FURMAN FOOTBALL WEEKLY: ETSU

[Davemeister]

[FUwolfpacker]

Some interesting stuff on returning players.

Clay confirmed the Ian Williams news about telling them he plans to come back for a 6th year. Said all 4 TEs are expected to be back which I assume includes Burrell. Also said they're going to have to try to get a waiver for Stephens so it's possible he could be back. Said they expect 8-10 lineman to be back which makes me think either a few guys are moving on or there might be a couple of younger guys transferring out. By my count we have at least 12 scholarship OLs on the roster with 3 more potentially coming in. So maybe 2-4 guys moving on, or maybe coach was just guessing. Also said he expected all of our WRs to come back.

I had somehow not realized that Stoneking was out for the year as of a few weeks ago. The number of season ending injuries on that side of the ball is really staggering. Also mentioned Malaki Dobbins played over 30 snaps against ETSU. Dobbins is a guy who's tape was fairly impressive coming out of high school. He played with a lot of effort like Knauber. Like Astro, I'm generally pretty high on the young guys given how much I follow recruiting, but I feel pretty good about the D-line going forward.

[FUATT]

You look at that and you see some of what is coming into the recruiting class and it's good.

Take the Nettles kid for example. He can add a 3rd down back type capacity to the offense that is maybe stronger than what we have had now.

You look at Hedden in a year two, more mature, year in the weight room, with the same receivers, line with all this experience and snaps, all the TEs and other backs ... we will have the ability to light up the scoreboard.

[FUBeAR]

MD asked a great question about the value of learning from and overcoming adversity and Coach Hendrix provided a solid answer.

FUBeAR has long contended that while winning our 1st SoCon Championship in 1978 was a great accomplishment, the continued success which followed was much more a result of starting 0-5 in 1979.

The Team Meeting following loss #5 @ Wofford was, IFBO, a watershed moment that solidified that which became the culture of Furman Football; a culture that Coach Hendrix began to fully absorb when he became a part of FU Football in 1982 and with which he imbues these current Paladins every day. Those consecutive Championships we strung together in ‘80, ‘81, ‘82, ‘83, and the National Championship game in ‘85, and National Championship in 1988 don’t happen if we don’t start ‘79 winless in our 1st 5 games, IFBO.

This season, whether it ends in 3-8/2-5 or 4-7/3-4, may be exactly what this group of very young Paladins needed to continue the culture that has brought us more than twice as many Conference Championships as any other SoCon Team.

FUBeAR assumes we would all prefer 1 3-8 or 4-7 season that spawns 2 or 3 SoCon Championships than going 6-5, 5-6, 5-6, 6-5 year after year.

Right?

[gofurman]

You look at that and you see some of what is coming into the recruiting class and it's good.

Take the Nettles kid for example. He can add a 3rd down back type capacity to the offense that is maybe stronger than what we have had now.

You look at Hedden in a year two, more mature, year in the weight room, with the same receivers, line with all this experience and snaps, all the TEs and other backs ... we will have the ability to light up the scoreboard.

I’m all in and positive EXCEPT the OL. I’m still in disbelief that we started a R-SR. R-JR. R-JR. R-JR. R-SO OL and yet were so ineffective. That means our ‘average’ OL was a R-JR. AND combine that with a head coach who specializes in OL. I have never seen two games of worse snapping the ball. Never. By ANY team. I haven’t watched the ETSU game. But season long our oldest unit has been our worst. And it’s CCH specialty. That’s like Deion not getting his DBs to play well. Just strange.

I do know our center was a R-FR for a while but ,.. hey, that was the coach’s choice. They have to Own that.

I like the FUATT post but notice there isn’t a mention of OL. I’ll reserve judgement on ability to light up a scoreboard until I see an OL unit that can run block. Otherwise, we will just be a better version of this year’s offense. Which as was said by Jackal or someone , was worse than even the most pessimistic among those here thought. Let’s not jump the gun. Improved skill position play only goes so far without a better OL

[apaladin]

GF-agree the OL somehow has to get better. FU needs 93 yds rushing Saturday to get to 1,000 yds for the season. Without looking it up I doubt FU has ever had a season and not rushed for 1,000+ yds. BTW they did make a change at center in the second half Saturday.

[FUBeAR]

GF-agree the OL somehow has to get better. FU needs 93 yds rushing Saturday to get to 1,000 yds for the season. Without looking it up I doubt FU has ever had a season and not rushed for 1,000+ yds. BTW they did make a change at center in the second half Saturday.

WITH looking it up, the Furman all time record for fewest rushing yards in a season is 796 yards / 79.6 YPG in 1968. That Team finished 1-9 and was 0-4 in the SoCon. This rushing data is per the 2023 Furman Paladins Record Book - https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/sid ... __PDF_.pdf (page 7, right hand column)

Furman has already surpassed the 1968 Furman Team’s total rushing yards by 121 yards; so would need to rush for -122 net yards or fewer against Mercer Saturday to set the all-time record for the fewest rushing yards in a season.

Furman would need to rush for -42 net yards or fewer against Mercer Saturday to set the all-time record for the fewest rushing yards per game.

Mercer is allowing all opponents an average of 68.0 yards per game rushing this season.
Mercer is allowing FCS opponents an average of 55.9 yards per game rushing this season.
Mercer is allowing SoCon opponents an average of 64.3 yards per game rushing this season.

These are strong Rushing Defense Stats, but Furman rushing for -122 net yards or fewer this Saturday or even -42 net rushing yards or fewer against Mercer appears rather unlikely.


There.

That should ‘get it out of your system’ and put your mind to rest, we all hope.



We haven’t run the ball well in 2024. We’ll be better at it in 2025.

13 pages of almost always superior results in the run game in that Furman Paladins Record Book reassure & comfort FUBeAR in that regard. It should comfort all of us.