Southern Conference Week 4 Power Rankings/Pick 'Em.

[BlackNGoldR3v0lut10n]

I was 4-1 this past week. Mercer showed me something. Wofford and VMI showed me something in defeat. Here is where I have it after today's games.

1) Wofford - Should have won this game.
2) Chattanooga - Did what they needed to do.
3) Mercer - Pulled off a shocker.
4) Samford - Body of work prior to Mercer game places them here.
5) Western Carolina - Had a great game Friday.
6) East Tennessee State - Had an underwhelming effort Friday.
7) The Citadel - Wanted to open a can of whoop on Charleston Southern but Florence had other ideas.
8) Furman - Wanted to play Colgate at home but Florence had other ideas.
9) VMI - is not going to win games when their QBs toss five interceptions.

This week's games
VMI @ Western Carolina - Catamounts defend this house.
The Citadel @ Mercer - Bears look to take care of business.
Samford @ Chattanooga (Game of the Week) - Bulldogs get back on track.
Furman @ ETSU - Bucs pull out a close one (going out on a limb here).

[bonarae]

WCU
Mercer
Samford
Furman (ETSU is more of a question mark on defense...)

[Reign of Terrier]

Mercer (found a QB and is probably the most complete team right now)
Samford: tough loss
Chattanooga: undefeated
Western Carolina: looked good on offense
Wofford: flawed
The Citadel
Furman
ETSU
VMI

I may be sandbagging wofford right now, but I'm not kidding when I say we should have won that game and the reasons we didn't are troubling. We will be lucky to finish above 7-4.

As for picks, I got Mercer, Samford, Furman, and Western

[PaladinFan]

I was 4-1 this past week. Mercer showed me something. Wofford and VMI showed me something in defeat. Here is where I have it after today's games.

1) Wofford - Should have won this game.
2) Chattanooga - Did what they needed to do.
3) Mercer - Pulled off a shocker.
4) Samford - Body of work prior to Mercer game places them here.
5) Western Carolina - Had a great game Friday.
6) East Tennessee State - Had an underwhelming effort Friday.
7) The Citadel - Wanted to open a can of whoop on Charleston Southern but Florence had other ideas.
8) Furman - Wanted to play Colgate at home but Florence had other ideas.
9) VMI - is not going to win games when their QBs toss five interceptions.

This week's games
VMI @ Western Carolina - Catamounts defend this house.
The Citadel @ Mercer - Bears look to take care of business.
Samford @ Chattanooga (Game of the Week) - Bulldogs get back on track.
Furman @ ETSU - Bucs pull out a close one (going out on a limb here).

I realize this is just your opinion, but Furman had arguably one really bad game in the last 15 contests and now they are at the back of the bus?

[PaladinFan]

My thoughts:

1. Wofford - Two FCS wins and a respectable showing in Laramie.
2. Samford - A good team that just put themselves behind the 8 ball.
3. Mercer - Really nice performance in Homewood. Also gave the rest of the league a playbook on beating Sam.
4. Furman - The cancelled game stinks, but I think an offweek may be beneficial for a young team here.
5. UTC - Looking better.
6. WCU - haven’t played anyone worth talking about yet.
7. The Citadel - here by default.
8. ETSU - VMI is one of the few teams in the country that will let you survive an ugly football game.
9. VMI - Until further notice.

VMI @ WCU - Should be a blowout.
Cit @ Mercer - This game is typically close, but Mercer is the better team.
Samford @ UTC - First real challenge for the Mocs. Samford has a history of dropping headscratchers in TN.
Furman @ ETSU - Paladins have handled ETSU the last two seasons and should again.

[gofurman]

My thoughts:

1. Wofford - Two FCS wins and a respectable showing in Laramie.
2. Samford - A good team that just put themselves behind the 8 ball.
3. Mercer - Really nice performance in Homewood. Also gave the rest of the league a playbook on beating Sam.
4. Furman - The cancelled game stinks, but I think an offweek may be beneficial for a young team here.
5. UTC - Looking better.
6. WCU - haven’t played anyone worth talking about yet.
7. The Citadel - here by default.
8. ETSU - VMI is one of the few teams in the country that will let you survive an ugly football game.
9. VMI - Until further notice.

VMI @ WCU - Should be a blowout.
Cit @ Mercer - This game is typically close, but Mercer is the better team.
Samford @ UTC - First real challenge for the Mocs. Samford has a history of dropping headscratchers in TN.
Furman @ ETSU - Paladins have handled ETSU the last two seasons and should again.

Rankings
1). Mercer - earned this w win at Samford today

2a and 2b. Wofford and Samford. No particular order/ high quality teams so far as I can see

next 4 in a group ? Furman, Citadel, Chatt, WCU

Then. ETSU

.....VMI last
-------

picks -VMI @ WCU -
Cit @ Mercer -
Samford @ UTC -
Furman @ ETSU - Paladins have handled ETSU the last two seasons and should again. Don't get hung up on FU v Elon YET. TRUE FR QB etc. only 3 seniors on the field. Probably will be a lesser season than last years playoff run but should be 6-5 or so on the year this year. Clay Hendrix is a winner. Let's see what we look like in a week or two. Though don't think we can hang w Mercer and Wofford at this time

[ElCid]

1-Wofford - Did well on the road, doing what they do, could have won
2-Chattanooga - Quietly taking care of business
3-Mercer - Good win
4-Samford - Still very good, but now tarnished, hangover was evident
5-Western Carolina - Got the W
6-The Citadel - Is Flo what the doctor ordered?
7-Furman - Can they right the ship?
8-East Tennessee State - Ugly
9-VMI - Uglier


Predictions
VMI @ Western Carolina - VMI hasn't beaten Western since 1991 - 38-17
The Citadel @ Mercer - Bears are looking good and focused - 31-20
Samford @ Chattanooga (SOCON Game of the Week) - Mocs D gives Hodges fits, but Bulldogs pull it out - 34-28
Furman @ ETSU - Furman finds offense - 38-10

[Milktruck74]

WCU - because vmi
Citadel - This is a talented football team that has had a week to rest
CHATTANOOGA - Sammy always has difficulty in TN
Furman - Because etsu and rest

[The Cats]

VMI at Western Carolina - The Cats reach 3-0
The Citadel at Mercer - Bears handle the Bulldogs at home
Samford at Chattanooga - not even close, Mocs embarrassed at home
Furman at ETSU - Paladins looking for a statement game, win big



1-Wofford
2-Mercer
3-Samford
4-Western Carolina
5-Chattanooga
6-Furman
7-The Citadel
8-East Tennessee State
9-VMI

[longtimemocfan]

We're pretty beat up on defense. Already down 2 starters coming into the Martin game and lost another starter yesterday. Hopefully we can get some of those guys back by Saturday. Will need all the help we can get against Samford.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

[Milktruck74]

I only caught the first two drives of Sammy and Mercer. On paper, Sammy should have won this one handily....So after seeing the finalI ask........is it that Mercer is starting to click? or Sammy has been hyped above their actual value? or a combo of both? what do you say?

