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| Furman freshman quarterback Trey Hedden Photo courtesy of Furman |
Following last season's departures, this season's Furman football team was set to be one of the youngest in years. By the time the season got here, it was even younger. Two months into the season, that trend has continued. Every team deals with injuries, but it's hard to recall a season in which the Paladins (2-5, 1-2 Southern Conference) lost as many key players.
Last season, 35 of the 44 Paladins on the two-deep depth chart were comprised of juniors, seniors and graduates. As Furman opens the final month of the regular season at VMI Saturday at 1:30 p.m., there are 25 different freshmen and seven different sophomores on the current two-deep depth chart. The Paladins are particularly young along the defensive front. This week's two deep at defensive tackle, noseguard, weakside linebacker and bandit are all freshman.
Losses in personnel have led to big losses on the scoreboard lately. The Paladins are coming off a bye week that Furman coach Clay Hendrix said "will be good for us" during the postgame press conference after a historically poor performance against Western Carolina. One week after suffering the most lopsided SoCon loss during Hendrix's eight-year tenure as head coach in a 31-point home loss to Chattanooga, the Catamounts topped that as they left Paladin Stadium with a 52-20 win.
It seemed fairly reasonable to believe that Furman's defense wouldn't face any kind of offense like it did in a 76-0 loss at Ole Miss to open the season. While Western Carolina didn't match the point total - or payroll - of the Rebels, the Catamounts did put up a school record 801 of total offense. That included another school record - for Western and against Furman - 620-yard passing day by Western quarterback Cole Gonzales. Furman had never allowed more than 700 yards of total offense in a game before Ole Miss piled up 772.
"Under the circumstances with the guys we were without, I think they both (Chattanooga and Western) were a little better than we were. They were both much better than us on those Saturdays," Hendrix said Thursday. "I thought we were not playing great, but hanging in there pretty good early on (in both games). Right now, we're the kind of team that if a couple things get away from us, the whole game flips."
The Chattanooga game was set to be a battle of teams who desperately want to run the football but had not been able to all season. Without Furman noseguard Xavier Stephens - who suffered a season-ending injury at The Citadel the week before - plugging up the middle, the Mocs ran fairly wild.
Furman also lost cornerback Jaylen Moson when he broke his collarbone after making the win-sealing interception at Citadel. Without Moson and leading pass rusher Luke Clark, who was injured against Chattanooga, Gonzales torched the Paladins all day.
"We just gave up too many big plays, but that's a little bit of who they (Western) are. They can stretch you in a lot of ways," Hendrix said in that postgame. "In the second half, we just had poor tackling that kind of got worse."
In that loss, little mistakes early on seemed to snowball into big mistakes as the game wore along. After Furman's opening drive stalled at midfield, Ian Williams had a perfect, lofty punt in which three different Paladins were positioned to catch the ball near the goal line. Instead, the ball bounced between them at the three-yard line and into the end zone for a touchback.
Western led 7-0 late in the first quarter when Furman had an obvious field goal situation on fourth down. The Paladins had to rush a lineman who was out there on third down back on to the field as the play clock wore down. That caused the entire play to be rushed and Williams missed the 47-yard attempt.
After a 96-yard kickoff return for a touchdown by Colton Hinton cut the Catamounts' lead to 14-6 midway through the second quarter, Williams missed the extra point.
"That's just kind of been the year for us," Hendrix said in the postgame.
It has been an unusual and uncharacteristic year for the Paladins on the field and off. On the field, the Paladins rank 117th (out of 123 teams) in the FCS in rushing offense, averaging 84.7 yards per game including a paltry 2.58 yards per carry. They're 113th in turnover margin, having forced eight and lost 15, and 113th in third-down conversions at 28.7 percent (27-of-94).
The odd year began in February with the tragic loss of Bryce Stanfield. In addition to the emotional toll his passing has taken on the Furman community and team, Stanfield was one of the new projected starters on defense. During the spring, bandit Alex Maier - an experienced backup to Clark - was lost for the season due to injury. During preseason camp in August, spur/nickelback Justin Hartwell and safety A.K. Burrell each suffered season-ending knee injuries.
"Losing those safeties really killed us. We were already thin there," Hendrix said Thursday. "And we started with nine corners and now we're down to four (because of injuries and moving guys to safety)."
Furman lost Florida State transfer tight end Joshua Burrell in the opening quarter of the second game of the season due to an injury. Hendrix said he could be close to returning though.
Perhaps the offense's biggest weapon was gone shortly thereafter when Joshua Harris, a senior captain who had made 37 career starts, didn't make the road trip to William and Mary and never returned. A couple of weeks ago the cause was finally revealed when The Post and Courier was first to report that Harris had been arrested by the university's police department and was no longer enrolled at school.
"I think that (receiver) group has played pretty good, but that (losing Harris) affects you in some ways that you don't even talk about," Hendrix said Thursday. "I think it affected everybody, me included."
Obviously, anything football related doesn't compare to the destruction caused by Hurricane Helene, but that was another thing beyond Furman's control that impacted the team as the Samford game was cancelled. It marked the third time during Hendrix's tenure that a home game was lost due to weather or disease.
Then there's been the flurry of key injuries over the past few weeks.
"We've just got to stay the course. ... We're just trying to turn this into a four-game season. We've got four games left to see how good we can play and I feel good about our prep," Hendrix said Thursday. "I think (freshman quarterback) Trey (Hedden) is getting better and looking more like a veteran. Like most young guys, he's still making some mistakes but those other times he shows you just what kind of ability he has."
VMI (0-8, 0-4) enters Saturday's game winless this season, but has played better of late. On Oct. 12, the Keydets led Wofford 16-15 midway through the fourth quarter before falling, 31-16. The next week, VMI led rival The Citadel 10-6 at the half. That lead stood until the Bulldogs got the lone score of the second half with less than 10 minutes remaining and went on to a 13-10 win. Last week, the Keydets were up 10-7 at Chattanooga late in the first half before the Mocs came back then pulled away for a 31-10 win.
"(VMI's) Danny Rocco is a really good coach. You kind of know what you're going to get out of them and I'm sure they've got our game circled as one they can win," Hendrix said. "I think we just need to worry about us because we've been our own worst enemy."
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