Furman Football Monday

[Affirm]

Interview was an interesting blend of candor and ADSpeak. Three things that jumped out at me:

1) Furman cannot and will not sign "jocks by the jock" like some of our Conference brethren. Methinks we
already knew that, but it is important to be reminded that the playing field is not level.

2) MORE basketball at the Well, especially with bigger schools that will not come to Timmons. He did
address my Q about the Poinsettia Classic, saying a multi-team event may be in the discussion but not
necessarily the Poinsettia. "A rose by any other name . . ." I know a number of Furman fans who love to
go to the Well but will not set foot in Timmons, no matter how much lipstick they put on it.

3) Furman is not married to the SoCon.

1) Coach Sheridan would agree. The field is not level. We know our Players are smarter than theirs.

3) Maybe not, but we’ve been relatively peacefully dating steady & cohabitating for 55 years. We need to be very wary of some flashy, trashy blonde 2nd ‘wife’ luring us away and then putting a few drops of arsenic in our oatmeal every morning.

Hasn't it been more like 85 years? That's a brutally long relationship. And during that time she's had every body part replaced except the one represented by Citadel (a couple of choices there). So she's not the same girl at all. There isn't any tradition much because the members have changed so much. It may be our best fit now, but its good to keep an open mind. If the smart kid policy makes it too hard to compete, maybe a new smart kid conference would be better some day. The problem is that we've already got most of the FCS football smart kid schools, so I don't know who would replace our dumb jock schools.

As far as getting to the playoffs goes, the answer is simple. Play better.

I disagree that we already have most of the FCS smart kid schools. Richmond, Colgate, Bucknell, Lafayette, Lehigh, Holy Cross, Davidson, W&M, and Georgetown (plus numerous others perhaps to a lesser degree) would each, I believe, appropriately be considered to be smart kid schools. (Ivies of course are not in the list here merely because of their non-participation in post-season.)

[Furmanoid]

You are correct, affirm. I guess I was thinking of teams close enough to us. The VA teams are probably as far away as would be practical. It seems that most Southern smart kid schools are DIII (U of theSouth, W&L, Centre, Millsaps, etc.).

[din23]

Can you elaborate on #2? Have those fans who 'will not set foot in Timmons' been there in the past 5 years, or are their opinions of the arena tainted by angled seats, the stage, and the Davis/Jackson teams?

All of the above. These are people who have nostalgic memories of the Big Brown Box and believe that Furman Basketball is best played in Downtown Greenville.

As the song goes: "You don't know what you've got till it's gone, They paved Paradise and put up a Parking Lot."

I'm not against playing games downtown at all - I love how we're rolling it out. But if I were to talk with your friends, I'd tell them that they're missing some great basketball in a fun environment played by OUR TEAM.

I, too, have very fond memories of the BBB and can still smell the popcorn in the main entry, but it was demolished 24 years ago - I imagine they have since found other things to fill their time in the intervening decades and are using this as an excuse.

[Furmanoid]

For most of that time it was a matter of a barely DI team playing in a DII facility. But now we are actually good again (which it has taken me awhile to accept). So you get to see a good, relevant team in an intimate setting That's not bad. But with that BBB gone, where do they do wrestling in Greenville? Saw Black Jack Mulligan rake his spurs across the Iron Sheik's head back in 1980. That place was rocking! Lots of true believers back then.

[apaladin]

The Well has been a huge success and big plus for downtown. Many , many great shows, concerts and the ncaa have been here and are still coming that would have bypassed Greenville if we had not had a nice large facility. Don’t forget we have the NCAA mens tournament coming back in March. Never been a wrestling fan and wrestling is not what it used to be but the WWE or whatever its called frequents the Well often.

[FUBeAR]

Oh…oops…I’m sorry. Can y’all direct me to the Football Forum here?

[cavedweller2]

For most of that time it was a matter of a barely DI team playing in a DII facility. But now we are actually good again (which it has taken me awhile to accept). So you get to see a good, relevant team in an intimate setting That's not bad. But with that BBB gone, where do they do wrestling in Greenville? Saw Black Jack Mulligan rake his spurs across the Iron Sheik's head back in 1980. That place was rocking! Lots of true believers back then.

They would wrestle on Monday nights in the exhibit hall (aka the basement). At times the schedule would overlap with FU basketball. Our seats were on the floor directly behind our bench. The tunnel was to our left and then a right turn to the stairs to the exhibit hall. On several occasions I had the opportunity to interact with wrestlers watching the game before they wrestled. Talked with Gene and Ole Anderson on several occasions.

[Affirm]

You are correct, affirm. I guess I was thinking of teams close enough to us. The VA teams are probably as far away as would be practical. It seems that most Southern smart kid schools are DIII (U of theSouth, W&L, Centre, Millsaps, etc.).

Thank you for your reply to my post. This is not arguing, but I want to point out some things.
Furman is at 46 this year in USN&WR liberal arts college.
Millsaps is a fine school with smart kids, but they are much smaller than Furman, they are 114 in the USN&WR rankings, and they are as far away from Furman as Georgetown is.
I don’t agree with putting us always with Southern schools for athletics, other than travel distance (time, money) which as pointed out regarding Millsaps, is not always less.
In addition, Furman’s USN&WR ranking is higher than the other Southern smart kid schools that you mentioned with the exception of W&L (11). Furman’s ranking continues to be higher than Wofford’s. Furman’s ranking is lower than 2 (at least 2) Southern D-1 schools (liberal arts colleges) namely Davidson and Richmond.
There are not many Southern D-1 liberal arts schools, as you pointed out. In fact, there are not many liberal arts school playing D-1 athletics (even fewer playing D-1 football) in the entire nation. I named most when I included those several PA, NY, & MA schools. (And I acknowledge Lehigh is perhaps comparable to Furman and the others, and I included it but Lehigh actually is not designated liberal arts.)

[apaladin]

Will there be a show today to recap the season?

[Davemeister]

There was.