[FUGameBreaker]

1- Wofford (until someone in SoCon knocks them from the perch)
2- FU (reserving harsh judgment until SoCon results come in)
3- Mercer (big win for lamb Saturday)
4- Samford (tough home loss)
5- UTC (look better with Tiano at QB)
6- WCU (team with potential)
7- Citadel (2-8 in last 10 games)
8- ETSU (will learn more this Saturday)
9- VMI (20 straight losses)

[Reign of Terrier]

I am going to sandbag wofford until we fix scheme according to our strengths and weaknesses or otherwise fix our pass defense.

I know a lot of people are saying we played well in Laramie and we did...but we lost that game more than Wyoming won it and it's that sort of trend that puts a ceiling on our potential.

Wofford is the same team as we were last year. Our defense is a little better, we pass a little more and we turn the ball over more (bc we pass it more), but that's about it.

We certainly have the potential to beat any team in the country outside of the top 2-3 but until we fix these glaring weaknesses we'll be outside the top 5.

- - - Updated - - -

Mercer is my pick to win the socon

[SU DOG]

Mercer is far better than we all thought. The SoCon is soon to learn that Riddle is one terrific QB. To say that the Samford problem was due to a hangover from last week is totally unfair to a Bears Team that was prepared so well and executed almost flawlessly. Their plan was to make us one dimensional, and our running game is just not what it needs to be. We were exploited, and this is really not the first time that this game plan has been utilized. Until our coaches make some adjustments for this scheme, some more losses are soon to loom. We do have some really good RBs, but our schemes and execution were lacking again. Just looking at yardage gained yesterday does not tell the actual story. Mercer was more than willing to give up some yardage up the middle to prevent the big pass play.

How this Samford Team will do going forward, I have no idea. We have the talent, but as we all know, the team with the most talent is not always the winner.

[PaladinFan]

I only caught the first two drives of Sammy and Mercer. On paper, Sammy should have won this one handily....So after seeing the finalI ask........is it that Mercer is starting to click? or Sammy has been hyped above their actual value? or a combo of both? what do you say?

Probably some of both.

Samford, as SoCon front-runners go, isn't exactly the 2004 GSU team or the 2007 App team. They are good, but they are not head and shoulders better than the rest of the SoCon. They are not good enough to not play well and still win.

When you look at the stat line, I think the story is Mercer's offense. Samford put up a typical stat line for them - 70 plays, close to 300 yards passing, and 130 rushing to go with a point total in the mid-20s. That's about what their offense does most games.

The storyline, in my view, is Samford's inability to stop Mercer's offense. Mercer put up almost 500 yards of offense and threw for 315. Samford has a lot of new faces on their defense, and they were pretty well worked over by the Bears.

[Mocs123]

Hopefully Sanford’s D gives up a lot of yards this week too :)

[Iam4Mocs]

...
5- UTC (look better with Tiano at QB)
...

So far this year the OL doesn't leak like a sieve. Tiano can pass and run better when not on his back like last year.

[wcugrad95]

1-Wofford - At the top because they are 2-0 in conference and ***should*** be 3-0 overall with an FBS win (wins are wins)
2-Mercer - They beat who everybody had at #1 on the road
3-Samford - I still think they have the most talent, and they always seem to lose a game that nobody expected
4-Chatanooga - they are 3-0, but against teams that are a combined 0-8 (a loss will drop them, but again wins are wins)
5-Western Carolina - is the D better, or did Gardner-Webb just suck in the 2nd half? Putting them here because they are 2-0 vs the next 2 teams.
6-Furman - Lots of potential - Elon game and not playing may be what they needed to light a fire, but they are here now because they are 0-2.
7-Citadel - Could be 2-0 but are 0-2 (again - wins matter)
8-East Tennessee State - Easily could have lost to VMI
9-VMI - Here until they get probably 2 conference wins


Predictions
VMI @ Western Carolina - expect the Cats to have too much O for the Keydets to keep up
The Citadel @ Mercer - If the Bellhops lose they are probably out of the playoff conversation only 3 games in; a Bears win puts them in a tie for 1st with Wofford on the bye
Samford @ Chattanooga - Samford always seems to play one head-scratcher each year, but not sure it was this past Saturday; Chatt's opponents are as suspect as Western's
Furman @ ETSU - FU takes out the frustration from their first 2 losses on the Bucs

[wcugrad95]

1- Wofford (until someone in SoCon knocks them from the perch)
2- FU (reserving harsh judgment until SoCon results come in)
3- Mercer (big win for lamb Saturday)
4- Samford (tough home loss)
5- UTC (look better with Tiano at QB)
6- WCU (team with potential)
7- Citadel (2-8 in last 10 games)
8- ETSU (will learn more this Saturday)
9- VMI (20 straight losses)

Just curious for everybody - do you guys post your power rankings based on potential or on results? I understand why Furman could still be high on people's lists (not calling you out @FUGameBreaker), and I did something similar with Samford staying high on my own list even though they are 1-2 with a league loss. I have some teams low simply because they are winless versus other teams who are undefeated. I try to put my list down based on how well teams have played season-to-date, but expect some drastic swings in the rankings over the next 2 weeks.

Things will get much clearer now that SoCon play is here in earnest.

[FUBeAR]

Current SoCon Ranking/Ratings per Massey...FWIW...



Rank/

All
All
All
Home
Home
Home
Away
Away
Away
SoCon
SoCon
Socon


Rating
Team
Record
PF
PA
Record
PF
PA
Record
PF
PA
Record
PF
PA


1/1.16
Mercer (https://www.masseyratings.com/team.php?t=4649&s=300937)
2-1
29.7
31.0
1-0
45.0
3.0
1-1
22.0
45.0
1-0
30.0
24.0


2/1.14
Wofford (https://www.masseyratings.com/team.php?t=9126&s=300937)
2-1
33.7
17.3
2-0
43.5
17.5
0-1
14.0
17.0
2-0
43.5
17.5


3/1.07
Furman (https://www.masseyratings.com/team.php?t=2800&s=300937)
0-2
7.0
46.5
0-0
0.0
0.0
0-2
7.0
46.5
0-0
0.0
0.0


3/1.07
Samford (https://www.masseyratings.com/team.php?t=6987&s=300937)
1-2
38.7
25.0
1-1
45.0
19.5
0-1
26.0
36.0
0-1
24.0
30.0


5/1.06
Chattanooga (https://www.masseyratings.com/team.php?t=7809&s=300937)
3-0
32.3
20.7
1-0
34.0
10.0
2-0
31.5
26.0
1-0
29.0
28.0


6/0.98
W Carolina (https://www.masseyratings.com/team.php?t=8742&s=300937)
2-0
30.5
18.0
1-0
33.0
26.0
1-0
28.0
10.0
0-0
0.0
0.0


7/0.83
Citadel (https://www.masseyratings.com/team.php?t=1545&s=300937)
0-2
24.5
28.5
0-1
28.0
29.0
0-1
21.0
28.0
0-2
24.5
28.5


8/0.63
ETSU (https://www.masseyratings.com/team.php?t=2321&s=300937)
2-1
19.3
30.0
1-0
28.0
7.0
1-1
15.0
41.5
1-0
27.0
24.0


9/0.28
VMI (https://www.masseyratings.com/team.php?t=8450&s=300937)
0-3
13.7
50.7
0-1
24.0
27.0
0-2
8.5
62.5
0-2
19.0
43.0

[wcugrad95]

@FUBeAR - I get the media type polls (Massey included). FU, Wofford, and Samford made the playoffs last year and were in the top-25 the first couple of weeks so they climb faster and drop slower than anybody else. Mercer just beat the team everybody loved in the SoCon, so they immediately shot up these rankings - but I wonder where they were 2 weeks ago after the Memphis game or even last week after the JU game (I am sure you will give us the numbers)?

