The Game: Furman at Western Carolina
Last Week: The Fighting Football Paladins rallied from a 17-0 halftime deficit to defeat Samford 20-17 on a 19 yard field goal as time expired.
Are We Any Good? Good as in Dr. Jekyll is sometimes good but also has the capacity to be nightmarishly bad. Sure, Robert Louis Stevenson is not going to be writing about this football team, but they sure do seem to have a dualistic nature. The first half of last week's game was possibly the worst the Paladins have looked. And then they gutted out the win by blanking Samford 20-0 in the second half. We are the Fighting Jekyll Hydes.
Opposing Team's Mascot: The Catamounts, which is considered a variety of wild cat that includes lynxes, bobcats, or cougars. It is nice to be playing an actual unique mascot and I want to compliment Western on that. Yet then I found out (per Wikipedia as usual) that the runner up for the mascot-naming contest in 1933 was Mountain Boomers.
"What is a Mountain Boomer?" Glad you asked. It is a "a small ground squirrel that scampers about the woods and is extremely difficult to catch." Kids, the disconnect between name and what that name represents is fantastic. Mountain Boomer sounds like an old timey wrestler who brawls on Friday nights somewhere in the Appalachian Mountains. But it's actually a squirrel. I love that. I'm kind of glad that it's not Western's nickname because a conference rival having that cool of a nickname would be all kinds of conflicting.
Suggested Hashtag: #FinishFamilyFelidae
Et cetera: Here is a list of 2nd quarter scores from Furman's season thus far:
-Coastal Carolina 21, Furman 7
-Virginia Tech 14, Furman 0
-UCF 12, Furman 0*
-VMI 14, Furman 0*
-Furman 10, SC State 0*
-Chattanooga 21, Furman 3
-The Citadel 24, Furman 7
-Samford 17, Furman 0*
Granted, Furman won four of those (marked by *). Still, the Paladins have a knack for digging themselves into a hole this season. Cullowhee is a tough place to play and I don't like Furman's odds if that trend continues. Of course, I also thought we were done for at halftime last week. So who knows? It's been a weird season.
Anything else? Go Paladins!