New OC

[apaladin]

Only problem i see is he likes to move around. 5 jobs in 8 years.

[Furmanoid]

UNI has another former Duck coaching OL. UNI is a better program, but Furman is probably a more desirable location.

Slippery Rock’s OL guy is also associate HC (whatever that means) so it would be a step down title-wise, but a step up to FCS. He’s a former Steeler lineman. Who knows?

[The Jackal]

Only problem i see is he likes to move around. 5 jobs in 8 years.

You can't have it both ways. You can't try and get an outside-Furman coach climbing the ladder and then complain that he's changed jobs.

Besides, looking at his resume, all of his moves make complete sense to me:

2013 - first year position coach at a DII program (not at QB)
2014 - QB coach at a more prestigious (maybe top 5?) DII program in his home state
2016 - Moves to be an OC at a good DII program
2019 - Moves to be QB coach at top 15 FCS program
2020 - Moves to be OC at playoff-caliber FCS program
2022 - Potentially Moves to be OC (reported) at a playoff-caliber FCS program close to home

[FUBeAR]

Findlay 8-3 (31 ppg)
Valdosta St. 19-6 (32-36 ppg) 2 playoff trips
Slippery Rock 26-10 (35-40-37 ppg) quarters in ‘18.
Northern Iowa 10-5 (21 ppg) FCS quarters
Holy Cross 13-4 (22-32 ppg) 2 playoff trips

Some of these teams ran a little more than they passed. Some did it other way round. But all did pretty good. He’s worked in 5 good programs, and hopefully he’s learned a lot.

That resume would be hard for us to top.

I’m sure if we try hard enough we can find him a Furman connection somewhere.

His Dad played at GT, also was Coach & Recruiting Director there. Dad is originally from Gainesville, GA…which is a couple of Par 5’s away from Commerce, GA. Coach Roper Sr. woulda been heading up GT’s ‘cruitin’ when Coach Hendrix and his Commerce High Teammate, Coach Lamb were All-State Players in Commerce, GA. I would bet the relationships go back that far. I’d also bet Coach Roper the Younger prolly attended QB Camp at good ol’ FU when he was coming up the ranks in the GHSA. Most good QB’s in N GA did at that time.

Also… when Justin Roper was playing at Buford, I believe there was some NC State connection to Coach Hendrix Coaching at Buford…

There may be more ties, but FUBeAR didn’t want take more than 3 minutes away from watching another dominating Falcons performance to do additional research.

[Furmanoid]

I think he played with a guy named David Hendrix at Buford who played receiver at FU. Does that put him on the tree?

[The Jackal]

I think he played with a guy named David Hendrix at Buford who played receiver at FU. Does that put him on the tree?

I once came to the conclusion that if you tried hard enough, you can connect just about everyone to Furman.

[FUpaladin08]

I’m not saying you can’t run effectively out of spread formations, but this would seem to continue the trend begun with Quarrels of moving away from a run first multiple offense that CCH seems to prefer. I prefer it too, but ultimately I’ll take whatever produces the most wins.

[Furmanoid]

I went down a little bit of a rabbit hole on this and it looks me like this guy goes from slightly more running to slightly more passing depending on the team. He had at least some exposure to the Chip Kelly thing back when it worked, and that was run first.

I hope the guy is flexible and can adapt to whatever team shows up in the summer.

[The Jackal]

I’m not saying you can’t run effectively out of spread formations, but this would seem to continue the trend begun with Quarrels of moving away from a run first multiple offense that CCH seems to prefer. I prefer it too, but ultimately I’ll take whatever produces the most wins.

I didn't get that impression at all watching the 2021 season.

Furman, at least to me, was running a more "modernized" version of the offense they ran 20 years ago and better suited to our current personnel.

With Wilson in particular, we were frequently in the pistol formation. Many of Furman's offensive formations were schematically no different than the traditional single back or offset I formation the Paladins had run for decades. The pistol formation fits our personnel better.

Honestly, even though execution sometimes lagged, I loved what we were trying to do offensively.

I have no idea what a new guy wants to do, but I don't think that there's much new under the sun in offensive football. I'm sure any offensive coordinator worth their salt is going to be more interested in fitting a system to the personnel than forcefeeding personnel into a system.

[AstroDin]

HC played two quarterbacks in 21. Matthew Sluka is who I saw play both playoff games. I was impressed. He's a physical runner and has a quick release. Ran for 1000 years and 14 rushing touchdowns - threw for another 1500 yards and 11 touchdowns.

HC also had a 220-pound runningback had over 800 yards rushing.

[Afurmanfan]

Agree with Jackel-he will see where we have the best chance for mismatches and use the personnel groupings and formations that give us the best opportunity to exploit those, just as Coach Quarles did.
But hopefully next season defenses will have more respect for our passing game with a seasoned Jace, which will make them much less inclined to outnumber us in the box.
CCH said our OL actually blocked pretty well this past season, but in the stands all we could see was a run play that didn’t work.
CCH is pretty demanding of OL play- and he likes the performance of most of them and also likes the youngsters who haven’t played much yet.
Again, if we stay healthy at qb, this should be a fun season for FU fans.

[The Jackal]

HC played two quarterbacks in 21. Matthew Sluka is who I saw play both playoff games. I was impressed. He's a physical runner and has a quick release. Ran for 1000 years and 14 rushing touchdowns - threw for another 1500 yards and 11 touchdowns.

HC also had a 220-pound runningback had over 800 yards rushing.

From some limited observation, their offensive system is philosophically similar to what Furman is doing.

The Crusaders were easily the top rushing team in the Patriot League, averaging over 200+ ypg. They were the #18 rush offense in the FCS.

[AstroDin]

[The Jackal]

the football scoop article had interesting wording:

Multiple sources tell FootballScoop that Roper, a former University of Oregon quarterback who finished his career by leading Montana to the Football Championship Subdivision title game, has accepted a prominent offensive assistant coaching position at Furman University, where Roper will have a key role on Clay Hendrix’s Paladins staff.

Maybe it's just peculiar wording, but "prominent offensive" assistant leaves open a few different avenues of what the staff may eventually look like.

[Flagman]

Nothing "official" out of Furman, yet.