The Unofficial Furman Football Page

Hero sports (who I think has the best pulse on FCS football) released their team and player rankings. We came in at 16th best recruiting class overall, with several players being on the top 300 list.
Jumper
Barton
A Jones
D jones
Toomey
Agbenou
McCormick

https://herosports.com/fcs/football-201 ... kings-ajaj

Here is the link. To save you the trouble, the recruits for the SoCon by team and ranking are (with overall national rank in parenthesis)

WCU (10) - 25,31,52,212,236,254
Furman (16) - 51,80,106,156,185,215,240
Mercer (17) - 7,186,230,286
ETSU (23) - 5,110,265,267,275,298
Wof (30) - 113,237,242
UTC (38) - 153,184
Samford - 53,78,94,161
Citadel - 210,269

It appears maybe Samford being left out of the national top 50 may have been an oversight with 3 "top 100" signees.

We signed the most Top 300 with 7, here the are

51 - OL Evan Jumper
80 - DE Jack Barton
106 - LB Josh Agbenou
156 - DT Devonte Jones
185 - S Austin Jones
215 - LB/TE Bryce McCormick
240 - OL Pearson Toomey

Suprise of this recruiting season WCU coming in at #10 nationally. Rubbing elbows with the big boys in FCS. Furman had a solid class coming in at #16. We were ranked 44 th last year by Hero Sports with Hamp Sisson being our top recruit. CCH continues to build quality depth and maybe some exciting freshmen to push starters.

And Wayne Anderson is not top 300???
Tell Clay that.

16th...I'll take it...Louis Ivory wasn't on anyone's radar either...Always remember that!!!

Louis Ivory could tote the mail. He was some kind of player. We ought to have some special backs this year. I am anxious to see the young man from Texas suit up.

Rankings don't mean as much as folks think. Historically we have always done a good job of seeking out football players and not just stars from the likes of rivals and 247. Would much rather have a kid that can play, is physical, and is proven. Not a 3 star who has some physical attributes and will be an ongoing project.

paladinduece wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 12, 2019 8:07 am

Rankings don't mean as much as folks think. Historically we have always done a good job of seeking out football players and not just stars from the likes of rivals and 247. Would much rather have a kid that can play, is physical, and is proven. Not a 3 star who has some physical attributes and will be an ongoing project.

The big names will always be the headliners. However, the best FCS teams take the bulk of their recruiting class and turn them into quality contributors.

HERO sports didn't have Adrian Hope anywhere on their top 250 players in 2017, but you could argue he was among the top defensive players in that class nationally.

Talent with poor coaching doesn't take you far either. Even though we are in the middle of some turnover I like how ours get coached up.

Y’all know there are 125 FCS Football Teams...right?

paladinduece wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 12, 2019 9:12 am

Talent with poor coaching doesn't take you far either. Even though we are in the middle of some turnover I like how ours get coached up.

I've looked up this information before and forgotten my conclusion, but it was not that long ago when Furman had 9 or so players in NFL camps. At the same time, the program was mired in an era of mediocre to bad play on the field.

Point being, you can have some objectively good NFL-caliber players on the field and still stink if the rest of the team isn't getting better.

Paul C wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 11, 2019 1:23 pm

https://herosports.com/fcs/football-201 ... kings-ajaj

Here is the link. To save you the trouble, the recruits for the SoCon by team and ranking are (with overall national rank in parenthesis)

WCU (10) - 25,31,52,212,236,254
Furman (16) - 51,80,106,156,185,215,240
Mercer (17) - 7,186,230,286
ETSU (23) - 5,110,265,267,275,298
Wof (30) - 113,237,242
UTC (38) - 153,184
Samford - 53,78,94,161
Citadel - 210,269

It appears maybe Samford being left out of the national top 50 may have been an oversight with 3 "top 100" signees.

We signed the most Top 300 with 7, here the are

51 - OL Evan Jumper
80 - DE Jack Barton
106 - LB Josh Agbenou
156 - DT Devonte Jones
185 - S Austin Jones
215 - LB/TE Bryce McCormick
240 - OL Pearson Toomey

I think it should be required that we note that Citadel was last in these rankings. Though I agree FCS is more about can coaching them up than 3-star recruits

Still, stars mean something for sure. And talent is talent. You can't convince me Carson Wentz was all coaching - the boy has talent. You don't just coach someone into that kind of accuracy/strength. Same with Terrell Owens or our own Dakota Dozier. The trick is finding these gems in the rough

gofurman wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 14, 2019 7:37 am

Paul C wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 11, 2019 1:23 pm

https://herosports.com/fcs/football-201 ... kings-ajaj

Here is the link. To save you the trouble, the recruits for the SoCon by team and ranking are (with overall national rank in parenthesis)

WCU (10) - 25,31,52,212,236,254
Furman (16) - 51,80,106,156,185,215,240
Mercer (17) - 7,186,230,286
ETSU (23) - 5,110,265,267,275,298
Wof (30) - 113,237,242
UTC (38) - 153,184
Samford - 53,78,94,161
Citadel - 210,269

It appears maybe Samford being left out of the national top 50 may have been an oversight with 3 "top 100" signees.

We signed the most Top 300 with 7, here the are

51 - OL Evan Jumper
80 - DE Jack Barton
106 - LB Josh Agbenou
156 - DT Devonte Jones
185 - S Austin Jones
215 - LB/TE Bryce McCormick
240 - OL Pearson Toomey

I think it should be required that we note that Citadel was last in these rankings. Though I agree FCS is more about can coaching them up than 3-star recruits

Still, stars mean something for sure. And talent is talent. You can't convince me Carson Wentz was all coaching - the boy has talent. You don't just coach someone into that kind of accuracy/strength. Same with Terrell Owens or our own Dakota Dozier. The trick is finding these gems in the rough

Poor VMI....

Citadel did get a transfer player from Sam Houston State who is a big running back that I expect will be a handful out of their B-Back position. Big powerful runner.

He wouldn't be considered a "recruit," but did join their program this offseason.

The Jackal wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 14, 2019 9:21 am

Citadel did get a transfer player from Sam Houston State who is a big running back that I expect will be a handful out of their B-Back position. Big powerful runner.

He wouldn't be considered a "recruit," but did join their program this offseason.

Not sure I'd call him "Big" - "Compact" maybe - he was listed @ 5-6/170 in HS & 5-7/185 @ SHSU.

Was a 2 or 3 Star coming out of HS with an FBS offer from Air Force and a few FCS offers...and he had some nice stats at SHSU...except his carries dropped off in the final full year he played for them - 2017.

He 'shut it down' and didn't play after 3 games in 2018, even though he had been elected a Team Captain by his Teammates. Some have said he did so because he expected PT & carries to further decrease - avg'd 9 carries/game in 2018 (so...on pace to drop from total carries of 144 in 2016 to 114 in 2017 to 99 in 2018) before he 'pulled out,' which, with the new Redshirt Rule (up to 4 games) gave him another year to play football for CIT and, I guess, to some extent, to pretend to be a pretend soldier.

I guess he feels like he’s going to get the rock quite a bit in the bellhop 3 back offense...

“I want to go somewhere where I can get my carries up and show exactly what I can do because I’m looking on TV and guys are getting 20 or 25 [carries] and I’m like ‘Man, I should be doing this.’ I have a 6.3 [yards per carry] average this year and 5.6 my freshman year and I’m like ‘What would it be like if I had 20 carries?’”

That may work for him (almost). Their 2018 Starting B-Back & leading rusher, a 5-10/210 Jr., who is, apparently, not returning, averaged just over 16 carries/game.