Reasons for Optimism in Fall 2021?

[apaladin]

I still don’t understand the mechanism by which oddities in scheduling would make us play so crappy. How does additional practice/film study time make you worse? How many FU studs opted out or were sidelined with Covid? Blaming our performance on Covid seems like a stretch.

It is a head scratcher and don’t understand it either but I certainly hope Jackal is right thiugh.

[The Jackal]

I still don’t understand the mechanism by which oddities in scheduling would make us play so crappy. How does additional practice/film study time make you worse? How many FU studs opted out or were sidelined with Covid? Blaming our performance on Covid seems like a stretch.

I think you are looking at the problem wrong. This isn't about whether Furman could field a football team in the spring or had players opt out. It's about a completely unique situation.

For one, playing in the spring wasn't "situation normal." Take KC Keeler's thoughts:

“We came back in June thinking we were going to be playing in September and then, all of a sudden, that was not on the table,” Keeler said. “And then we’re kind of getting ready for a spring season but now there’s a lot of questions: Are we going to get to a spring season? Are there going to be spikes? It’s been physically and mentally exhausting going through all those ups and downs from June.”

https://apnews.com/article/college-foot ... 634adb3478

Think about how much time our coaching staff and players had to worry about stuff that wasn't football this past year.

But more practically, we were an 8 win team in 2019 with a freshman QBs. We went into this spring with largely the same team, same coaches, same scheme, same system.

Is it possible our team just decided to completely regress after four years of building momentum? Sure. Is it also possible that the completely unique circumstances of the season had an effect on the team that is difficult to measure? I think that's possible too.

The point is, we don't know. I'm inclined to think that we have a talented roster and a solid coaching staff and will be fine in the fall. A couple of bad games during a completely wacko season where very few FCS teams nationally looked objectively "good" provides a whole lot of evidence.

Again, that's just me.

[Furmanoid]

I can see chalking up the VMI loss to some sort of Covid brain fog. But that should have snapped everybody out of it. These young people aren’t like us. They adapt very quickly. You can completely upend their routines and after about a week of griping they are ok with it. So I just can’t see how imposing new rule on them in August would have them flailing around in February.

I suspect that what happened was that VMI simply showed everybody else how to beat us. The same strategy might have beat us in 2019, but nobody had stumbled onto it.

[DeepPurple]

And 1 scholarship QB did not help........our cause.

[apaladin]

If we have so much talent, maybe the biggest question is did the coaching staff learn from the spring and do they have a plan?

[Jasper]

Although I hope those who are considering the spring season to be a fluke are correct, I cannot see solid reasons for a substantial turnaround.
1. The team got increasingly worse as the season went on. Not a good trend.
2. We appeared totally confused and unprepared on offense. The play calling was atrocious and the play of the QB and the O line was not acceptable. Our game plans are predictable and rigid. We say we are going to run and then do so with little or no deception against defenses that stack the box. Result? - 3rd and long in obvious passing downs with a QB who doesn't throw particularly well to receivers who had a ton of key drops.
3. Plain vanilla offenses require exceptional execution. What evidence is there of that happening? We lost several of our most experienced linemen. We need a new playbook/caller.
4. Ineffective offenses put too much pressure on even good defenses. Short offensive possessions with a bunch of 3 and outs puts tremendous burden on the D as the game wears on.

[The Jackal]

I can see chalking up the VMI loss to some sort of Covid brain fog. But that should have snapped everybody out of it. These young people aren’t like us. They adapt very quickly. You can completely upend their routines and after about a week of griping they are ok with it. So I just can’t see how imposing new rule on them in August would have them flailing around in February.

I suspect that what happened was that VMI simply showed everybody else how to beat us. The same strategy might have beat us in 2019, but nobody had stumbled onto it.

You are assuming that the only issue is just the time of year - that things were exactly the same except for the month on the calendar.

That isn't true. The restrictions, testing, administrative and logistical concerns were completely new and constant. I coach a little league team and just the requirements put on our small youth baseball team was frustrating to parents, fans, coaches, and administrators.

I encourage you to look beyond Furman. Look at the FCS on the whole. Furman didn't look strong, but neither did the vast majority the FCS.

Again, I'm not making excuses for the team's performance. I'm just suggesting that I do not see the spring as a reliable predictor of what we'll see in the fall.

[fupaladin01]

I want badly to think the Spring season was an anomaly. In order to avoid recency bias to the pessimistic conclusion and my own fandom to the foolishly optimistic postulation, I crunched a few numbers.

I figured a Defense needs to hold the opponent to under 20 points to be considered effective, and an Offense should probably avg around 30 pts to secure the win. Here are the last 6 seasons:

Avg Pts scored / OC Avg Pts surrendered / DC Record
2015 17.5 (Sorrells ) 28.9 (Gillenwater) 4 - 7
2016 27.3 (Sorrells) 27.8 (Gillenwater) 3 - 8
2017 32.6 (Cronic) 23.9 (Staggs) 8 - 5
2018 27.2 (Quarles) 28.2 (Staggs) 6 - 4
2019 33.4 (Quarles) 20.5 (Vaughn) 8 - 5
"2020" 21.1 (Quarles) 20.4 (Vaughn) 3 -4

For comparison- here are the 2004 (our best team this century) numbers: O - 34.5 D - 16.6 Rec. - 10 - 3

Logic would dictate that when you avg more pts scored than surrendered, you win a majority of your games. This held true except in 2018 and 2020. The '18 numbers skewed perhaps by a lopsided Clemson loss, but the Spring...?

