Moving on to UTC

[Afurmanfan]

Was an ugly win but a win. Teams are stacking the box and we have to do a better job of taking what they give us. Nobody is a cake walk in this conference but a big test this weekend. I have confidence in this team.

[apaladin]

Hope the trend continues. Play up to the opponent,

[gofurman]

Definitely a thing. We do play to the opponent. Best games were MERCER and WCU

[purplehorse123]

I expect Furman to bring their “A” game and to win!

[The Jackal]

On paper, the teams line up fairly evenly. They are the SoCon's top two defenses. They have similarly production offensively. Similar in the kicking game.

Numbers-wise, Furman has the slightly better defense. UTC has the slightly better offense. Furman runs the ball a bit better. UTC throws it a bit better.

The Mocs still haven't had their bye week. They lost their all-everything running back for the season, but his backup is a veteran guy that's been around a long time and is a very capable player. They've got a couple of explosive receivers and a QB that can spin it.

[The Jackal]

Looking at their schedule, on average Furman has done better against the other top teams in the conference (WCU and Mercer). They had a larger margin of victory against Samford than Furman did, but that margin was buoyed by two pick sixes thrown by the Bulldogs.

UTC has managed to blow out the weaker teams in the conference (though struggled some against Wofford). If there's been one criticism of Furman this year, it's that, for whatever reason, we struggle to really put it on the weaker teams in the SoCon. Furman plays their best football, though, against the best teams.

[The Jackal]

Oh, and like every week, we are the next opponent's biggest game of the season.

[FUBeAR]

Chatt’s 3 really good WR’s are all fairly much the same body type …

2 Jamoi Mayes WR 5-11 202 Jr. Griffin, Ga. / Griffin HS
6 Javin Whatley WR 5-10 169 R-So. Rockmart, Ga. / Rockmart
11 Sam Phillips WR 5-9 185 R-So. Cartersville, Ga. / Cartersville

…and all from Metro ATL (broadly-speaking), with Mayes being a little more stout. They are waterbug types that really find the holes in zone coverages and make catches. Great hands and good moves after catch. The Moc QB is usually highly accurate (much less so when well-pressured), makes quick, sound decisions, finds all these guys, and gets the ball to them on the money.

RECEIVING
GP-GS No. Yards Avg TD Avg/G
Mayes 9-9 48 819 17.1 3 91.0
Phillips 9-9 47 478 10.2 4 53.1
Whatley 9-8 37 700 18.9 7 77.8

FUBeAR thinks we’ll be fine containing the Mocs running game. These 3 ScatCats, their rangy TE…and the QB scrambling while our back end dudes are chasing the waterbugs gives FUBeAR more pause.

[The Jackal]

Furman has done a pretty good job shutting down the league's top receivers. Based on the top ten or so receivers in yards per game (that Furman has played)

Ty James - 4 catches, 83 yards, 1 TD (with roughly half of that yardage and his TD coming on two plays right before half time)
Devron Harper - 3 catches 37 yards, 0 TD
Chandler Smith - 7 catches 44 yards, 0 TD (did have one rushing TD on a reverse)
Ty King - 4 catches, 41 yards 0 TD
DJ Rias - 3 catches, 18 yards, 0 TD
Cincere Lee - 6 catches, 73 yards, 0 TD
David White - 6 catches, 73 yards, 1 TD (the catch by White for a TD was pretty well covered and just an impressive snag)

I realize many on here rail against "soft zone coverage," but Furman has been incredibly effective with it. Furman's pass rush typically forces teams to get rid of the ball quickly. The Paladin defense tackles well, so teams are left to sort of dink and dunk their way down the field. That becomes much tougher to do with the vertical space on the field gets smaller.

Impressively, Furman's defense has only faced 19 red zone possessions this season. The defense has given up very few deep balls and many of these offenses that want to go vertical on us can't because the pass rushers are always in their face. A QB trying to force the ball downfield under pressure has been where we've really started to lock in on interceptions.

[Bootie]

Is their QB a run threat?

[The Jackal]

Is their QB a run threat?

