The State of Furman Football

[Fred Garvin]

CSU loss at home today is even more embarrassing than the 76-0 loss last weekend..

Fortunately Basketball season starts soon...

It's not 2066 yet.....

[gofurman]

I guess I'm just not as worried as the rest of you about the "state" of the program. We lost a ton of players off last years team. I do not believe anyone thought we were going to blow out Charleston Southern. They nearly beat us the last time we played them, too.

My guess is the coaches have decided to roll with Hedden. Jones has been given opportunities, and perhaps has not separated himself.

My experience has been that if you play a freshman QB, you are going to have games like this. Some days they will look fantastic. Other days they will look rough. The biggest gap, sometimes, is realizing that ball security is important and they simply cannot make every play against college defenses like they were able to against high school defenses.

Go back and look at the box scores when Darren Grainger was a freshman. It was a roller coaster every week.

From my observations, we made a ton of mistakes yesterday and still could have and probably should have won the game.

- too many turnovers.
- dropped passes
- giving up points before the half
- fumbles
- penalties on scoring plays
- getting a delay of game in a two minute offense coming out of a time out cannot happen.

All of that has got to get cleaned up. We're in for a long season if we play like that.

In my view, we'll get right some against Stetson, who is not very good. We'll have an opportunity to get this taste out of our mouths against William & Mary. Then we'll have nothing but SoCon games. I'd rather look like crap against Charleston Southern in week 2 than turn the ball over four times against a SoCon opponent.

Our goals are still in front of us, but gotta do better than we did yesterday.

Jackal, I like you,... you bring A LOT to this board. But you really really backstep.. A LOT.

Several times over the years you have been called on this. Preseason you will say things like (paraphrase here) "our culture is great under CCH so we will be fine".. or "sure the starters left but the guys who are ready are very talented and have a lot of Snaps - if not starts - and a lot of good game experience". In other words, you imply we are fine. Then we lose and you say "I do not believe anyone thought we were going to blow out Charleston Southern." - which is WRONG. Vegas had half the money on Furman -20 and half on CSU Plus 20. Money talks. And money said we WERE going to blow them out ... also last time we played them in Gville we won by THIRTY THREE. In Charleston we escaped, you are right ... but in Gville we KILLED these guys

I have never, and will never, much care what Vegas thinks. "It" was wrong. If you want to make your opinions on Furman football based on Vegas, feel free. I don't.

Nothing that I am saying is inconsistent with what I have said in the past. The reality is that I have a different opinion about things than you do. You are entitled to take whatever view you want.

Last years' team - with all its stars and veterans - lost to arguably the worst team on the schedule. Bad games happen. What matters is what you do to fix the problem. I personally have a lot of faith in the coaching staff, and base that opinion over the past 7 years of evidence that they are good coaches and recruit quality players.

Jackal, This is just NOT TRUE. I agree with you CONSTANTLY - and even take the time to point it out... and somehow you don't see it? I am sure you do see it but maybe don't want to? and I really appreciate your explanations too ! Let me find a few examples. Constantly thank you for your explanations

---------------------------------- The real irony here is both of these examples are IN THIS THREAD JUST BACK ONE PAGE ! ---
HERE POST 90298:

I sort of feel like Ole Miss beat us twice.

All the mistakes we would have made against a competitive opponent in Week 1 we made in Week 2.

Jackal, I totally Agree. I brought this up a week ago. I mentioned this Prior to CSU. That I thought CSU had a better schedule because we couldn't work on things at 70+ - 0. You can't work on SPEED etc. If we play South Carolina or whomever.. maybe we lost 45-14 but there are items to WORK ON. Like last year. At 76-0 I don't know that we learn or can improve. It's like playing an NFL team. You can tell our guy to block a little differently but when the swim move puts us on our butt what do we really learn?
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------------------------------POST 90300 - again, IN THIS VERY THREAD back just one page ------------------

I think we are going to need to assume our secondary is going to struggle at times, but our offense should pick up some slack.

Defense has some lapses but played well enough to win. We can’t cough the ball up over and over on offense and expect to keep things right.

Jackal, completely agree here. Our D is good with a backfield weakness for sure... but decent. Still too early to know as CSU isn't exactly a killer on OL.
The OFFENSE HAS TO IMPROVE or we are in for a long year.

[gofurman]

I guess I'm just not as worried as the rest of you about the "state" of the program. We lost a ton of players off last years team. I do not believe anyone thought we were going to blow out Charleston Southern. They nearly beat us the last time we played them, too.

My guess is the coaches have decided to roll with Hedden. Jones has been given opportunities, and perhaps has not separated himself.

My experience has been that if you play a freshman QB, you are going to have games like this. Some days they will look fantastic. Other days they will look rough. The biggest gap, sometimes, is realizing that ball security is important and they simply cannot make every play against college defenses like they were able to against high school defenses.

Go back and look at the box scores when Darren Grainger was a freshman. It was a roller coaster every week.

From my observations, we made a ton of mistakes yesterday and still could have and probably should have won the game.

