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, currently averaging 91.7 YPG rushing, 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.

[The Jackal]

It's still my opinion that it is not that we lack talent or capability either at RB or OL.

Coach Roper wants to run an Oregon-esque outside zone scheme. Our roster is currently primarily backs recruited to play in the pre-Roper two back power scheme under George Quarles.

Recruiting-wise, Furman did not take a RB in the 2023 class. Jayquan Smith, arguably our best back, has been injured all season and was already a signee when Roper was hired. The only RB we've really got no on the roster recruited during Roper's tenure is Gavin Hall. You can see, though, with recent signees and walkons that Furman is moving away from the big beefy backs and towards the slighter-built runners of that outside zone scheme.

From my observations, Furman has changed their play calling to accommodate this. With Robinson and Hicks, we see them calling more inside power-type stuff. With Hall, we see more of the outside zone stuff. On third down, we typically see Hicks and Robinson as I suspect the coaches are not yet comfortable with Hall's pass protection.

It's also important to remember, we also had a QB last season that rushed for nearly 700 yards, lost virtually all the offensive line, lost most running back production, and arguably our top RB hasn't played all season. Hedden and Jones both have negative rushing yardage on their ledger this season. The run threat just isn't there like it was last year from that position.

Again, not to say any of these guys lack talent. It just seems to me we are in a transition period and are going to have to figure out what it looks like to establish a run game without Huff's legs as a constant threat. Next season, we'll return a lot of linemen, we'll return a lot of backs, we'll see how Jayquan Smith returns off injury, and we'll have another recruiting class to fit Roper's scheme.

[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.

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

Totally Fair.

Ok, if you look back at OL, a clear issue that really caused a lot of problems was the R-FR Center. Not a question of effort, but he was just not ready to go. C is a difficult position. You have to make calls, you have to snap, and then you have to block the nose or pick up a blitz and it is hard. And the dude was just not ready and the backup was not ready so we had to move Petit in and he was not trained to snap. So that was that.

This line was going to regress. We had 5 guys who were basically 5th year Seniors in there. We had an NFL level player in Johanning at one G. Next to Johanning we had Norman who was 6-7 342 so even if he was wrong on a play he was long and physical enough to make it right. Both guys who played C graduated. We had a Grad student and RS Sr on the other side. Only three guys on the two deep from last year (Lamb, Brasher, Hundley) are in the lineup this year. C was not one of those spots. Oh, and we had all 6-7 260 of Pline in there blocking at TE when we needed that.

One other thing... We rolled a lot of the year with two 5th year RB. They really understood the blocking schemes, pass protection, routes etc. and they got what you could get every time when they were in there.

So, while I think it is totally fair to point out that we did not run it like we wanted to, its totally fair also to point out that given the experience and talent level we lost both on the OL and at RB, it was reasonable to expect at least some regression. Maybe not as much as we have seen, but some.

BTW... man you go back and look at the Montana game depth chart and the number of players listed at R-SR or Grad. is just astounding. On Offense, the only non Jrs on the depth are Hinton, Ferguson, Ethan Harris, Chappel and Jones, Brasher and Lamb. Only one started, Ferguson.

On D... NO Fr or So across DL, Maier at BAN (out for season), and Moson (lost for year at Citadel) and Williams in secondary.

To think we are basically about three plays away from being 6-4 and 4-2 in the conference is hard. So close to being at least "good." This team got NO BREAKS this year. I think it's going to make them hungry. I'd be afraid of us next year.

[FUATT]

It's still my opinion that it is not that we lack talent or capability either at RB or OL.

Coach Roper wants to run an Oregon-esque outside zone scheme. Our roster is currently primarily backs recruited to play in the pre-Roper two back power scheme under George Quarles.

Recruiting-wise, Furman did not take a RB in the 2023 class. Jayquan Smith, arguably our best back, has been injured all season and was already a signee when Roper was hired. The only RB we've really got no on the roster recruited during Roper's tenure is Gavin Hall. You can see, though, with recent signees and walkons that Furman is moving away from the big beefy backs and towards the slighter-built runners of that outside zone scheme.

From my observations, Furman has changed their play calling to accommodate this. With Robinson and Hicks, we see them calling more inside power-type stuff. With Hall, we see more of the outside zone stuff. On third down, we typically see Hicks and Robinson as I suspect the coaches are not yet comfortable with Hall's pass protection.

