Spring Football Schedule

[FurmAlum]

Watched the replay of that Nov. 2004 victory of Ga. Southern. Wow! There was a lot to like about that game.

Great Paladin comeback over #2 ranked team
17,000+ fans in stands
Swagger of FU. They would hit you too!
Students didn't leave
Great players, Newton, Martin, Ravenel, West, Bratton, Felton, Freeman, Thacker, Stewart, etc. I'm sure I forgot somebody.
No "and this play is under further review" crap
Natural grass

By 2007 we were no longer competitive. How did that happen?

[Affirm]

Watched the replay of that Nov. 2004 victory of Ga. Southern. Wow! There was a lot to like about that game.

Great Paladin comeback over #2 ranked team
17,000+ fans in stands
Swagger of FU. They would hit you too!
Students didn't leave
Great players, Newton, Martin, Ravenel, West, Bratton, Felton, Freeman, Thacker, Stewart, etc. I'm sure I forgot somebody.
No "and this play is under further review" crap
Natural grass

By 2007 we were no longer competitive. How did that happen?

That is an excellent question and has been for much of the last 15 years! I would like to see a thorough study, analysis, & report on what actually happened about 2005 & 2006, or whenever, to bring about mediocrity. How is it that we were so competitive and then we were not? I am, nevertheless, grateful for all the good things about Furman football, even from those years to the present. There have been good things, and there certainly are now. We just need to keep building on what we have at present; or else, we have to decide to be OK with whatever. Hopefully it will be the former.

[apaladin]

Watched the replay of that Nov. 2004 victory of Ga. Southern. Wow! There was a lot to like about that game.

Great Paladin comeback over #2 ranked team
17,000+ fans in stands
Swagger of FU. They would hit you too!
Students didn't leave
Great players, Newton, Martin, Ravenel, West, Bratton, Felton, Freeman, Thacker, Stewart, etc. I'm sure I forgot somebody.
No "and this play is under further review" crap
Natural grass

By 2007 we were no longer competitive. How did that happen?

That is an excellent question and has been for much of the last 15 years! I would like to see a thorough study, analysis, & report on what actually happened about 2005 & 2006, or whenever, to bring about mediocrity. How is it that we were so competitive and then we were not? I am, nevertheless, grateful for all the good things about Furman football, even from those years to the present. There have been good things, and there certainly are now. We just need to keep building on what we have at present; or else, we have to decide to be OK with whatever. Hopefully it will be the former.

2005 could have been our best team, Ingle Martins senior year. Was probably the best team in the country. 2006 was the start of the downfall even though we lost to UNC in a shoot out and made the playoffs but had to play in zero degree weather in North Dakota. After that we were still competitive but just not good. We didn’t become non competitive until the BF years when we started suffering total beat downs the likes I’ve never seen before at least not since the 60’s..

[Davemeister]

Two of the reasons for decline:

1) The 2004-2005 teams had a lot of talented players. The student athletes who took their place were not as good.

2) I think it was about 2007 that Bobby Lamb's most capable assistant coach, Clay Hendrix, decided to Go West.

Other factors were involved, I' m sure. These were a couple that came to mind.

[Affirm]

The study I would like to see would also look at additional issues such as:
1. Exit of Lamb himself, rather than who specifically replaced him. Did Lamb’s departure, and thus no longer having him, cause the drop-off? Did Lamb himself cause the drop-off due to things he did or did not do?
2. Arrival of programs at GA State and Charlotte
3. Rise of Coastal and Wofford
4. Departure of Davidson
5. Possibly deaths of long-time big financial supporters
6. National economy problems around 2008 which could have possibly hurt Furman more than other schools due to our small size
7. What year did our academic calendar change from 3-2-3, and did that have any negative effects?
8. “Job performance” and “philosophy” of our Board, President, and AD
9. Numerous new Division 1-A (& other names for that designation) programs
10. Div. 1-A Realignments
11. Too many TV games by big schools
12. Cost to attend Furman
ETC.
ETC.
ETC.
Not saying it’s any one or any combination of the above or other matters; but am just wondering.
I’d like to know truthfully what the causes were.
????

[The Jackal]

There can be a lot of debate on this.

Personally, I think Furman just didn't stay with the times. The administration was comfortable doing what had always been done and expected it to keep working.

For a long time, Furman was in a class to itself. During that period of time, a lot of peer schools got their acts together, upgraded facilities, and closed the gap quickly. Furman didn't realize it was behind until it was too late.

On the field, I think we had some iffy coaching hires and a lot of misses in recruiting. At our level, there's just not enough scholarships available to whiff on key positions. We had a few years where we missed on much of the recruiting class or several years of missing on players at certain positions.