What I am asking is for the guys who really follow the SoCon, is UTC or Furman a top 2 or 3 team, but if they lose next week a bottom 3 or 4? Are we gauging teams on a single game, early success, or potential?

I am a self-professed homer, but I try to honestly gauge what I have seen year-to-date and to be honest I don't have a clue yet other than what I think potentially is the top and bottom half.

[PaladinFan]

@FUBeAR - I get the media type polls. FU, Wofford, and Samford made the playoffs last year and were in the top-25 the first couple of weeks so they climb faster and drop slower than anybody else. Mercer just beat the team everybody loved in the SoCon, so they immediately shot up these rankings - but I wonder where they were 2 weeks ago after the Memphis game or even last week after the JU game (I am sure you will give us the numbers)?

What I am asking is for the guys who really follow the SoCon, is UTC or Furman a top 2 or 3 team, but if they lose next week a bottom 3 or 4? Are we gauging teams on a single game, early success, or potential?

I am a self-professed homer, but I try to honestly gauge what I have seen year-to-date and to be honest I don't have a clue yet other than what I think potentially is the top and bottom halves.

If WCU does - I will say yes we do.

For me, I just try to watch some of the games and forget the records.

[tenNesseeCat]

Picks:
VMI @ WCU
The Citadel @ Mercer
Samford @ UTC
Furman @ ETSU


Power:
1 - Wofford
2 - Mercer
3 - Samford
4 - WCU
5 - UTC
6 - The Citadel
7 - Furman
8 - ETSU
9 - VMI

I'll add, I base my ranking on how I thought the teams have played to this point. ETSU has a better record than Furman and The Citadel, but their play hasn't impressed me to this point. Neither has Furman, but I think they are a good team that has to work some things out. It was a coin flip for 8th. The Citadel has a poor record, but has been very competitive. Mercer gets the big jump for the win over Samford, but I'm not sure they are the 2nd best team in the league. I think the Mercer win proves that the line between the top 2 or 3 teams compared to the middle 4 teams may not exist, or be very blurred.

[wcugrad95]

Courtesty of the Cats (want to make sure I give full credit where it is due) on the WCU board, here are the Sagarin ratings - pretty significant differences to the Massey ratings:

24 SOUTHERN (AA)= 46.79 45.35 ( 24) TEAMS= 9 46.34 ( 24)
College Football 2018 through games of 2018 September 15 Saturday
RATING W L T SCHEDL(RANK) VS top 10 | VS top 30 | PREDICTOR | GOLDEN_MEAN | RECENT
HOME ADVANTAGE=[ 2.67] [ 2.67] [ 2.67] [ 2.67]
120 Samford AA = 57.24 1 2 0 60.76( 101) 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 57.74 116 | 58.31 111 | 53.43 142
125 Wofford AA = 56.68 2 1 0 42.36( 218) 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 56.73 123 | 56.16 124 | 56.08 120
156 Chattanooga AA = 50.35 3 0 0 40.93( 223) 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 49.90 156 | 49.38 165 | 53.21 144
159 Western Carolina AA = 49.85 2 0 0 33.12( 240) 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 49.37 159 | 51.95 151 | 52.96 146
164 Mercer AA = 48.83 2 1 0 58.04( 130) 0 0 0 | 0 1 0 | 48.42 165 | 46.64 174 | 51.46 155
175 Furman AA = 46.61 0 2 0 77.03( 10) 0 1 0 | 0 1 0 | 46.68 175 | 49.50 164 | 45.92 174
182 The Citadel AA = 44.46 0 2 0 53.51( 161) 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 44.82 180 | 42.51 185 | 41.47 188
224 East Tennessee State AA = 30.57 2 1 0 48.74( 193) 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 29.96 225 | 32.47 218 | 34.23 215
238 VMI AA = 23.55 0 3 0 55.97( 143) 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 23.38 239 | 25.15 237 | 24.52 238

Should be interesting to see the polls, as Mercer was not in the ORV previously but I certainly expect they will be now. And again, this is a FWIW - I expect things to be much clearer two weeks from now. For the Mercer guys - don't shoot the messenger. But we saw this same phenomenon for several weeks last year where Samford stayed ahead of us even though WCU beat them head-to-head.

[PaladinFan]

This is one of those "gut check" games for Furman.

Going into this season, I was looking at 2018 as a stepping stone towards Furman returning to national prominence. While I do not think that 2018 is "the year," it was encouraging to see the team have success in their first go with Clay Hendrix. The Paladins are still a comparatively young team (I think only 4 senior starters and only 1 on offense). There are still growing pains.

The QB position is a concern. The guys have talent, but very little experience. Furman's offense does not require a QB to be a one man band, but it does require a steady hand and good decision making. Those are elements of the game that can only be improved with experience.

I think in the first two games you have seen the noticeable voids of a veteran QB and veteran interior OL. Even though Furman returned nearly everyone up front, it's hard to replace an all american center. Right now, we are watching Furman's young QBs make a lot of the same mistakes Blazejowski did when he was a rookie QB - trying to do too much, forcing the ball where you should not, and losing mechanics at game speed. Hopefully, the game will slow down with experience. They are drinking from the firehose right now. They didn't exactly have a soft takeoff either, playing two really tough teams out of the gate.

ETSU is a team Furman should beat. Its another road game (now Furman's sixth straight road contest). ETSU shows up once a year to stun a team in Johnson City. If the Paladins are going to turn around what has been a disappointing first two contests, this is where you start it - conference game, on the road, against a team you should be able to handle.

Some Furman fans debated whether the unexpected bye week was a good or bad thing for Furman. I think it's probably good. Darren Grainger now looks like he is "the guy," and Furman can get its feet a little bit and work on itself. A lot of Furman's problems right now are self-inflicted. Cleaner football and I think the outlook will look much rosier.

[wcugrad95]

I agree that the week off after the letdown of the Elon game is probably a good thing - I expect Hendrix to have them ready, and for the Paladins to be hungry for a win in the first game they should be heavily favored in.

[FUBeAR]

Power:
4 - WCU
5 - UTC
6 - The Citadel

I get the 3 Chatt. wins have been over Teams that are 0-8, but those Teams are 3 D1 FCS Teams & those 5 non-Chatt losses include 3 to FBS Teams (Missouri, MTSU, Utah St) & 2 to Top 10 FCS Teams (Wofford & Kennesaw).

Meanwhile, WCU’s 2 wins are:
1) a nail-biter over a D2, whose only win is a fairly narrow one (tied at halftime) over a non-NCAA/non-NAIA affiliated Team with a Massey Rating of -0.79...and...
2) an OK, but fairly unimpressive win over an FCS Team that hasn’t won a D1 game since 2016.

