SOCON WEEK 5

[apaladin]

Conference season heats up a little this week. VMI and WCU are idle.
1:30. MERCER @ WOFFORD Mercer looking to go 3-0 already. Should know more about WC after this one.
2:00. ETSU @ CITADEL ETSU the surprise so far. Maybe the best in SoCon? Look for a blowout.
2:00. SAMFORD @ FURMAN Must win for both struggling teams, a loss and you’re done.
6:00 PORTLAND STATE @ CHATTANOOGA Interesting intersectional game.

[Louis Tully]

SoCon is wide open this year. Going to be fun to watch.

[The Jackal]

Conference season heats up a little this week. VMI and WCU are idle.
1:30. MERCER @ WOFFORD Mercer looking to go 3-0 already. Should know more about WC after this one.
2:00. ETSU @ CITADEL ETSU the surprise so far. Maybe the best in SoCon? Look for a blowout.
2:00. SAMFORD @ FURMAN Must win for both struggling teams, a loss and you’re done.
6:00 PORTLAND STATE @ CHATTANOOGA Interesting intersectional game.

Done with what?

Since 2000, 17 times the SoCon champs have had one or more losses in the conference.

[AllTimeFU]

I agree. I’m betting it will be an 18th this year.

[apaladin]

Conference season heats up a little this week. VMI and WCU are idle.
1:30. MERCER @ WOFFORD Mercer looking to go 3-0 already. Should know more about WC after this one.
2:00. ETSU @ CITADEL ETSU the surprise so far. Maybe the best in SoCon? Look for a blowout.
2:00. SAMFORD @ FURMAN Must win for both struggling teams, a loss and you’re done.
6:00 PORTLAND STATE @ CHATTANOOGA Interesting intersectional game.

Done with what?

Since 2000, 17 times the SoCon champs have had one or more losses in the conference.

Just saying that a loss here with all the tough games left, it is not impossible, but very unlikely.

[gofurman]

SoCon is wide open this year. Going to be fun to watch.

Just a different take. Different people. Different opinions. My opinion is usually wrong. Lol.

Wide open is not fun. I want FURMAN DOMINATION. ABSOLUTE FREAKIN DOMINATION. Losing hurts. then the the others can have it be wide open for second place.

I’m a serious dude. I never want a “good exciting game that’s close”. I want a game we CRUSH … we have had two close exciting games already. And taken two Losses.

I want to be bored out of my mind with nice Furman wins of 50-0. Montana OT - fun. Exciting. Great atmosphere. close. Result - . LOSS
Samford BAD CALL game two years back. Exciting. Fun. Result - . LOSS. cost us a SoCon title. !!!
UIW. Playoff game. Close exciting. Result ? LOSS

Had a good coach when I was a youngster. He said who wants fun? Then he said for us to shut the heck up. Told us WINNING IS FUN. Nothing else. Waited until we lost. Asked us “was that fun?” We learned our lesson.

I don’t think we are crushing this year. But that’s always what I want. Also, if you struggle several times in conference you aren’t winning a national title. SDSU and NDSU generally only drop one FCS game or two in regular season. I want us to win a national title. Sweep the leg !!!!!!

[FUwolfpacker]

Conference season heats up a little this week. VMI and WCU are idle.
1:30. MERCER @ WOFFORD Mercer looking to go 3-0 already. Should know more about WC after this one.
2:00. ETSU @ CITADEL ETSU the surprise so far. Maybe the best in SoCon? Look for a blowout.
2:00. SAMFORD @ FURMAN Must win for both struggling teams, a loss and you’re done.
6:00 PORTLAND STATE @ CHATTANOOGA Interesting intersectional game.

Mercer/Wofford should be a good game. I still expect Mercer to win. Wofford is improved, but to this point Mercer has still looked better. Wofford defended the run against W&M better than we did though. So, if they can take away the run enough against Mercer to make the QB throw more than they want, then maybe they'll have a chance? Still feels like more than a 1 score win for Mercer.

ETSU/The Citadel: ETSU was always going to be the team with the largest variance of possible win/loss total this year. They weren't good last year, but they have a new coach who brought a lot of his guys from Gardner Webb, so the learning curve isn't as steep as it used to be. To this point, they certainly look like they are going to be on the high end of expectations. Lamb is obviously a good young coach. Citadel is definitely better as well, but losing to the Citadel after ETSU's last two weeks would be shocking.

PSU/UTC: This one shouldn't be close. PSU is not good and is only a couple weeks removed from a pertussis outbreak on their team that caused them to cancel a game. Add in coming across the country to a team coming off a bye week and you wouldn't expect this one to be close.

Samford/Furman: I'm hopeful Furman can win this one. Crittendon's running ability does concern me a little, but you would hope after W&M that we'll be better there with a week of practice. Need to have a week where Hedden doesn't turn it over 3 times. I still feel like there are so many things that we aren't doing well that Furman teams normally do well. Too many penalties, missing short FGs, not being able to run the ball consistently (resulting in not being able to sustain drives), etc. I'm going to choose to believe that we will eventually get it cleared up. If we do that, we'll have a chance to win every game left on the schedule...I think. Not saying any of them will be easy.

[gofurman]

Conference season heats up a little this week. VMI and WCU are idle.
1:30. MERCER @ WOFFORD Mercer looking to go 3-0 already. Should know more about WC after this one.
2:00. ETSU @ CITADEL ETSU the surprise so far. Maybe the best in SoCon? Look for a blowout.
2:00. SAMFORD @ FURMAN Must win for both struggling teams, a loss and you’re done.
6:00 PORTLAND STATE @ CHATTANOOGA Interesting intersectional game.

