Welp, FUBeAR is gonna break ranks and disagree with Coach Hendrix on a couple of points in this article. Hope he ain’t too mad at me for it…
1) The “Money Hill” - dunno about this one; $5m in 1984 is $13m today…so maybe they are ~2x as rich now, but it’s not 6x…and we pretty much had less than nothing in those days. FU has excellent S&C facilities now, not Clemson or NCSU flashy, but it ain’t a Universal machine, a bench, a squat rack, and a dip bar in a basement. I imagine when it comes to on-field impact of $ disparity that Recruiting budget & Coaches salaries play the biggest roles. Well, IMO, we were never more talented, athletically, than those “Big” schools we beat, but we always outsmarted, out coached, and outplayed them when we won…and, of course, we did EXPECT to win those games. This Coaching Staff is at least as good, possibly better, overall, than those staffs. The “Athlete gap,” if wider, is not much wider, IMO. EDIT - oops, just saw he said half a million, not $5m…oh well…see Part 2 below…
2) Money Hill - Part 2. In those days, we had 55 Scholarship equivalents. NC State had 95 full scholarships. The math is pretty easy on that one. 95-55 = 40 and 85-63 = 22. (40-22)/22 = 0.82. So the schollie gap now has narrowed by 82% from what it was then. That’s a BIG number.
3) Size difference - go look at the starting lineups. Our Center was about 215, Coach’s running mate at LG was about 5’7”, Coach was about 220 (maybe). Wasn’t much difference on the DL. Their OL’s absolutely dwarfed our guys! MUCH less size disparity these days. MUCH, MUCH less in the trenches. As we all know, our CB’s in those days were about 5’9….so their 6-4 WR’s today are about the same as their 6-2 WR’s of those days vs. our 5-11ish CB’s. Besides, as we all know…size doesn’t matter.
4) Speed difference - maybe…I think, now, as then, that comes in 2 impactful ‘flavors.’ - a) they might have 1 or 2 ‘burners’ that can just run by everyone we have and b) overall Team speed. My view is these advantages certainly exist today. But they also existed then too. Just can’t assess the “how much different” question…but I don’t really think that is as important as how do you overcome it? I know how we overcame the Cock’s D’s speed in ‘82. Just about every running play was a Counter or had Counter elements to it, that held their peeps a step. That step was enough then. Might be today also… dunno.
We can still win these games. Then, as now, we need a lot to go right for us and a good bit to go wrong for them. And, we have to play exceptionally well, near-perfect Football… and we have to outsmart, outplay, and out hustle them for 4 quarters.
Most importantly, every one of Furman’s Players & Coaches must EXPECT to win this game…not “hope,” not “think,” not “believe.” EXPECT is a very different driver than those other, lesser things.
