Paladins in the Playoffs

Note: I’m having such a difficult time writing currently and I don’t know why. Unless something happens in my life or in the larger world that shakes me from my creative doldrums, I just can’t seem to articulate my thoughts. On hand that is immensely frustrating. On the other hand, I’ve been doing a lot of work and am probably more at peace with myself than I have been in a long time. Maybe I don’t have as many ghosts clanging around my head that I have to exorcise them with the written word. But I still miss writing. In fact, I should be writing. So I am going to try spill out some of the random thoughts that are floating in my head in hopes that something will be the spark that ignites the rest of my mind.

My football team is good again! Okay, it is not my football team. I do not own it nor play for it nor coach it nor have done so in the past. But I have pulled for the Furman Paladins for as long as I can remember and attended school there so I feel like I can use first person pronouns when talking about them. 

I have written about Furman quite a bit over the years but haven’t this season. It was’t any sort of conscious decision. I haven’t written much about anything this season. But here’s the quick version of what’s up: 

The Paladins finished 3-8 last season which led to our new coach Clay Hendrix being hired. We were picked to finish 7th in the conference and started the season 0-3. We then reeled off 7 straight in dominating fashion, which put us in position to win a share of the conference championship this past weekend if we defeated Samford in Birmingham (who was ranked higher than us and also playing for a playoff spot).

We lost 26-20 and it was sad. But then we still got an at-large bid to the FCS playoffs and it’s happy again. That 0-3 start? The playoff scheduling higher-ups have given the Paladins a shot at two-thirds redemption (the third loss was to NC State who is not in our division). This Saturday we travel to Elon, NC who beat us on a last second field goal. Then if we win that game, we get to go play at Wofford who beat us by a point in the season opener when we opted to go for a two-point conversion and the win after a last minute touchdown (it obviously did not take).

Regardless of what happens in the playoffs, I could not be more pleased about what happens this season. That’s not entirely true, I would be more pleased if we made a deep postseason run. Yet still it has been a fun season and that’s all you can ask from sports. A huge tip of the hat to Coach Hendrix and his staff. I will be stunned if he doesn’t win SoCon Coach of the Year for this remarkable turnaround. The team has been disciplined, focused, balanced, and resilient. We have dominated the teams we should beat and have played close with basically everyone else. 

The future seems bright in Greenville, SC and I’m ecstatic that this season’s surprise run isn’t over yet.