It's also important to remember, we also had a QB last season that rushed for nearly 700 yards, lost virtually all the offensive line, lost most running back production, and arguably our top RB hasn't played all season. Hedden and Jones both have negative rushing yardage on their ledger this season. The run threat just isn't there like it was last year from that position.

Again, not to say any of these guys lack talent. It just seems to me we are in a transition period and are going to have to figure out what it looks like to establish a run game without Huff's legs as a constant threat. Next season, we'll return a lot of linemen, we'll return a lot of backs, we'll see how Jayquan Smith returns off injury, and we'll have another recruiting class to fit Roper's scheme.

I agree with pretty much every word of this and the only thing I can add to make it smarter is think the staff is excited about the addition of the Nettles kid from Pensacola because he will fit really well into a lot of the stuff in Roper's bag.

[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

Totally Fair.

Ok, if you look back at OL, a clear issue that really caused a lot of problems was the R-FR Center. Not a question of effort, but he was just not ready to go. C is a difficult position. You have to make calls, you have to snap, and then you have to block the nose or pick up a blitz and it is hard. And the dude was just not ready and the backup was not ready so we had to move Petit in and he was not trained to snap. So that was that.

This line was going to regress. We had 5 guys who were basically 5th year Seniors in there. We had an NFL level player in Johanning at one G. Next to Johanning we had Norman who was 6-7 342 so even if he was wrong on a play he was long and physical enough to make it right. Both guys who played C graduated. We had a Grad student and RS Sr on the other side. Only three guys on the two deep from last year (Lamb, Brasher, Hundley) are in the lineup this year. C was not one of those spots. Oh, and we had all 6-7 260 of Pline in there blocking at TE when we needed that.

One other thing... We rolled a lot of the year with two 5th year RB. They really understood the blocking schemes, pass protection, routes etc. and they got what you could get every time when they were in there.

So, while I think it is totally fair to point out that we did not run it like we wanted to, its totally fair also to point out that given the experience and talent level we lost both on the OL and at RB, it was reasonable to expect at least some regression. Maybe not as much as we have seen, but some.

BTW... man you go back and look at the Montana game depth chart and the number of players listed at R-SR or Grad. is just astounding. On Offense, the only non Jrs on the depth are Hinton, Ferguson, Ethan Harris, Chappel and Jones, Brasher and Lamb. Only one started, Ferguson.

On D... NO Fr or So across DL, Maier at BAN (out for season), and Moson (lost for year at Citadel) and Williams in secondary.

To think we are basically about three plays away from being 6-4 and 4-2 in the conference is hard. So close to being at least "good." This team got NO BREAKS this year. I think it's going to make them hungry. I'd be afraid of us next year.

FUATT, Thank You (!!!) for being objective and fair !!! - Right... that's why I do get a little frustrated when people say pre-season (I mean these were all KNOWN things of how old we were last year - guys like Huff, Johanning, Blackshear, Pline, Stanfield ) "we will win 9 games this year". I get it, they are fans. And I can understand the early optimism. I can live with the 9 game win prediction... What gets me is later when we lose more, the SAME people say - "well, sure, what did you expect?"... um, you said "I expected to win 9 games". It's like some people only play in the world of reality in November. Oh well.

I get the injuries. That changed some of it. But we were never going to win 8+ Games. Just too young on OL / QB etc. and we knew of 2 of the DB injuries pre-season.

I allow that some didn't know that Fred Turner was gone. I think we might have won one or two more if we had had him. that dude was huge ! literally

appreciate your objective look at the OL.

and for objectivity - think of it this way... Just remove Huff and Roberto and we couldn't beat a bad Wofford last year (and that PAINS me to no end).

My hope for next year is a winning season and a good OL !!! GoFurman !! oh, and BEAT WOFFORD !!!!!!!

[apaladin]

FUBeAR- I should have said a scholarship FU football team. That ‘68 team was one of the “Football For Fun Bunch” non-scholarship teams. Don’t see how getting your butt licked every week could have been much fun. I am sure those FFFB teams in the late ‘60’s hold most if not all FU lows.

[FUBeAR]

Don’t see how getting your butt licked every week could have been much fun.

Welp. It’s been fun, but now that this is an adult site, FUBeAR is going to have to sign off. Hope Stumpy carries all of the requisite insurances & safeguards to operate an adult entertainment business.

