The Game: Furman at Coastal Carolina
Last Week: The Fighting Football Paladins looked overmatched as they fell into 21-0 hole against the #4 Chattanooga Mocs. Then QB Reese Hannon came in for injured P.J. Blazejowski and led Furman to a pair of 4th quarter touchdowns. Unfortunately the Paladins were unable to recover an onside kick and lost the game 21-14.
Are We Any Good? Same answer as last week. Defense? Yeah. Offense? Nope. The ground game is still struggling. Freshman Darius Morehead missed action again last week. The Paladins found a spark in the passing game when freshman Thomas Gordon came it at wide receiver in the 4th. In just that final frame, Gordon caught five passes for 66 yards to lead all the in the receiving corps.
Opposing Team's Mascot: The Chanticleers, named after the poultry protagonist of one Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. You've got to hand it to Coastal, a former branch school of the University of South Carolina, for taking an offshoot mascot of a Gamecock and finding a cool literary analogue.
Suggested Hashtag: #KickCanterburyTail
I love that hashtag so much and really hate that this is the last time I'll get to use it for the foreseeable future.
Et cetera:
-The reason this is the last go-around for that hashtag is that Coastal is a FBS transitional program, meaning the former Big South Conference champion FCS team will next year be a full member in the FBS Sun Belt. The last time Furman played a transitional program was 2013 when the Paladins defeated both Georgia Southern and Appalachian State before both left the SoCon for the Sun Belt. Those were good days.
-Though this is not Furman's first game in Coastal's Conway confines, it will be their first time on the teal turf. That's right, a la Boise State and Eastern Washington, the Chanticleers now have an unnaturally colored field. It's not as jarring as EWU's red or potentially lethal to water fowl as Boise's, but it's still a whole lot of teal.
-The Paladins are 1-6 against Coastal, but those losses have come by an average of 4.5 points and include two overtime games.
Anything else? Go Paladins!