Observations:
1)Staggs' '17 Defense performed well alongside Cronic's boosted Offensive numbers, but returned to Fowler-era numbers as soon as Cronic left.
2)Quarles 2nd season matched/exceded Offensive points from Cronic's year, then dropped 12 pts in year 3.
3) Staggs' performance regressed to Fowler-era numbers when Cronic left.
4) Duane Vaughn appears to be the most consistent coordinator on either side of the ball in recent years.

I would love to hear people's thoughts on how coaching, QB, depth, etc. relates to these numbers.

[The Jackal]

I want badly to think the Spring season was an anomaly. In order to avoid recency bias to the pessimistic conclusion and my own fandom to the foolishly optimistic postulation, I crunched a few numbers.

I figured a Defense needs to hold the opponent to under 20 points to be considered effective, and an Offense should probably avg around 30 pts to secure the win. Here are the last 6 seasons:

Avg Pts scored / OC Avg Pts surrendered / DC Record
2015 17.5 (Sorrells ) 28.9 (Gillenwater) 4 - 7
2016 27.3 (Sorrells) 27.8 (Gillenwater) 3 - 8
2017 32.6 (Cronic) 23.9 (Staggs) 8 - 5
2018 27.2 (Quarles) 28.2 (Staggs) 6 - 4
2019 33.4 (Quarles) 20.5 (Vaughn) 8 - 5
"2020" 21.1 (Quarles) 20.4 (Vaughn) 3 -4

For comparison- here are the 2004 (our best team this century) numbers: O - 34.5 D - 16.6 Rec. - 10 - 3

Logic would dictate that when you avg more pts scored than surrendered, you win a majority of your games. This held true except in 2018 and 2020. The '18 numbers skewed perhaps by a lopsided Clemson loss, but the Spring...?

Observations:
1)Staggs' '17 Defense performed well alongside Cronic's boosted Offensive numbers, but returned to Fowler-era numbers as soon as Cronic left.
2)Quarles 2nd season matched/exceded Offensive points from Cronic's year, then dropped 12 pts in year 3.
3) Staggs' performance regressed to Fowler-era numbers when Cronic left.
4) Duane Vaughn appears to be the most consistent coordinator on either side of the ball in recent years.

I would love to hear people's thoughts on how coaching, QB, depth, etc. relates to these numbers.

It may not be much more complicated than this -

Cronic inherited a very good senior QB (Blazejowski). Quarles in his first season also was able to give the reigns to a very capable senior QB (Roberts).

The last two seasons we've had to watch younger QBs get experience in real time. I could be overlooking someone, but I can't remember the last time Furman's offense looked objectively good with most of the snaps handled either by a freshman or sophomore QB. Most years, that's been a struggle.

[fupaladin01]

I do think the stats back up your assertion over the last 25 years, BUT the offense was more productive under Freshman QB by committee (Grainger/Sisson) in 2019 than it was under Sr. Harris Roberts in 2018.

[Furmanoid]

If we recruit a really good qb, is he going to wait till junior year to play? We may have get used to playing guys early or they’ll just transfer, won’t they?

[The Jackal]

If we recruit a really good qb, is he going to wait till junior year to play? We may have get used to playing guys early or they’ll just transfer, won’t they?

Hard to say what new transfer rules will do or what impact it will have. Of course, if every player not playing immediately wants to transfer, the net effect is probably that none of them will transfer because the market is saturated with guys looking to move.

Ideally, at least in my opinion, you want a pipeline. Bring a kid in, let him sit a season or two and develop, and then get handed the reigns as a starter as a r-sophomore or junior. Rinse and repeat.

I outlined this in detail a while back, but Furman had a big gap in QB recruits that bridged the Fowler and Hendrix staffs.

That said, I do think we're in a better position now. The 2019 team, for instance, had only 5 QBs on the roster (really 4 considering Shiflett immediately played WR). This fall, the team has 9 QBs on roster. By next fall, we'll have at least 4 scholarship QBs on the roster, which is what it appears the coaching staff would prefer.

[gofurman]

What the defense did the past two years - spring 20especially as they were always on the field !!- is v impressive

[Roundball]

I don’t want my post to start a discussion on the vaccine. That discussion is a waste of time. So lets keep it to how the virus itself might affect the fall football season. I hope to be wrong, but I get less optimistic at each passing day about getting all of our games in this year. Warranted, or not, this Delta variant to going to cause chaos in football again this year. I noticed the SEC is already talking about putting more restrictive protocols in place than were passed a few weeks ago.

[MidlandsPaladin]

I don’t want my post to start a discussion on the vaccine. That discussion is a waste of time. So lets keep it to how the virus itself might affect the fall football season. I hope to be wrong, but I get less optimistic at each passing day about getting all of our games in this year. Warranted, or not, this Delta variant to going to cause chaos in football again this year. I noticed the SEC is already talking about putting more restrictive protocols in place than were passed a few weeks ago.

Simple. Take the NFL approach. A game that has to be cancelled due to a Covid outbreak would be subject to a forfeit by the team which caused it. It would suck if it were us, but it would also prevent the shenanigans that went on in the Spring season.