He averages about 15 yards per game on 51 total attempts. He rushed for 40 and 50 yards in the first two weeks of the season, respectively, but since then his top rushing game is 19 yards.

So, not really. He's much more of a passing QB.

He's a talented player. He's not going to be terribly different than what we saw in Heirs and Gonzalez - guys that can spin it, can run if they need to, but it's not a huge part of their game.

[The Jackal]

My guess is UTC isn't going to spend a lot of time trying to slam their QB or RB up into the teeth of Furman's run defense.

The Mocs are thinner at RB with Ford's injury. The backup Appleberry has a lot of experience, but I'm not sure how much depth they have behind him. The #3 RB had only registered 1 carry before Ford's injury in the ETSU game.

I suspect we'll see them try to force Furman to respect the run a bit, but my guess is their ticket to beating Furman is to let Artropeous drop back and throw it.

[FUBeAR]

My guess is UTC isn't going to spend a lot of time trying to slam their QB or RB up into the teeth of Furman's run defense.

The Mocs are thinner at RB with Ford's injury. The backup Appleberry has a lot of experience, but I'm not sure how much depth they have behind him. The #3 RB had only registered 1 carry before Ford's injury in the ETSU game.

I suspect we'll see them try to force Furman to respect the run a bit, but my guess is their ticket to beating Furman is to let Artropeous drop back and throw it.

While he has not played much, FUBeAR understands the Mocs Coaching Staff is very high on Reggie Davis. In the Covid year, FUBeAR was impressed with Lance Jackson, but he has not seen many touches in his career there.

RUSHING
________________GP-GS Att Gain Loss Net Avg TD Long Avg/G
Appleberry,Gino 8-4 109 496 17 479 4.4 6 41 59.9
Davis,Reggie 3-0 23 137 5 132 5.7 1 45 44.0
Houston,Chris 7-0 28 104 5 99 3.5 0 19 14.1
Jackson,Lance 4-0 9 25 5 20 2.2 1 8

Appleberry still getting the most work, but Davis’ Attempts are on the rise with Ford out…

#8 Appleberry,Gino
Rushing Receiving Passing Kick Ret Punt Ret all
Date Opponent no. yds td lg no. yds td lg c-a-i yds td lg no. yds td lg no. yds td lg purp
Sep 02, 2023 at North Ala. 11 48 1 12 1 10 0 10 0-0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 58
Sep 09, 2023 KENNESAW ST. 6 16 0 5 1 7 0 7 0-0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 23
Sep 23, 2023 at Samford 11 48 1 12 0 0 0 0 0-0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 48
Sep 30, 2023 at Wofford 13 93 1 41 0 0 0 0 0-0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 93
Oct 07, 2023 WESTERN CARO. 8 33 0 17 0 0 0 0 0-0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 33
Oct 14, 2023 at Mercer 19 57 0 14 1 7 0 7 0-0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 64
Oct 21, 2023 ETSU 20 71 2 12 1 7 0 7 0-0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 78
Oct 28, 2023 at VMI 21 113 1 19 3 39 0 19 0-0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 152
Totals 109 479 6 41 7 70 0 19 0-0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 549


#36 Davis,Reggie
Rushing Receiving Passing Kick Ret Punt Ret all
Date Opponent no. yds td lg no. yds td lg c-a-i yds td lg no. yds td lg no. yds td lg purp
Sep 02, 2023 at North Ala. 1 -1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0-0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 -1
Oct 21, 2023 ETSU 15 68 0 13 0 0 0 0 0-0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 68
Oct 28, 2023 at VMI 7 65 1 45 0 0 0 0 0-0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 65
Totals 23 132 1 45 0 0 0 0 0-0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 132

[Purple rain]

Moving on, I remember some games from our championship years, when we played poorly, and lost. I think last Saturday will do nothing but inspire this bunch to play their butts off this Saturday!
Go DINS!

[The Jackal]

Moving on, I remember some games from our championship years, when we played poorly, and lost. I think last Saturday will do nothing but inspire this bunch to play their butts off this Saturday!
Go DINS!

We beat Elon 10-0 with Ingle Martin.