Tennessee Tech - Sept. 11

[gofurman]

Paladins missing several starters on defense.

Who was missing as a starter?? I thought I saw everyone? PM me if you want. Maybe Lawrence or Sochovka?? Appreciate reply

Pretty widely reported that Sochovka suffered a knee injury against A&T and did not play

Jackal, THANKS ! Any others? Did Lawrence or Ivan Yates Play? Is Sochovka probably to be back soon. PM if prefer. Thank you all

FYI McKoy played a good game. Great to see him backin

I'm not trying to be obnoxious about this, but Furman reported the Sochovoka injury, so this isn't inside baseball.

As for who actually plays in a game, that is reported in the "participation" portion of the box score. Both Lawrence and Yates started the game, so, yes, they played.

https://furmanpaladins.com/sports/footb ... score/7440

Thanks Jackal ! I don’t think that’s obnoxious AT ALL. That’s helpful. Much appreciated. I saw Sochivka on our two deep and Don’t check Twitter feeds much

[gofurman]

Which brings us full circle. AP , you said several D starters were out. All I see is as Sochovka? Were there others?

[dornb]

Paladins missing several starters on defense.

Who was missing as a starter?? I thought I saw everyone? PM me if you want. Maybe Lawrence or Sochovka?? Appreciate reply

Pretty widely reported that Sochovka suffered a knee injury against A&T and did not play

Jackal, THANKS ! Any others? Did Lawrence or Ivan Yates Play? Is Sochovka probably to be back soon. PM if prefer. Thank you all

FYI McKoy played a good game. Great to see him backin

They said on the radio broadcast that Sochovka is out for the season with a torn ACL. Sad!

[AstroDin]

^^^ I hate that for Matt — he plays with a lot of intensity. I wonder if he can petition to come back next year?

Concerning the D line; Seth Johnson played a great game, and Stokes did his thing— both had a sack.
Evan DiMaggio is quietly leading the linebackers in tackles with 8.
Travis Blackshear in two games has 3 interceptions, 6 tackles, and 1 forced fumble.
Hugh Ryan leads the Dins in tackles with 13.

[The Jackal]

^^^ I hate that for Matt — he plays with a lot of intensity. Other than have been able to do it -I wonder if he can petition to come back next year?

Concerning the D line; Seth Johnson played a great game, and Stokes did his thing— both had a sack.
Evan DiMaggio is quietly leading the linebackers in tackles with 8.
Travis Blackshear in two games has 3 interceptions, 6 tackles, and 1 forced fumble.
Hugh Ryan leads the Dins in tackles with 13.

I do not recall having seen Johnson play before, but he's a big fella. We've got three big hombres rotating in at nose guard. (Though, I think Johnson was credited with a sack that should have been to Luke Clark).

Travis Blackshear is already looking like a guy teams are just going to avoid throwing in the general vicinity of.

What has impressed me most about the defense the past two weeks has been the tackling. There are not many second chance runs or yards after contact.

[Jasper]

The fact of the matter is that TTU is not a very good team at this point and we let them stay in the game much too long. That is never a good thing. The "win is a win" crowd is pleased but I am concerned going forward. I felt that we had to improve three things to be competitive in the SoCon and I think we are improved in only two of them. 1. Hamp Sisson is much improved and I feel will get better as the season progresses. 2. Our offensive line needed to improve and I feel that it has. There is no way that any O line can effectively block against 8 and 9 man fronts like both of our opponents this year have thrown at us. That leaves play calling and the offensive scheme itself. Simply put - offensive coaching. I think it is unimaginative and predictable and that will make it very difficult to score and move the ball against better opposition, this putting a lot of pressure on the D. That is of concern despite the wins. I think adjustments can and should be made and certainly hope they are. Harris caught everything thrown his way today including 2 that were badly thrown. I saw his great hands and speed in the first week of practice. We should be looking his way in future. We also might think about shelving the play where the QB gets the ball snapped 7 yards back and then simply turns and hands it to the RB standing a yard away from him. He almost handed it to a defensive lineman today and it resulted in a bad loss as usual. Maybe a simple slant for 10 yards to Harris could take its venerable place in the playbook. just saying.

I think you are mistaking "in the game" with what happened today.

TTU was never really "in" this game. They didn't get closer to Furman's end zone than the 40. The barely could get a first down, much less score.

Like last week, our defense was excellent in the tackling game, allowed very little in second chance yards, and forced three turnovers.

We had a 16 point lead well into the 3rd quarter against a team that was virtually impotent against our D and was selling out to stop the run. They were a lucky bomb, a fumble or a pick 6 away from being virtually even. We should have been up 6 scores by then and turned out the lights. I am concerned that will hurt going forward. Bad teams get lucky in football every week and then they suddenly think they are good teams.

[Furmanoid]

Defense is really good. The offense has made dramatic improvement and is now decent. That’s about as much as we could expect. We can win every game (including the next one) with stout defense, some luck avoiding big plays, and a good deal of luck scoring 21 points or so on big plays of our own. A little bad luck and we lose. But I love having a defense that keeps you in every game a lot better than having to score every possession to stay in the game. I remember a game at the Citadel about 10 years ago when we scored around 60 points and lost!

