The Game: The Citadel at Furman
Last Week: The Fighting Football Paladins didn't play.
Fine, Two Weeks Ago: Furman kind of didn't play then either. Okay, that's unfair. Yet the 31-3 loss at #6 Chattanooga was pretty much the opposite of what a Furman fan would have hoped for in an important conference showdown. Bad things kept happening. A dropped TD pass that would've potentially put the Paladins up 10-0 in the second quarter. A Pick 6 thrown right before the half. Another interception thrown in the end zone in the 2nd half. It was a discouraging game. This team isn't as bad as that 31-3 loss suggests, but the legitimate question is...
Are We Any Good? Depends on the week. We can be good. We can be bad. We can be ugly competent. We can be gritty. We can be uninspiring. The thing is if Furman wants to play for anything more than a winning season then they need to be one thing from here on out: undefeated. 8-3 with a win over a FBS opponent probably gets the Paladins an at-large bid to the playoffs. Can they pull it off? They'll need to kick things into a gear that we haven't seen much this season. Trouble is this week they are playing a team that has looked scary good the last several games and certainly has a chance to stake a claim to the SoCon crown.
Opposing Team's Mascot: The Bulldogs. Again. They do have a live bulldog, which is nice. Still a bulldog...at this point, I feel like "Football Players" would be a more original mascot.
Suggested Hashtag: #PutElCidInTheConeOfShame
A long one I know, but Up was a great movie.
Et cetera: Furman and The Citadel have the longest continuous rivalry in the Southern Conference. The schools first met in 1913 and, with the exception of three years during World War II, the Paladins and Bulldogs have played every year since 1919 with Furman holding a 58-33-3 advantage (the two would join the Southern Conference in 1936). What else happened in 1919? Congress approved the 19th Amendment, which finally allowed women to vote. Prohibition began. The Chicago White Sox threw the World Series in the infamous Black Sox Scandal. And Harvard clinched a bid to the Rose Bowl (their only bowl appearance), which they would win 7-6 over Oregon on New Year's Day 1920 to claim a share of the National Championship. That's kind of a crazy year.
Anything else? Go Paladins!