Mercer/Wofford should be a good game. I still expect Mercer to win. Wofford is improved, but to this point Mercer has still looked better. Wofford defended the run against W&M better than we did though. So, if they can take away the run enough against Mercer to make the QB throw more than they want, then maybe they'll have a chance? Still feels like more than a 1 score win for Mercer.

ETSU/The Citadel: ETSU was always going to be the team with the largest variance of possible win/loss total this year. They weren't good last year, but they have a new coach who brought a lot of his guys from Gardner Webb, so the learning curve isn't as steep as it used to be. To this point, they certainly look like they are going to be on the high end of expectations. Lamb is obviously a good young coach. Citadel is definitely better as well, but losing to the Citadel after ETSU's last two weeks would be shocking.

PSU/UTC: This one shouldn't be close. PSU is not good and is only a couple weeks removed from a pertussis outbreak on their team that caused them to cancel a game. Add in coming across the country to a team coming off a bye week and you wouldn't expect this one to be close.

Samford/Furman: I'm hopeful Furman can win this one. Crittendon's running ability does concern me a little, but you would hope after W&M that we'll be better there with a week of practice. Need to have a week where Hedden doesn't turn it over 3 times. I still feel like there are so many things that we aren't doing well that Furman teams normally do well. Too many penalties, missing short FGs, not being able to run the ball consistently (resulting in not being able to sustain drives), etc. I'm going to choose to believe that we will eventually get it cleared up. If we do that, we'll have a chance to win every game left on the schedule...I think. Not saying any of them will be easy.

THIS.

We need three things.
- RUN the ball better
- STOP the run far better
- Quit with the penalties. This a weird one. Even younger Furman teams I have seen have had less penalties. Quit beating ourselves. We are almost always top three in least penalties. Every year. Even years with several freshman.

[Davemeister]

We need three things.
- RUN the ball better
- STOP the run far better
- Quit with the penalties. This a weird one. Even younger Furman teams I have seen have had less penalties. Quit beating ourselves. We are almost always top three in least penalties. Every year. Even years with several freshman.

A fourth thing:
-STOP turning the ball over.

[Stumpy]

The penalties bother me more than anything else.

[The Jackal]

The penalties bother me more than anything else.

I'm with you, but a few of them on Saturday I was pretty iffy on.

[FUwolfpacker]

The penalties bother me more than anything else.

I'm with you, but a few of them on Saturday I was pretty iffy on.

So was Hendrix. Said he disagreed with both PI's and this is the 2nd time they were called for holding inside the 5 and neither showed up on film.

[gofurman]

The penalties bother me more than anything else.

I'm with you, but a few of them on Saturday I was pretty iffy on.

So was Hendrix. Said he disagreed with both PI's and this is the 2nd time they were called for holding inside the 5 and neither showed up on film.

STILL - when you get called for TEN penalties we can argue some but maybe 8 were decent calls - we usually run at about 6 penalties or something ... I know we are youthful but still maybe 7/8 ? Honestly shocked a stacked senior team of William and Mary had 10 penalties also. 20 penalties total - ugh

[gofurman]

We need three things.
- RUN the ball better
- STOP the run far better
- Quit with the penalties. This a weird one. Even younger Furman teams I have seen have had less penalties. Quit beating ourselves. We are almost always top three in least penalties. Every year. Even years with several freshman.

A fourth thing:
-STOP turning the ball over.

Dave, I hear ya. FOR SURE. I was giving a little leeway here due to playing a true FR at QB. So the interceptions I figured would be high this year if that is how we are going to run it... At least cut out the fumbles though. At this point I would take 2 turnovers a game by us. Seriously, we lost the ball FOUR times vs CSU and THREE vs William and Mary. And we fumbled and recovered a one or so - WHEW. Just cut those to two turnovers given per game.

[FUwolfpacker]

STILL - when you get called for TEN penalties we can argue some but maybe 8 were decent calls - we usually run at about 6 penalties or something ... I know we are youthful but still maybe 7/8 ? Honestly shocked a stacked senior team of William and Mary had 10 penalties also. 20 penalties total - ugh

Since Hendrix took over, it doesn’t look like we’ve ever averaged over 50 yards per game. Going back to 2012, we have been between 30-49 penalty yards per game for the most part. This year, we’re almost at 90. If you look at the cumulative stats over those years, we’ve averaged around 4-5 penalties per game. We’re averaging 9 this year. Given the amount of data we have since Hendrix took over, I’m hoping for a regression back towards the mean over the rest of the season. Maybe this will just be a statistical outlier year though.

To me, it’s not even the number of penalties, it’s that they’ve come at the worst times. This stuff balances out in the long run (usually), but the ones we’ve had have been especially tough.

Hendrix mentioned that this has probably been the most penalized team he’s had since he’s been here (or something to that effect), which is a bit of an understatement based on the previously mentioned stats. It’s unlikely the coaches aren’t stressing this stuff to the players. At some point the players have to do what they’ve been coached to do. Given Hendrix’s track record with lower penalties than most teams and run offense/defense, I really do feel like we’ll be a lot better by the end of the year. It just depends on when it comes together as to whether or not we have a winning record.

To the point of this thread…the SoCon is going to be tough for everyone this year. Mercer might be better overall, but for the most part the top teams from last year have come back some and the bottom teams have improved. Most teams probably have a chance to win any game (outside of VMI).