Yes, both Teams are undefeated, but it’s hard to see how WCU can be ranked ahead of Chatt. given the quality of the wins and the quality of opponents defeated.

Going further, I think a decent case could be made that ElCid’s 2 narrow losses are ‘better’ than WCU’s 2 wins. I certainly can see having the Catamounts ranked above the bellhops, but not over the Mocs. Just don’t see that.

[kdinva]

VMI 24 @ WCU 34
The Citadel 20 @ Mercer 28
Samford 31 @ UTC 20
Furman 27 @ ETSU 17

[wcugrad95]

Very tough right now to determine the SoCon power because of what FUBeAR points out. We don't know ultimately how good or bad a win/loss is because we don't know how good/bad teams are yet. In the end, I tried to blend records against perceived strength of opponent. I am dinging FU because they didn't show up against Elon, but the Paladins have had the toughest road so far and I know their roster - so I don't think of them as a bottom of the conference team, and we shouldn't be totally shocked they are 0-2. But it is hard for me to put teams without a win over teams that have 2 or 3. I very well may be giving Samford too much credit for the FSU game, as the Seminoles look like an absolute dumpster fire right now. And I have Chatt ahead of WCU with both undefeated, but in my opinion both unproven (I don't know how good their Citadel win is yet). If UTC loses this week and WCU wins, I would at minimum flip them even though WCU would still have 3 wins that they were supposed to get.

It appears we have a Wofford team we all pretty much know what to expect, a Mercer team with the biggest win to date, and about 5 or 6 teams who ultimately can find themselves vying to be in the top 3 of the conference (but we just don't really know enough about any of them yet).

I will say I would take 8 or 9 wins in ugly fashion over a bunch of losses where WCU looked good but ultimately lost. In the end, you are going to need to be at least 6-2 to warrant playoff consideration in my opinion.

[tenNesseeCat]

I get the 3 Chatt. wins have been over Teams that are 0-8, but those Teams are 3 D1 FCS Teams & those 5 non-Chatt losses include 3 to FBS Teams (Missouri, MTSU, Utah St) & 2 to Top 10 FCS Teams (Wofford & Kennesaw).

Meanwhile, WCU’s 2 wins are:
1) a nail-biter over a D2, whose only win is a fairly narrow one (tied at halftime) over a non-NCAA/non-NAIA affiliated Team with a Massey Rating of -0.79...and...
2) an OK, but fairly unimpressive win over an FCS Team that hasn’t won a D1 game since 2016.

Yes, both Teams are undefeated, but it’s hard to see how WCU can be ranked ahead of Chatt. given the quality of the wins and the quality of opponents defeated.

Going further, I think a decent case could be made that ElCid’s 2 narrow losses are ‘better’ than WCU’s 2 wins. I certainly can see having the Catamounts ranked above the bellhops, but not over the Mocs. Just don’t see that.

There are lots of people who didn't "see" a lot of the stuff you've posted about Mercer in the past either. I am a WCU fan, maybe there is a bit of a bias there. UTC is playing a lot better than they did last year. I'm giving them credit by moving them up. Maybe not exactly where you think they should be, but it's my thoughts on it. I'm not following a scientific method with a drawn out algorithm, it's just what I think going into week 4. Maybe UTC should be ahead of WCU...who cares...it's for fun.

[PaladinFan]

There are lots of people who didn't "see" a lot of the stuff you've posted about Mercer in the past either. I am a WCU fan, maybe there is a bit of a bias there. UTC is playing a lot better than they did last year. I'm giving them credit by moving them up. Maybe not exactly where you think they should be, but it's my thoughts on it. I'm not following a scientific method with a drawn out algorithm, it's just what I think going into week 4. Maybe UTC should be ahead of WCU...who cares...it's for fun.

https://memegenerator.net/img/instances/59582627.jpg

[FUBeAR]

who cares...it's for fun.

...as is discussion about how/where/why peeps have ranked Teams where they have.

Your justification for having WCU over UTC is essentially, “I’m a ‘homer’ and I felt like it.” Perfectly good explanation. I ranked WCU ahead of the bellhops last week because, as I posted, I like purple better than baby blue. Not exactly a complex algorithm there.

If you did have some objective reasoning behind your ranking of those 2 Teams, I was interested in learning more about it. Thanks for the candid response.

[FUGameBreaker]

Courtesty of the Cats (want to make sure I give full credit where it is due) on the WCU board, here are the Sagarin ratings - pretty significant differences to the Massey ratings:

24 SOUTHERN (AA)= 46.79 45.35 ( 24) TEAMS= 9 46.34 ( 24)
College Football 2018 through games of 2018 September 15 Saturday
RATING W L T SCHEDL(RANK) VS top 10 | VS top 30 | PREDICTOR | GOLDEN_MEAN | RECENT
HOME ADVANTAGE=[ 2.67] [ 2.67] [ 2.67] [ 2.67]
120 Samford AA = 57.24 1 2 0 60.76( 101) 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 57.74 116 | 58.31 111 | 53.43 142
125 Wofford AA = 56.68 2 1 0 42.36( 218) 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 56.73 123 | 56.16 124 | 56.08 120
156 Chattanooga AA = 50.35 3 0 0 40.93( 223) 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 49.90 156 | 49.38 165 | 53.21 144
159 Western Carolina AA = 49.85 2 0 0 33.12( 240) 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 49.37 159 | 51.95 151 | 52.96 146
164 Mercer AA = 48.83 2 1 0 58.04( 130) 0 0 0 | 0 1 0 | 48.42 165 | 46.64 174 | 51.46 155
175 Furman AA = 46.61 0 2 0 77.03( 10) 0 1 0 | 0 1 0 | 46.68 175 | 49.50 164 | 45.92 174
182 The Citadel AA = 44.46 0 2 0 53.51( 161) 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 44.82 180 | 42.51 185 | 41.47 188
224 East Tennessee State AA = 30.57 2 1 0 48.74( 193) 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 29.96 225 | 32.47 218 | 34.23 215
238 VMI AA = 23.55 0 3 0 55.97( 143) 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 23.38 239 | 25.15 237 | 24.52 238

Should be interesting to see the polls, as Mercer was not in the ORV previously but I certainly expect they will be now. And again, this is a FWIW - I expect things to be much clearer two weeks from now. For the Mercer guys - don't shoot the messenger. But we saw this same phenomenon for several weeks last year where Samford stayed ahead of us even though WCU beat them head-to-head.


Checkout the schedule rankings, FU with 10th toughest in the country, nobody else in SoCon is even top 100 schedule and most are 200 or lower, I am going on potential I feel at this point still. Not much to be deduced from the SoCon OOC portion really, SoCon teams beat crappy teams they played and lost to the better teams they played. We will learn a lot more this Saturday with 4 conference games on deck.

[The Cats]

There are lots of people who didn't "see" a lot of the stuff you've posted about Mercer in the past either. I am a WCU fan, maybe there is a bit of a bias there. UTC is playing a lot better than they did last year. I'm giving them credit by moving them up. Maybe not exactly where you think they should be, but it's my thoughts on it. I'm not following a scientific method with a drawn out algorithm, it's just what I think going into week 4. Maybe UTC should be ahead of WCU...who cares...it's for fun.


tenNesseeCat, it matters not where you rank WCU, FuBear will find fault with your reasoning. If the Cats were 11-0, FuBear would come up with statistics that show WCU should be ranked last.

