Chattanooga Times Free Press

Is Furman mounting another charge to the playoffs?

- BY GENE HENLEY STAFF WRITER

It was just a season ago that a Furman team with an 0-3 record and a disappoint­ing early-season Southern Conference loss reeled off seven consecutiv­e wins to qualify for the Football Championsh­ip Subdivisio­n playoffs.

The same thing could be happening again.

After back-to-back wins over Western Carolina (44-38) and Wofford (34-14), the Paladins stand at 2-3 and 2-1 in the SoCon. Their league loss was a two-point defeat at first-place East Tennessee State, a game in which the Paladins lost a 27-6 lead.

Before that were losses at Clemson (487) and at Elon (45-7) when they were trying to figure out the quarterbac­k situation as well as a struggling defense.

But after piling up 477 yards against WCU for its first win of the season on Sept. 29, Furman held Wofford’s nation-best rushing attack to 241 yards. In addition, quarterbac­k Harris Roberts, who missed the Elon game due to injury, has settled in as the team’s top signal-caller. He had 235 yards on 16-of-19 passing with three touchdowns in the win over Wofford and was named the SoCon offensive player of the week.

“Hats off to our (coaching) staff. They just did an unbelievab­le job prepping our kids for this. We had a tough bye week and went at it pretty hard,” Furman coach Clay Hendrix said. “The kids prepared well and gave themselves a chance to go play well. I’m pretty pleased with their execution.

“Other than a couple of plays where we popped an assignment and allowed long runs, I don’t know if we could’ve gotten after them much better on defense.”

The wins keep the Paladins’ playoff hopes alive, but it will take — much like last season — a lot of winning. Furman had a Sept. 15 home date against 17th-ranked Colgate (6-0) canceled due to Hurricane Florence. It was a matchup the Paladins won 45-14 last season in Hamilton, New York, starting the run to the playoffs, but because of this season’s cancellati­on it will take another seven-game streak to qualify, as it would potentiall­y mean the SoCon regular-season championsh­ip and automatic bid.

For that to happen, the Paladins would need 21st-ranked ETSU (6-1, 4-0) to lose two games in league play. The Buccaneers travel to 12th-ranked Wofford this week.

It hasn’t been the best of seasons for the league in terms of nonconfere­nce wins, with the best probably being the University of Tennessee at Chattanoog­a’s 34-24 victory at the Ohio Valley Conference’s UT-Martin on Sept. 15. In total, the league has six nonconfere­nce wins over FCS teams. The Mocs also have a win over winless Tennessee Tech of the OVC. ETSU, Western Carolina and Wofford have beat one-win Gardner-Webb of the Big South, and Mercer defeated nonscholar­ship program Jacksonvil­le 45-3 on Sept. 10.

ETSU and Western Carolina also have wins over NCAA Division II programs — the Bucs over Mars Hill and the Catamounts over Newberry.

So while the league’s national respect might be enough to get three teams into the playoffs — which is the latest projection by the national FCS STATS (media) bracket — it will take a lot of help for that to happen.

Which is why the Paladins are hoping they can recreate last season’s run: If the playoffs are their goal, they may not have a choice.

Players of the week

In addition to Roberts, ETSU defensive back Tyree Robinson and kicker J.J. Jerman were named players of the week by the league office.

Robinson intercepte­d a pair of passes, including one for a touchdown, in the Bucs’ 26-23 win over The Citadel. He also had eight tackles — seven solo — and was named the STATS FCS national defensive player of the week. Jerman was 4-for-4 on field-goal tries and made both of his extrapoint kicks in the win.

Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@ timesfreep­ress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley­3.

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