The Unofficial Furman Football Page

Found this interesting...

“In their first seven games against FCS squads last season, The Citadel’s triple-option attack averaged 264 rushing yards and 26.8 points while the Bulldogs went 2-5. In their final three games against FCS teams, with Rainey at QB, the offense averaged 331.3 rushing yards and 41 points per game while going 3-0 against Western Carolina, Samford and Charleston Southern.”

Rainey may be the next Jack Douglas & lead the bellhops to the FCS National Championship this year....BUT...I do think we do need to, at least, consider the status of the 3 Defenses/Teams that CIT was playing when he ran up those numbers....

1) WCU - possibly the worst Defense I have ever seen on a college football field...and that includes some of the Davidson Teams we have seen. They had a few athletes, but assignments seemed to be a ‘suggestion’ for them...not an effective approach to slowing down a triple option offense
2) Samford - not known for having the greatest of Defenses, in general, but completely decimated by the time they faced CIT on a warm (mid 70’s) November day in Charleston. They had about 5 Starters (including Star DE, Gooden) out and, in some slots, Safety, particularly, they were using 3rd/4th Team players as starters. Safeties are CRUCIAL in stopping the Triple. With that many guys out, depth on D was non-existent and it showed as they lost the 2nd half 35-3.
3) CSU - Having masochistic tendencies, I watched this entire farce of a game, played T’Giving week due to Hurricane-related postponement. Neither Team seemed to want to be there very much, but ChuckSouth was a Team in complete disarray. The game reminded me of the Guards vs. Cons game in “The Longest Yard” except the Cons were way more disciplined than CSU was that day. Again, lack of discipline is a recipe for disaster vs. an Option Team...maybe “Sharknado III” would be a better movie analogy for what I watched - total poop show by CSU, especially their D.

I guess we’ll see in a few weeks. As much as I’ll have to choke back the vomit in my mouth, I will be pulling for the bagmen to beat the stripes off of Towson in week 1. Those kind of OOC games REALLY MATTER for ALL SoCon Teams when At-Large Playoff invitation envelopes are being calligraphied.

Also...

FUBeAR is certainly not pointing any fingers, but he is just wonderin’ if & what bellhop fans might be wonderin’ if/when they read these excerpts from a recent article about SHSU Football...

Cultural changes give Kats optimism as bounce-back bid gets underway

”Keeler points to locker room issues as something that played a role in the Bearkats’ shortcomings last season. He doesn’t foresee the same problems with the current group.“It's going to be different because it's made up of a different collection of people,” Keeler said. “Their interaction with each other, their integrity, not being selfish, their leadership ... all those things intertwine. One guy can change a locker room, in a positive or negative way.”

Brock echoed his coach’s sentiments, referencing ‘a few bad eggs’ that have been replaced with quality locker room guys. “We got rid of a few bad eggs that were kind of cancers to the team...”