[tenNesseeCat]

...as is discussion about how/where/why peeps have ranked Teams where they have.

Your justification for having WCU over UTC is essentially, “I’m a ‘homer’ and I felt like it.”

Not totally...I do think WCU is a better team than UTC right now. We'll see on Oct. 13th.

[FUBeAR]

tenNesseeCat, it matters not where you rank WCU, FuBear will find fault with your reasoning. If the Cats were 11-0, FuBear would come up with statistics that show WCU should be ranked last....on so many levels.

[FUBeAR]

Checkout the schedule rankings, FU with 10th toughest in the country, nobody else in SoCon is even top 100 schedule and most are 200 or lower, I am going on potential I feel at this point still. Not much to be deduced from the SoCon OOC portion really, SoCon teams beat crappy teams they played and lost to the better teams they played. We will learn a lot more this Saturday with 4 conference games on deck.This might be easier to read/sort out...

Sagarin’s SoS Rank
1) Furman 10
2) Samford 101
3) Mercer 130
4) VMI 143
5) CIT 161
6) ETSU 193
7) Wofford 218
8) Chatt 223
9) WCU 240

3 over 200.

I find it interesting that Woffy is this low & includes an FBS game. Furman’s SoS Rank, relative to all others in the SoCon, certainly ‘benefits’ from only playing 2 games with 1 of those 2 being an FBS Top 3 Team. I typically do my own non-scientific SoS ciphering as I Rank the Teams, but I may have to consider Mr. Sagarin’s analysis when I do my rankings this week.

[tenNesseeCat]

...on so many levels.

Your justification would be essentially, “I’m an ‘anti-WCU homer’ and I felt like it.” Perfectly good explanation!

[Reign of Terrier]

Wofford plays PC, Gardner Webb and Wyoming OOC. Our strategy is wins, it seems, not impressing playoff committees. We know we're going to get sent on the road unless we get a seed, and the only way to get a seed is to win the socon and have an impressive record. that's why I think we schedule the way we do. We do have Kennesaw State in 2020/2021 though.

Having said that, I think Gardner Webb gets hosed by the computers. It's true that they were 1-10 last year and aren't that much better this year, but they played Kennesaw, Wofford, Western Carolina, NC A&T and an FBS opponent. Gardner Webb probably has a stronger OOC schedule than most socon and big south teams.

[PaladinFan]

Wofford plays PC, Gardner Webb and Wyoming OOC. Our strategy is wins, it seems, not impressing playoff committees. We know we're going to get sent on the road unless we get a seed, and the only way to get a seed is to win the socon and have an impressive record. that's why I think we schedule the way we do. We do have Kennesaw State in 2020/2021 though.

Having said that, I think Gardner Webb gets hosed by the computers. It's true that they were 1-10 last year and aren't that much better this year, but they played Kennesaw, Wofford, Western Carolina, NC A&T and an FBS opponent. Gardner Webb probably has a stronger OOC schedule than most socon and big south teams.

I haven't done a detailed analysis, but this has been Wofford's scheduling philosophy for a long time.

At some point, I would love to see the CAA/SoCon sort of formally get together in the way that the Big Sky/MVFC did and schedule a number of inter-conference matchups. Many of the CAA teams have SoCon ties and are relatively short trips.

[FUBeAR]

Your justification would be essentially, “I’m an ‘anti-WCU homer’ and I felt like it.” Perfectly good explanation!”...on so many levels” was in reference to the post/poster; not WCU.

As far as explaining why I don’t see WCU ahead of Chatt., I’ll just re-post...

“Yes, both Teams are undefeated, but it’s hard to see how WCU can be ranked ahead of Chatt. given the quality of the wins and the quality of opponents defeated.” (prefaced by objective facts related to those quality components).

If all y’all got is ad hominem responses paired with playing the ‘victim card,’ I’m bored & out.

[tenNesseeCat]

”...on so many levels” was in reference to the post/poster; not WCU.

As far as explaining why I don’t see WCU ahead of Chatt., I’ll just re-post...

“Yes, both Teams are undefeated, but it’s hard to see how WCU can be ranked ahead of Chatt. given the quality of the wins and the quality of opponents defeated.” (prefaced by objective facts related to those quality components).

If all y’all got is ad hominem responses paired with playing the ‘victim card,’ I’m bored & out.

victim card? hahaha...you've made your disdain for WCU known since about 1983.

[FUGameBreaker]

Conference not getting much respect in the polls that's for sure

[PaladinFan]

Conference not getting much respect in the polls that's for sure

Well, a lot of teams in the top 10 lost, Furman didn't play, and our front runner lost at home to an unranked team. Furman didn't do themselves any favors by losing big to Elon and then not having a win to get back in the conversation quickly.

[PaladinFan]

Kennesaw State is a top 10 team, but has anyone looked at their schedule?!?!

Their one FBS game was against Georgia State, arguably one of the weakest FBS teams in the country (they lost too, by the way).

Then 5 of their next 6 are:
Tenn. Tech (bad)
Alabama State (bad)
Clark Atlanta (winless D2 squad)
Presbyterian (bad)
Gardner Webb (bad)

KSU is taking the Jacksonville State route to the post season.

Samford is going to have to carry some water for the SoCon in that game. Unfortunately for the Bulldogs, KSU essentially has an offweek (Clark Atlanta) before playing Samford.

Must be nice to have a schedule where you play two objectively "good" teams all season before the playoffs.

[wcugrad95]

Seems to be very much a wait-and-see approach with the teams. Chatty and Western haven't lost, but haven't played anybody. Mercer got some attention, but were so far out of the picture before their big win it was almost impossible for them to climb in (I always complain about how hard it is to get in versus stay in). No doubt Mercer and Chatty would be positioned to be in the polls next week with wins, but for UTC that means Samford probably drops out with a loss and a 1-3 record.

I don't know if it will happen - and history tells us the best teams will eventually rise up - but the league could seriously cannibalize ourselves and make it hard for more than 1 or 2 teams to get in. Probably won't happen, but right now it feels like as deep as 7 teams in the league could win a game against any of the others and nobody would be totally shocked (maybe surprised, but not full-on shocked). I could have a very different outlook in another week or 2 - polls until about week 4 seem dumb to me, but they get people talking.

[chattownmocs]

Why would Chattanooga not be ahead of Western Carolina? If nothing else based on the fact that we have a better football program. I've seen a lot of laughable thing but reading these threads week after week is good comedy.

[FUGameBreaker]

Why would Chattanooga not be ahead of Western Carolina? If nothing else based on the fact that we have a better football program. I've seen a lot of laughable thing but reading these threads week after week is good comedy.


Speaking of laughable, I remember that 45-7 beatdown WCU put on UTC in Nooga last year being pretty laughable

[longtimemocfan]

Speaking of laughable, I remember that 45-7 beatdown WCU put on UTC in Nooga last year being pretty laughableWhich is their only win against us since 2008.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

[ElCid]

This might be easier to read/sort out...

Sagarin’s SoS Rank
1) Furman 10
2) Samford 101
3) Mercer 130
4) VMI 143
5) CIT 161
6) ETSU 193
7) Wofford 218
8) Chatt 223
9) WCU 240

3 over 200.