[Furmanoid]

I wondered what was going on with recruiting at that time. North Augusta was beating everybody by 30 then, and Furman never even came around to visit. The coach said that a few years before when he was at South Aiken with no talent at all, Furman came by all the time. South Aiken is a country club area while North Augusta has a more, shall we say, urban group of kids.

[AstroDin]

^^^^
All you have to do is look down 85 about 30 miles. We started losing battles we always won to Wofford on several players.

Elon also increased support for their athletics programs - facilities, coaching, etc…

Furman put the program in neutral and made the wise decision to put increased admission standards on athletics (especially football under a certain FU Prez).

One more thing - Furman started losing its identity in the last years of BL. Our offense resembled at times a Madden video game playbook. And Jackal spoke to this we whiffed on too many players. The Dins had a lot of issues after CH left with offense line personnel and play, Fowler IMO tried to fix it.

[Furmanoid]

Why was it wise to put increased admissions standards on athletes? It appears to me that they are now higher for athletes than for non athletes. Athletes have an SAT requirement higher than the NCAA minimum. Non athletes don’t even have to take it. Were a bunch of players flunking out or something? That would be the only reason to raise the standards.

[JohnW]

Didn't see this mentioned in what I admit was a quick scan of the previous posts, but my recollection is BL changed his recruiting philosophy to speed as a top priority for defense over everything in response to what App St was doing. As a result we ended up with a very undersized unit, especially LBs. The offense changed too, but I think that was more about utilizing Jordan Sorrells, so personnel, than philosophy. In retrospect Hendrix leaving was a big deal too. OL lost some toughness. Lot of memories of not making third and short during the decline.

[AstroDin]

Why was it wise to put increased admissions standards on athletes? It appears to me that they are now higher for athletes than for non athletes. Athletes have an SAT requirement higher than the NCAA minimum. Non athletes don’t even have to take it. Were a bunch of players flunking out or something? That would be the only reason to raise the standards.

one more thing to add… this has been mentioned in the past concerning recruiting. Due to admission standards, there have been several instances through the years where - let's say Wofford can get a player on campus for a visit and an offer and Furman is still waiting for admissions to give an "approval to recruit." I'm simplifying this a bit and at the same time generalizing a bit for a few reasons.

[The Jackal]

Didn't see this mentioned in what I admit was a quick scan of the previous posts, but my recollection is BL changed his recruiting philosophy to speed as a top priority for defense over everything in response to what App St was doing. As a result we ended up with a very undersized unit, especially LBs. The offense changed too, but I think that was more about utilizing Jordan Sorrells, so personnel, than philosophy. In retrospect Hendrix leaving was a big deal too. OL lost some toughness. Lot of memories of not making third and short during the decline.

I was going to mention both.

The stated reason for moving to a 4-2-5 was to get more speed on the field to combat App State's spread attack. As a fundamental matter, I really hate that we changed what we did to accommodate App State instead of forcing App State to change what they did to accommodate us.

At bottom, we lost a lot of the hallmarks of our traditional defense. We lost our identity.

I also think we lost our offensive identity.

Under Lamb, we ran the ball a lot less. None of Lamb's teams were top 10 all time in rush average, despite having a few all-time great teams and a stable of very good backs.

Under Lamb, we set a bunch of program records for passing. We weren't necessarily great throwing the ball, but we sure did it a lot. 6 of Furman's top 10 all time passing attempt seasons came with Lamb as head coach. 3 of the remaining 4 came with Sorrells as OC under Fowler.

Hendrix has put in some slightly different systems on offense and defense. What can be said, though, is Furman has an identity again.

[gofurman]

Why was it wise to put increased admissions standards on athletes? It appears to me that they are now higher for athletes than for non athletes. Athletes have an SAT requirement higher than the NCAA minimum. Non athletes don’t even have to take it. Were a bunch of players flunking out or something? That would be the only reason to raise the standards.

I am not sure anyone answered this.. Why was it wise to increase admission for athletes?

see posts 32776 and 32777 above

[curiousfan]

Why was it wise to put increased admissions standards on athletes? It appears to me that they are now higher for athletes than for non athletes. Athletes have an SAT requirement higher than the NCAA minimum. Non athletes don’t even have to take it. Were a bunch of players flunking out or something? That would be the only reason to raise the standards.

one more thing to add… this has been mentioned in the past concerning recruiting. Due to admission standards, there have been several instances through the years where - let's say Wofford can get a player on campus for a visit and an offer and Furman is still waiting for admissions to give an "approval to recruit." I'm simplifying this a bit and at the same time generalizing a bit for a few reasons.

This is definitely a competitive advantage...I know a couple of players that experienced this exact scenario...one ultimately ended up at Furman....the other at Wofford!

[AstroDin]

CuriousFan - I think I know what you're talking about…

COncerning recruiting - some of the issues we're talking about are moot now. CCH and staff are clearly recruiting high-academic players most of the 12 commits of 2021 have multiple Ivy and Patriot offers.