[The Jackal]

The fact of the matter is that TTU is not a very good team at this point and we let them stay in the game much too long. That is never a good thing. The "win is a win" crowd is pleased but I am concerned going forward. I felt that we had to improve three things to be competitive in the SoCon and I think we are improved in only two of them. 1. Hamp Sisson is much improved and I feel will get better as the season progresses. 2. Our offensive line needed to improve and I feel that it has. There is no way that any O line can effectively block against 8 and 9 man fronts like both of our opponents this year have thrown at us. That leaves play calling and the offensive scheme itself. Simply put - offensive coaching. I think it is unimaginative and predictable and that will make it very difficult to score and move the ball against better opposition, this putting a lot of pressure on the D. That is of concern despite the wins. I think adjustments can and should be made and certainly hope they are. Harris caught everything thrown his way today including 2 that were badly thrown. I saw his great hands and speed in the first week of practice. We should be looking his way in future. We also might think about shelving the play where the QB gets the ball snapped 7 yards back and then simply turns and hands it to the RB standing a yard away from him. He almost handed it to a defensive lineman today and it resulted in a bad loss as usual. Maybe a simple slant for 10 yards to Harris could take its venerable place in the playbook. just saying.

I think you are mistaking "in the game" with what happened today.

TTU was never really "in" this game. They didn't get closer to Furman's end zone than the 40. The barely could get a first down, much less score.

Like last week, our defense was excellent in the tackling game, allowed very little in second chance yards, and forced three turnovers.

We had a 16 point lead well into the 3rd quarter against a team that was virtually impotent against our D and was selling out to stop the run. They were a lucky bomb, a fumble or a pick 6 away from being virtually even. We should have been up 6 scores by then and turned out the lights. I am concerned that will hurt going forward. Bad teams get lucky in football every week and then they suddenly think they are good teams.

Meh.

I'm not suggesting it was a banner day for the offense. We dropped a ball in the end zone in the first quarter. We failed to get a touchdown with a first and goal inside the 10.

If just those two possessions ended in touchdowns instead of kicks, we're looking at a 34-0 win.

So, yes, in the future not converting on a drive or two may come back to bite us against a better team, but we were never in any real danger of losing this game.

Even then, if we'd won by 26 points (or really 16 points), but the offense had converted more frequently, I think many of you would feel different.

If it were 40-14 (26 pt margin)?
47-21 (26 pt margin)?

Our offense can improve. The lack of a consistent ability to pick up 5-6 yards a run is concerning. At the same time, our passing game looks worlds better than it did last spring. Sisson is making good decisions with the ball. He is doing what our offense needs to do - put up 26 points, maintain possession, let our defense win the game.

[AstroDin]

I'm not going to worry too much about the offensive performance of the TTU game.
Furman is 2-0 with two OOC FCS wins.
Before the season started I bet half this board would have predicted 1-1 or 0-2.

Who would have thunk that Furman and Wofford will be the only SoCon teams that will/could win both FCS OOC games?

Clay is obviously aware Furman left points on the field - he says it. I think the play calling was excellent, the execution was inconsistent. I do think Hamp went into conservative mode and didn't force things.

[AstroDin]

^^^ not sure how much it affected the game - but - listen to the wind in the recording.

[The Jackal]

We had a few on here predicting Furman losing to NC A&T by three touchdowns.

This if Furman's first 2-0 start under Hendrix. They've got two FCS wins, which I do not believe any other SoCon team can lay claim to.

[Roundball]

^^^ not sure how much it affected the game - but - listen to the wind in the recording.

There was only a slight breeze.

[Roundball]

"What we learned from Furman's win at Tennessee Tech."https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/ ... 760636001/

[Jasper]

I'm not going to worry too much about the offensive performance of the TTU game.
Furman is 2-0 with two OOC FCS wins.
Before the season started I bet half this board would have predicted 1-1 or 0-2.

Who would have thunk that Furman and Wofford will be the only SoCon teams that will/could win both FCS OOC games?

Clay is obviously aware Furman left points on the field - he says it. I think the play calling was excellent, the execution was inconsistent. I do think Hamp went into conservative mode and didn't force things.

Well, I not only felt FU would be 2 and 0 put I put my money where my mouth is and gave the points in both games. By the way, it was 14 1/2 in the TTU game. All I am saying is that the offense must be better than this if the team is going to contend for the SoCon title. You cannot allow poor teams like TTU to hang around in a game like yesterday. Do you really think it was Hamp Sisson, the 19 year old QB who went into a conservative mode? Come on. The days of QB's calling their own plays went out with the leather helmet.

[apaladin]

Which brings us full circle. AP , you said several D starters were out. All I see is as Sochovka? Were there others?

Sorry, misheard the TTU announcers which was easy to do. Knew about Sochovka. .