I find it interesting that Woffy is this low & includes an FBS game. Furman’s SoS Rank, relative to all others in the SoCon, certainly ‘benefits’ from only playing 2 games with 1 of those 2 being an FBS Top 3 Team. I typically do my own non-scientific SoS ciphering as I Rank the Teams, but I may have to consider Mr. Sagarin’s analysis when I do my rankings this week.

Just FYI, Sagarin does not consider, at all, Lower Division games when ciphering their SOS. Record yes, SOS ratings, no. So SOS is always off the entire season. You could see this after week one for teams who played a lower division game. Here are post game 1 lines in sagarin. They are 1-0, but basically have no SOS at all.

102 Samford AA = 60.79 1 0 0 0.00( 0) 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 60.77 102 | 60.80 100 | 60.76 99
163 Western Carolina AA = 47.77 1 0 0 0.00( 0) 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 47.74 164 | 47.75 165 | 47.84 162
218 East Tennessee State AA = 33.40 1 0 0 0.00( 0) 0 0 0 | 0 0 0 | 33.35 218 | 33.35 218 | 33.57 220

Also, looking at SOS at this point in the season is really rather pointless since they are skewed big time by the early FBS games and Div II games. Massey is a little more accurate re SOS as a result, since they do take ALL GAMES into account.

Also, I have pointed out many times for both Sagarin and Massey, you CANNOT simply look at the "ranking" of a team. You MUST look at the actual "rating" of the team.

Example for those who need it.

Oh boy team 1 must be very good and team 7 must be relatively bad huh?

1 - Team 1
2 - Team 2
3 - Team 3
4 - Team 4
5 - Team 5
6 - team 6
7 - Team 7
8 - Team 8
9 - Team 9

But look at the hypothetical massey ratings to see that you "could" be very wrong. Same goes for Sagarin. Team 7 does not look so bad now does it?

1 - Team 1 - rating - 1.01
2 - Team 2 - rating - 1.00
3 - Team 3 - rating - 0.97
4 - Team 4 - rating - 0.96
5 - Team 5 - rating - 0.95
6 - team 6 - rating - 0.94
7 - Team 7 - rating - 0.93
8 - Team 8 - rating - 0.70
9 - Team 9 - rating - 0.64


Rank ordering them is an okay data point, but unless you actually look at the RATING #, you are missing a BETTER data point.

And just FYI, Here is current SOCON SOS ranking...and Rating...number of SOS to date from Massey. And it looks about right considering who they played.

1 - Furman - 61.68 Clemson bump and small Elon bump
2 - Mercer - 42.44 Jax and Memphis wash, small Samford bump
3 - The Citadel - 40.15 Small Wofford bump, no hits
4 - Samford - 37.21 Shorter and FSU wash
5 - VMI - 37.05 Toledo and ETSU wash, small Wofford bump
6 - Wofford - 36.49 Wyoming and VMI wash
7 - UTC - 30.44 - very small Tenn Tech hit
8 - ETSU - 21.11 Mars Hill and VMI hits more than offset UTenn bump
9 - WCU - 17.36 Newberry AND G-W hit


What gives me a chuckle every single year is how people love to look at both of these computer rating systems to show how their team or conf is somehow great. They will cherry pick their ranking or SOS when it looks good. Or they will try to justify their own ranking based upon them even though there are flaws inherent in both systems. ANd they will certainly just look at rankings and not ratings. I don't think the SOCON folks are the worst, by far. But I have seen some folks from other conferences try and justify AGS poll rankings or playoff justification based upon them. Or better yet when some start chest beating about overall conference ratings. One time some posters were touting how they were the second or third best conference and that the SOCON was 4th. They cited the Sagarin rating. Only problem was that the ratings had all 3 (CAA, BS, and SC) all within a half rating point at the time...basically meaningless.

[tenNesseeCat]

Speaking of laughable, I remember that 45-7 beatdown WCU put on UTC in Nooga last year being pretty laughable

Their attendance is pretty laughable too, especially considering the size of the city they reside.

[walliver]

Some of this SOS argument is nonsense. FU has a high SOS for losing badly to Clemson. Sammy loss to FSU doesn't help their SOS, but was a more "impressive" loss.
If I played a round of golf with Tiger Woods, I would lose badly, but that doesn't make me a good golfer (I can assure you I am not).
In the SoCon, a higher SOS is only helpful for teams on the bubble on selection Sunday.
I have been offline for a while due to Hurricane Florence, and will do my power rankings later today.

[tenNesseeCat]

Some of this SOS argument is nonsense. FU has a high SOS for losing badly to Clemson. Sammy loss to FSU doesn't help their SOS, but was a more "impressive" loss.
If I played a round of golf with Tiger Woods, I would lose badly, but that doesn't make me a good golfer (I can assure you I am not).
In the SoCon, a higher SOS is only helpful for teams on the bubble on selection Sunday.
I have been offline for a while due to Hurricane Florence, and will do my power rankings later today.

I agree. Who cares if team A has the best SOS if they have 0 wins, or if team B has the worst SOS with 11 wins. Team A has no conf. title and will be watching ESPN+ come playoffs. While team B may be watching their 2nd round opponent on ESPN+, from a first round bye.

[Smitty]

Why would Chattanooga not be ahead of Western Carolina? If nothing else based on the fact that we have a better football program. I've seen a lot of laughable thing but reading these threads week after week is good comedy.

Almost as good comedy as you previous threads. I guess the down year helped bring you back down to earth...

[PaladinFan]

Some of this SOS argument is nonsense. FU has a high SOS for losing badly to Clemson. Sammy loss to FSU doesn't help their SOS, but was a more "impressive" loss.
If I played a round of golf with Tiger Woods, I would lose badly, but that doesn't make me a good golfer (I can assure you I am not).
In the SoCon, a higher SOS is only helpful for teams on the bubble on selection Sunday.
I have been offline for a while due to Hurricane Florence, and will do my power rankings later today.


I think the point is that you have to bake some of that into the cake. If you are going to subjectively rank teams, you should at least consider that the teams have played unbalanced schedules to this point.

At bottom, the SoCon has not clear front runner and a pretty dense "pack." Once conference games start getting played, we should see some movement.

[PaladinFan]

So, here's something I just realized as we discuss scheduling.

Whatever the rotation is, Furman basically follows VMI the entire season.

ETSU plays VMI then Furman
WCU plays VMI then Furman
Samford plays VMI then Furman
The Citadel plays VMI then Furman
UTC plays VMI then Furman

The only SoCon schools this does not hold true for is Mercer and Wofford. VMI and Furman even have the same bye week (Oct. 6).

Nothing much to say about that other than it is a little annoying.

[FUGameBreaker]

A SOS rank #10 is significant in that like FU, everyone in the SoCon would probably be 0-2 right now with FU's schedlule so far (@ Clemson and @ #11 Elon)

If you watch the Elon game we were moving the ball well in the first half and shooting ourselves in the foot literally every possession, iam not sure I even remember us having to punt. Regardless, bottom line for the Dins is unless we get our Freshmen QB on roll we won't amount to much of anything, that is the key for us in the SoCon right now.

