Furman - The Battle for Purple Supremacy

Of course I was not pleased at the outcome of the game, but then I realized we are still 5-2. Our next four games are winnable and that would put us at 9-2 on the season and 7-1 in SOCON play. Obviously, losing to Furman hurts our chances at winning the SOCON, but just like in college football, anything could happen. The playoffs are still very much in reach as long as we win out our next 4 games. Honestly I was more upset at our production crew wetting the bed on the ESPN+ broadcast, but I will refrain from anything further on that topic.

 I personally think playing Reid in this game was a big mistake. If you know a guy is not 100% then the right thing to do is sit him out. I'm sure he was begging the coaching staff to give him a chance and that he was feeling good enough to play. Having him go to the locker room and coming back out in sweats is the last thing any of us wanted to see. All we can hope for is that he didn't injure it any further then it already is. Same thing happened last night in the Duke vs. FSU game. Riley Leonard was clearly not 100% when he stepped onto the field. Of course he ended up tweaking it and was not allowed to go back in. What his status for the next game will be is TBD. I know yesterday was the biggest game of our season, but we still have so much Infront of us to play for. The playoff's are insight and we will need Reid's help to make a deep run. We are also not out of the SOCON race. Crazier things have happened so we just need to take care of business. Hopefully Reid is going to be okay.  

I'm not going to go to much into the game itself since I was unable to watch a single snap. I will say we will need to have a better plan in place if Reid is not able to play. Mercer is no cake walk so we will need to fix somethings if we want to have a chance in this game. We've got to play clean and physical football. This will be a good win to get our team back on track. Let's fill out Whitmire again. 

Go Cats!!! 

The first series we didn’t attempt a run. The next 2 series even with Reid in the game we only attempted a few runs (his first run was a burst for 8 yards, his second was only for 2, and then he had an explosive play catching a short pass and turning it into something like a 35 yard gain). Reid had 2 plays that showed he could have been a difference maker in this game. Not necessarily enough to win, but a difference maker no doubt.

Without Reid we only attempted 24 rushes (against 35 passes). With him we run it at least a little more and Furman has to account for him and maybe we get a few more first downs and take some pressure off Cole. 59 total plays means we were very inefficient (Furman had 69). A few more first downs means we have another few set of downs and another 12 or more offensive plays.

The defense was very bad in the first half, but it felt like they played better after halftime until the blown play and TD at the end. We were missing our best offensive player (a serious All-American type of player) and we threw a bad INT at the 1-yard line where we could have taken the lead and momentum in this game. Until Furman’s last TD this was still anybody’s game.

I just can’t understand how fans all of the sudden think the coaching is bad and is to blame. We are on our way to 9-2 and into the playoffs for the first time in 40 years. We could still be co-champs of the SOCON which no coach (including Bob Waters) has ever done. And we are positioned to be even better next season. So for anybody who is going to bail because we lost to an excellent FU team without our best player, I don’t know what to say.

Coaching is 2 parts for me.  The coaching for the season overall has been great.  The coaching for the FU game after having to weeks to prep was the worst we have seen from Bell since the Citadel game last year.

We may drop some in the rankings but not too deep, Chattanooga did not drop deep when we beat them a few weeks ago on the road. We lost to a consensus 3/4 ranked Furman team (rankings coming from the most respected polls) we may be down to 15-20 in the coaches but probably 10-12 in the other more friendly poll, that poll respects us and thinks we are the next best team in the SOCON. As long as we take down Mercer and do well down the stretch we will make the playoffs. But Furman is as advertised and this year they are as good as their rankings they just had an answer for everything yesterday. While our defensive is not as good as Furman's it been respectable this year for the most part, but came down to Furman is a veteran team. We are getting there.