- too many turnovers.
- dropped passes
- giving up points before the half
- fumbles
- penalties on scoring plays
- getting a delay of game in a two minute offense coming out of a time out cannot happen.

All of that has got to get cleaned up. We're in for a long season if we play like that.

In my view, we'll get right some against Stetson, who is not very good. We'll have an opportunity to get this taste out of our mouths against William & Mary. Then we'll have nothing but SoCon games. I'd rather look like crap against Charleston Southern in week 2 than turn the ball over four times against a SoCon opponent.

Our goals are still in front of us, but gotta do better than we did yesterday.

Jackal, I like you,... you bring A LOT to this board. But you really really backstep.. A LOT.

Several times over the years you have been called on this. Preseason you will say things like (paraphrase here) "our culture is great under CCH so we will be fine".. or "sure the starters left but the guys who are ready are very talented and have a lot of Snaps - if not starts - and a lot of good game experience". In other words, you imply we are fine. Then we lose and you say "I do not believe anyone thought we were going to blow out Charleston Southern." - which is WRONG. Vegas had half the money on Furman -20 and half on CSU Plus 20. Money talks. And money said we WERE going to blow them out ... also last time we played them in Gville we won by THIRTY THREE. In Charleston we escaped, you are right ... but in Gville we KILLED these guys

I have never, and will never, much care what Vegas thinks. "It" was wrong. If you want to make your opinions on Furman football based on Vegas, feel free. I don't.

Nothing that I am saying is inconsistent with what I have said in the past. The reality is that I have a different opinion about things than you do. You are entitled to take whatever view you want.

Last years' team - with all its stars and veterans - lost to arguably the worst team on the schedule. Bad games happen. What matters is what you do to fix the problem. I personally have a lot of faith in the coaching staff, and base that opinion over the past 7 years of evidence that they are good coaches and recruit quality players.

Jackal, This is just NOT TRUE. I agree with you CONSTANTLY - and even take the time to point it out... and somehow you don't see it? I am sure you do see it but maybe don't want to? and I really appreciate your explanations too ! Let me find a few examples. Constantly thank you for your explanations

---------------------------------- The real irony here is both of these examples are IN THIS THREAD JUST BACK ONE PAGE ! ---
HERE POST 90298:

I sort of feel like Ole Miss beat us twice.

All the mistakes we would have made against a competitive opponent in Week 1 we made in Week 2.

Jackal, I totally Agree. I brought this up a week ago. I mentioned this Prior to CSU. That I thought CSU had a better schedule because we couldn't work on things at 70+ - 0. You can't work on SPEED etc. If we play South Carolina or whomever.. maybe we lost 45-14 but there are items to WORK ON. Like last year. At 76-0 I don't know that we learn or can improve. It's like playing an NFL team. You can tell our guy to block a little differently but when the swim move puts us on our butt what do we really learn?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------POST 90300 - again, IN THIS VERY THREAD back just one page ------------------

I think we are going to need to assume our secondary is going to struggle at times, but our offense should pick up some slack.

Defense has some lapses but played well enough to win. We can’t cough the ball up over and over on offense and expect to keep things right.

Jackal, completely agree here. Our D is good with a backfield weakness for sure... but decent. Still too early to know as CSU isn't exactly a killer on OL.
The OFFENSE HAS TO IMPROVE or we are in for a long year.

No harm but please slow down a little before assuming I disagree. I clearly agree with more than half of your posts. I REALLY like your breakdowns of plays etc. too !!

[Davemeister]

Welcome to Fansville! "Everybody off the Hype Train!"

[gofurman]

Welcome to Fansville! "Everybody off the Hype Train!"

Dave, nice. Well played - those are just funny commercials in general !. And true too. How 'bout them Florida State Criminoles !!!!!!!!!!

Sort of how in the pre-season all the recruits are awesome for EVERY team - I don't mean us. Football fan - "all 20 recruits will be a killer". Reality "yeah... about 9 will ever see the field"

[cavedweller2]

Am Heddon the starter now?

[Stumpy]

[FUBeAR]

Does the 4 pictured rodents have names?
Does we know them?
Are they in the room with us right now?
Am they speak Haitian? Finnish? F’inlandish?

[apaladin]

Am Heddon the starter now?

Yes.

[gofurman]

Apparently it was TWO games. the "One" is there twice in the picture - a little irony in that grammatical error as that's about how the game felt. It just kept going and going and fumble and interception and fumble.. Nothing smooth about the grammar or our OL/offense

Honestly, that was a telling one game. OL poor, new QB, DBs got beat... couldn't hit deep balls on designated routes. the good - the D front 7 did wonderfully most of the time and the QB showed some talent at times

Anyway, like the pic Stumpy !! Let's get better and improve ! Hoep we beat Stetson and then Bill and Mary will be a real test

[apaladin]

At least we have no longer given up the most points in a game this year. Western Illinois gave up 77 to Indiana last week and last night Northwestern St. gave up 87 to South Alabama.