[Reign of Terrier]

You know who has a very strong SOS OOC?

Gardner Webb.

that went 1-10 last year with pretty much the same OOC

[PaladinFan]

A SOS rank #10 is significant in that like FU, everyone in the SoCon would probably be 0-2 right now with FU's schedlule so far (@ Clemson and @ #11 Elon)

If you watch the Elon game we were moving the ball well in the first half and shooting ourselves in the foot literally every possession, iam not sure I even remember us having to punt. Regardless, bottom line for the Dins is unless we get our Freshmen QB on roll we won't amount to much of anything, that is the key for us in the SoCon right now.

I don't know if we would have won the Elon game, but it certainly would not have been a blowout if Furman had avoided turnovers early, in my opinion.

Furman put itself behind the 8 ball quickly with a strip sack fumble returned for a touchdown. They then lost another fumble on a first quarter drive. Those two crippling turnovers combined with a few big plays by Elon and the Paladins never could seem to get their footing.

If you just look at the first half, though, Furman had drives of 43, 24, 46, and 55 yards that yielded zero points (two missed FGs and two turnovers). The offense just struggled to stay on the field and convert big downs. That, probably more than anything, is where you miss a veteran QB.

[Reign of Terrier]

I don't know if we would have won the Elon game, but it certainly would not have been a blowout if Furman had avoided turnovers early, in my opinion.

Furman put itself behind the 8 ball quickly with a strip sack fumble returned for a touchdown. They then lost another fumble on a first quarter drive. Those two crippling turnovers combined with a few big plays by Elon and the Paladins never could seem to get their footing.

If you just look at the first half, though, Furman had drives of 43, 24, 46, and 55 yards that yielded zero points (two missed FGs and two turnovers). The offense just struggled to stay on the field and convert big downs. That, probably more than anything, is where you miss a veteran QB.

I agree. Turnover margin can be both an equalizer and an elevator. With TO margin last year, Furman was blessed. This year, there's not enough information to say either way, but I would be concerned until they got that under control.

[PaladinFan]

I agree. Turnover margin can be both an equalizer and an elevator. With TO margin last year, Furman was blessed. This year, there's not enough information to say either way, but I would be concerned until they got that under control.

I think you will see that balance out, frankly. If you look at other "discipline" type statistics, like penalties, Furman leads the league (4 penalties in 2 games for 32 yards).

In two games, Furman's two freshmen QBs have fumbled (by my count) a combined 7 times and lost 4 of them. That is a trend really unlikely to continue, in my opinion. As these guys mature, they will get better with ball security.

When you look at penalties, that suggests that Furman has not all the sudden gotten loose with their discipline. More likely, they've got a couple of young QBs who are soon going to realize that you have to protect the football and you simply cannot outrun defenders at this level like you could in high school.

[FUGameBreaker]

Just looked it up for refresher, such a messy 1st half, fumble for TD on first drive, missed field goal on second drive, also fumble on elon 30 yard line, another missed field goal, dropped pass by WIDE Open WR Burnette at elon 35 to force a punt on anther drive and an interception in the endzone from elon 24 yard line.
That's gotta be very demoralizing for any teams defense to see their offense play like that, I really hope we can clean this thing up or season will indeed be lost very soon.

[FUGameBreaker]

Hey SoCon folks, lets give Samford at UTC a bump in this weeks game of the week poll:

http://www.anygivensaturday.com/showthread.php?212862-2018-09-22-AGS-GOTW-Week-4

[FUGameBreaker]

A good read on Paladin football:

http://www.furmansportsreport.com/2018/09/paladins-seek-colgate-replacement.html

[gofurman]

So, here's something I just realized as we discuss scheduling.

Whatever the rotation is, Furman basically follows VMI the entire season.

ETSU plays VMI then Furman
WCU plays VMI then Furman
Samford plays VMI then Furman
The Citadel plays VMI then Furman
UTC plays VMI then Furman

The only SoCon schools this does not hold true for is Mercer and Wofford. VMI and Furman even have the same bye week (Oct. 6).

Nothing much to say about that other than it is a little annoying.

I have seen that before w many teams. Unfortunately for Furman you don't want to follow VMI. Many teams can take a slight mental break the VMI week and some may get up w score enough to pull some starters in the 4Q v VMI. Much better to follow a hard team throughout the schedule as that is tough on your opponents to get 'up two or three weeks in a row.

The he other thing you don't want is to follow a team that runs a very similar offense. VMI and Furman do not. Wofford would not want to follow Citadel through the schedule as that would be two straight weeks of practice v the option fir the opposing defenses. Though the option systems Wofford and Citadel run are somewhat different

[gofurman]

I agree. Turnover margin can be both an equalizer and an elevator. With TO margin last year, Furman was blessed. This year, there's not enough information to say either way, but I would be concerned until they got that under control.

True, defensively we return 9 of 11 starters and add Clemson transfer Trapp who may have been the most athletic guy on the field vs Elon. Stags is still our D Coordinator. No reason we shouldn't excel at D this year. Though a little young - only 3 seniors on D. .... Yet we have not taken one ball from the opposing team in two games. ?

the turnover concern is in Offense. Very young OL and a true freshman QB. Our OL has one junior and 3 Soph and 1 freshman ! That's insanely young. If you can't win in the trenches..you can't win. Hope they continue to improve

[gofurman]

You know who has a very strong SOS OOC?

Gardner Webb.

that went 1-10 last year with pretty much the same OOC

I agree. It's not just who you played. It's who you beat. Losing to Clemson? Sure, anyone who holds that against any FCS team is an idiot. But sooner or later you have to start winning.

[PaladinFan]

A good read on Paladin football:

http://www.furmansportsreport.com/2018/09/paladins-seek-colgate-replacement.html

Reading this, you get the distinct impression that Colgate left Furman out in the cold here. There doesn’t seem to be any question that they were the ones who requested the game get called. They also didn’t seem to make any attempts to move the game time/date (which many other schools did).

[Mocs123]

That sucks for FU and the SoCon. I thought Furman- Colegate was an interesting matchup.

[SCPALADIN]

I think you will see that balance out, frankly. If you look at other "discipline" type statistics, like penalties, Furman leads the league (4 penalties in 2 games for 32 yards).

In two games, Furman's two freshmen QBs have fumbled (by my count) a combined 7 times and lost 4 of them. That is a trend really unlikely to continue, in my opinion. As these guys mature, they will get better with ball security.

When you look at penalties, that suggests that Furman has not all the sudden gotten loose with their discipline. More likely, they've got a couple of young QBs who are soon going to realize that you have to protect the football and you simply cannot outrun defenders at this level like you could in high school.

Our OL needs to do a better job as well.

[SCPALADIN]

Reading this, you get the distinct impression that Colgate left Furman out in the cold here. There doesn’t seem to be any question that they were the ones who requested the game get called. They also didn’t seem to make any attempts to move the game time/date (which many other schools did).

After reading this, Mike Buddie should consider dropping the upcoming Colgate games (2020 & 2021?) in favor of a more competitive team here in the Southeast. I realize that this would be an uphill battle...but the fact that Colgate refused to have any flexibility in the matter is ridiculous.