[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.

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

Totally Fair.

Ok, if you look back at OL, a clear issue that really caused a lot of problems was the R-FR Center. Not a question of effort, but he was just not ready to go. C is a difficult position. You have to make calls, you have to snap, and then you have to block the nose or pick up a blitz and it is hard. And the dude was just not ready and the backup was not ready so we had to move Petit in and he was not trained to snap. So that was that.

This line was going to regress. We had 5 guys who were basically 5th year Seniors in there. We had an NFL level player in Johanning at one G. Next to Johanning we had Norman who was 6-7 342 so even if he was wrong on a play he was long and physical enough to make it right. Both guys who played C graduated. We had a Grad student and RS Sr on the other side. Only three guys on the two deep from last year (Lamb, Brasher, Hundley) are in the lineup this year. C was not one of those spots. Oh, and we had all 6-7 260 of Pline in there blocking at TE when we needed that.

One other thing... We rolled a lot of the year with two 5th year RB. They really understood the blocking schemes, pass protection, routes etc. and they got what you could get every time when they were in there.

So, while I think it is totally fair to point out that we did not run it like we wanted to, its totally fair also to point out that given the experience and talent level we lost both on the OL and at RB, it was reasonable to expect at least some regression. Maybe not as much as we have seen, but some.

BTW... man you go back and look at the Montana game depth chart and the number of players listed at R-SR or Grad. is just astounding. On Offense, the only non Jrs on the depth are Hinton, Ferguson, Ethan Harris, Chappel and Jones, Brasher and Lamb. Only one started, Ferguson.

On D... NO Fr or So across DL, Maier at BAN (out for season), and Moson (lost for year at Citadel) and Williams in secondary.

To think we are basically about three plays away from being 6-4 and 4-2 in the conference is hard. So close to being at least "good." This team got NO BREAKS this year. I think it's going to make them hungry. I'd be afraid of us next year.

FUATT, Thank You (!!!) for being objective and fair !!! - Right... that's why I do get a little frustrated when people say pre-season (I mean these were all KNOWN things of how old we were last year - guys like Huff, Johanning, Blackshear, Pline, Stanfield ) "we will win 9 games this year". I get it, they are fans. And I can understand the early optimism. I can live with the 9 game win prediction... What gets me is later when we lose more, the SAME people say - "well, sure, what did you expect?"... um, you said "I expected to win 9 games". It's like some people only play in the world of reality in November. Oh well.

I get the injuries. That changed some of it. But we were never going to win 8+ Games. Just too young on OL / QB etc. and we knew of 2 of the DB injuries pre-season.

I allow that some didn't know that Fred Turner was gone. I think we might have won one or two more if we had had him. that dude was huge ! literally

appreciate your objective look at the OL.

and for objectivity - think of it this way... Just remove Huff and Roberto and we couldn't beat a bad Wofford last year (and that PAINS me to no end).

My hope for next year is a winning season and a good OL !!! GoFurman !! oh, and BEAT WOFFORD !!!!!!!

Well, in FAIRness.... I kind of thought we would be good.

I presumed this was probably not a SoCon title team. I kind of felt like this was a 6-7 win team. What went wrong?

1. Massive amounts of injuries, particularly in the defensive backfield but really across the D through the season, and out best RB and the good transfer TE out. Then add Harris to that which changes the receiving corps. And Stanfield.

2. Slow pace of QB development. We ended up with a guy (Jones) who wouldn't lose a game, but pretty much couldn't win one, and a guy (Hedded) who was capable of losing or winning a game with his talent and decisions. Hedden arguably won us the Citadel and ETSU games (but DEFENSE) and probably lost us the VMI and ChsSo games. If we had been consistently better back there with fewer soul stealing turnovers, our record is better.

3. OL issues, which we have charted well in other parts of this and other threads.

I feel like this team has been finding itself all season because we just didn't go into this with the right mix of guys, leadership and sense of what our identity was. I'm not sure that was anyones fault. I hate to use a cliche like "it is what it is" but... it truly is.

[FUwolfpacker]

Since I talked about returning players earlier in the thread I thought I would put this here (since I didn't know the best place for it).

It looks like DB Brayden Holmes is no longer on the roster. Not sure when that happened but he was on there earlier in the season.