnson - DL - Looked promising at NG. I seem to think he reclassified and graduated early.
Ryan Leavy - P - punted for us.
Jack Rhodes - S - Contributed as a backup safety to Hugh Ryan.
Caden Richards - S - Role player type that played a good bit.
Micah Robinson - CB - Transferred to Tulane
Kendall Thomas - RB - Had some injuries, but played at RB a good bit.
EJ Wilson - OL - Has been a rotational OL piece to this point with a number of starts.
Ivan Yates - CB - Transferred to Colorado
Ty Youngblood - ILB - Moved to TE, I think, and never played much

Of that 2020 class, a large portion of the class contributed for us. Most of them have moved on.

If you had to pinpoint something, what's probably hurting us right now is that the two CBs (Yates and Robinson), both of whom started opposite Blackshear, transferred. That's the primary reason our CB group has 1 grad student transfer and a bunch of freshmen.

Sorry I'm just getting to this, but wanted to circle back it to talk about the attrition part. I keep a list of the announced signees and track which ones graduate/transfer/leave early to get and better idea of why we might be thin in some areas in a certain year.

Jackal covered the 2020 class perfectly so I won't rehash that too much. I agree the biggest issues is probably the loss of those 2 CBs, but having guys like Seth Johnson graduate early and having Caden Richards and Jack Rhodes not return certainly hurt our depth. Having those guys would definitely help now with all of those starters lost for the year, but that's just the way it goes for all teams.

Of the 18 guys in that class, only 6 remain. You would certainly expect to see some attrition the older the class so that's not surprising. Of the 12 that are gone, I believe 10 graduated from Furman (even the transfers). After this year, 16 of the 18 should be Furman graduates with Davis and Henderson being the only 2 who wouldn't have a Furman degree. Hard to ask for much more than that in regards to retention. (yes, obviously we wish guys wouldn't transfer)

I my opinion, the class that's hurting us in regards to depth right now is the 2021 class. Of those 15 guys, only 6 remain.

OLB Amaah Achina - would have been a starter the last 2 years, finally a full time starter this year
ILB Tommy Beuglas - not sure he ever made it on campus
OL Alex Cain - not sure he ever made it on campus
TE Jack Healy - not sure he ever made it on campus
WR Joshua Harris - Dismissed
RB Myion Hicks - starter this year
OL Ryan Lamb - starter this year
LB Alex Maier - Injured but was a major contributor behind Clark
CB Dominic Morris - transferred to Colorado State
DE Christian Paraison - not sure he ever made it on campus
OL Luke Petit - injury issues but would have been a starter for multiple years at this point mostly likely
RB Grant Robinson - contributor
DE Bryce Stanfield - passed away
TE Landon Whittemore - transferred to Tennessee Tech
QB Jace Wilson - transferred to Texas Southern

The 2020 guys would be 5th year guys, so I think you would probably expect some of them to be gone anyways. The 2021 class would give us those 4th year guys we are missing at this point. Of the 15, 6 either never made it on campus or were gone very early (Wilson, Whittemore).

Granted, Furman did take 6 transfers in 2022 to make up for some of that but most of those guys are gone now as well (Dean, Huff, Adebayo, Gissinger).

If even half of those guys who are gone were still here, that would be 9-10 more people who would either have been starting or likely providing some experienced depth.

Attrition is normal for all programs. I wouldn't say it was severe for Furman, but I do think it was enough to be hurting us to a degree this year. The losses we have had have been really tough at DB. We are currently missing 5 guys in the secondary from just those 2 classes.

None of that really explains the poor O-line play or the lack of a running game, so it's certainly not the only reason we're playing bad. I certainly don't think the cupboard is bare, but what we do have definitely needs more work in the gym and on the field at this point.

For what it's worth, Beuglas did make it to campus, but quit after the summer.
Helay never made it. Cain was on the team for a year i'm pretty sure.

Good post. Anyone know about 2022 guys ?

Also I agree when you look at the losses the OL still baffles me as the heavy losses were at DB. I see the DB issue. Several transfers. Robinson, Yates, Morris Etc. But OL was fairly standard attrition … so we have who we wanted at OL but man we can’t run or pass pro vs the good teams at all

OL play has been painful to watch. The hardest part has been that we have had no attrition and sill have head shaking on nearly every play. I went back and watched the game. We miss blocks, have bad technique, rarely get to the second level and are playing with the 5 we came into the season with. It was obvious this week that we are searching...seems late, but we are searching...We have 2 R-SR in the mix. 65 (R-SR) at RT that seemed to continuously have communication issues with the RG leaving clean shots to the backfield. 77 (R-FR) got the first multi-series opportunity at RT. Lots of mixing at the G spot with 65 (R-SR),72 (R-FR) and 79 (R-JR). 51 (R-JR) at C showed loopy snaps, poor technique and missed blocks. 72 not at C at all sends a message of also frustrations in execution. 61 (R-SO) has been inserted sporadically and has shown second level movement which you want in a modern era center. 66 (R-SO) has locked down LT.

Since we are building for the future I would lay things out like this: LT - 66 (R-SO), LG - 72 (R-FR) / 51 , C - 61 (R-SO), RG - 79 (R-JR), RT - 51 (R-JR) and 77 (R-FR). Now that we are in the 4 game stretch I would love to see 74 (6'7" FR) get some reps. Let's see what we have going into next year. We have 4 games to make something out of this year. I'd have some frank conversations with with the R-JR's as to who is coming back and who is not. Surely, actually we can't, perform any worse with moving to what we know is coming back next year. Mathematically, it's time.

Wonderful post. Juniors need to let the coaches know. Agree with some of the positional notations. Noticed that our C was not who we started with at the beginning of the year with 72. I watched a little - not as much as you it appears - but agree with your OL possibilities. Decisions need to be made... talks of who is coming back.

This year, at worst was about improvement - and we HAVE NOT SEEN IT. Rather, we have possibly gotten worse