[PaladinFan]

After reading this, Mike Buddie should consider dropping the upcoming Colgate games (2020 & 2021?) in favor of a more competitive team here in the Southeast. I realize that this would be an uphill battle...but the fact that Colgate refused to have any flexibility in the matter is ridiculous.

Or you make sure that the first leg of that home and home is in Greenville.

[gofurman]

That sucks for FU and the SoCon. I thought Furman- Colegate was an interesting matchup.

yep - and objectively probably a good one for the SoCon and Furman.. FU has won the last 3 recent contests easily... Last year was something like 45-14 for Furman in NY, AT COLGATE. It's just not a good matchup for them

And would have counted as a 'top 25' win for the SoCon and Furman - last 3 scores are almost identical:

2008.. FURMAN WIN.... 42-21 in NY
2010.. FURMAN WIN... 45-15 in GREENVILLE
2017.. FURMAN WIN... 45-14 in NY

see a trend??? including last year with many of the same players

[FUGameBreaker]

Yeah I have no doubt we would have smoked Colgate, they just skeeeeeered!

[PaladinFan]

That sucks for FU and the SoCon. I thought Furman- Colegate was an interesting matchup.

It would have been. Unfortunately for Furman, it's a missed opportunity to a nice win over a top 25 program.

[PaladinFan]

Our OL needs to do a better job as well.

It is hard to say at this point. Right now we seem to be implementing more zone run schemes than we did last year. In two games, for instance, I think our TBs have already carried the ball up the middle more than I saw them do all of last season, where they typically operated out on the edges.

In both contests, I've seen opposing DTs knife into the backfield against the run game and stop these stretch plays for a loss. Now, some might say "block better," and that's a valid criticism. However, if the play is designed in such a way that our offensive linemen cannot physically reach the man they are trying to block, that's as much a coaching problem as anything. The play may look great on a white board, but if you can't beat your man to the spot, it will never work.

Some of it is stuff that just gets corrected over time. Look at Darren Grainger's first fumble against Elon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZro39_joQ0). Stop it at 0:01.

I'm no QB guru (a long way from it), but look at the ball position. Grainger is tall (6'4) and throwing on the run, but his arm drops the ball all the way down to his thigh before trying to bring it up to throw. That is a lot of extra motion in his delivery. Watch over the coming weeks whether he keeps that ball higher and reduces length of his delivery. If he keeps that ball shoulder high while looking downfield, it's probably not a fumble.

[Scrappy94]

1. Wofford - Most SoCon wins puts them here. Looked good in loss vs an FBS team that could have easily been a win.
2. Chattanooga - 1-0 vs SoCon teams. Undefeated. Offense looks much better.
3. Mercer - Impressive win. 1-0 vs SoCon.
4. Samford - Might be overrated. Looked good against FSU, but FSU is bad this year. FSU hangover or overrated? I'm leaning towards overrated, but not entirely sure. 0-1 vs SoCon. Only win against non-D1.
5. Western Carolina - Not impressed so far. Defense is a problem.
6. The Citadel - Came so close to winning both games, but 0-2 vs the SoCon.
7. Furman - Not sure what to think yet after a tough schedule to start. Still win-less though.
8. ETSU - Unimpressive win vs a non-D1 and a squeaker against VMI. Only reason they are this high is that they actually beat VMI.
9. VMI - No comment.

VMI @ Western Carolina - Self-explanatory. Catamounts by 35+
The Citadel @ Mercer - Mercer should win easily, if they are not hungover from the Samford win. The Citadel seems to like close games though, and I think they keep it close. Bears by 6
Samford @ Chattanooga - Mocs match-up well with Samford. Samford defense looks vulnerable. Mocs beat them last year when they were a bad team. Chattanooga seems to have had the Bulldogs' number the last few years. Samford's offense always has trouble against a tough Chattanooga defense. Chattanooga is a much improved team, especially on offense, and I don't think anything changes in this game this year. Mocs by 10
Furman @ ETSU - ETSU looks bad, and Furman is going to be hungry for their 1st win. Paladins should be well rested as well. Paladins by 28

[Reign of Terrier]

I'm honestly blown away at how the average viewer has a more rosey outlook on Wofford than I do.

Perhaps I'm just old and crotchety now.

[Smitty]

After reading this, Mike Buddie should consider dropping the upcoming Colgate games (2020 & 2021?) in favor of a more competitive team here in the Southeast. I realize that this would be an uphill battle...but the fact that Colgate refused to have any flexibility in the matter is ridiculous.

Depends on the exit clause in the contract I guess. There is probably a weather excuse and that Colgate made a "reasonable attempt to reschedule". I'm sure Furman would owe them some sort of money if they cancelled future games. *complete guess as the contract isn't readily available in front of me...

[Smitty]

I'm honestly blown away at how the average viewer has a more rosey outlook on Wofford than I do.

Perhaps I'm just old and crotchety now.

This probably makes me a 25 years older than I am then. I have no positive expectations at the beginning of the season for any of Western's sports...

[wcugrad95]

@youngterrier - Most people at this stage are going to keep Wofford at or near the top because they are 2-0 in conference and they have proven to be what we all kind of expect them to be. Don't try to pass the ball and you would have had a much bigger win against Citadel. Maybe don't pass the ball against Wyoming and you could be 3-0. Since teams only have 2 or 3 games to evaluate, it is simply easier to use records and vote what you already know to be true versus what you hope/think/expect to possibly happen. Wofford looks like what most people expect Wofford to look like through 3 games.

[PaladinFan]

@youngterrier - Most people at this stage are going to keep Wofford at or near the top because they are 2-0 in conference and they have proven to be what we all kind of expect them to be. Don't try to pass the ball and you would have had a much bigger win against Citadel. Maybe don't pass the ball against Wyoming and you could be 3-0. Since teams only have 2 or 3 games to evaluate, it is simply easier to use records and vote what you already know to be true versus what you hope/think/expect to possibly happen. Wofford looks like what most people expect Wofford to look like through 3 games.

This is just me, but it's been a long time since I've been wowed by a Wofford team. They aren't flashy, they aren't objectively impressive, they don't score a bunch, the defense is decent, but they are pretty consistent at winning. That's the thing that matters.

[FUBeAR]

I'm honestly blown away at how the average viewer has a more rosey outlook on Wofford than I do.

Perhaps I'm just old and crotchety now.If it helps, considering the turnover in the OL this Fall & the addition of a VERY inexperienced OL Coach, I thought we might see a bit of a dumpster fire upfront for the Terrier Offense, particularly early in the season.

But, I have watched all 3 games & I think the OL has looked pretty good. I really don’t know how challenged they’ve been by the 3 Front 7’s they have faced, but I would give them a solid B+ in run blocking & a C+ in PassPro. Overall, a solid B. With that kind of youth being Coached by a ‘newbie,’ they are really doing great.

Cheer up, YT!

[gofurman]

This is just me, but it's been a long time since I've been wowed by a Wofford team. They aren't flashy, they aren't objectively impressive, they don't score a bunch, the defense is decent, but they are pretty consistent at winning. That's the thing that matters.

and PaladinFan had my hopes up that with all the changes in coaches at Woff ... and no Mike Ayers! they were sure to take a pretty good step back. I am still waiting. durn PaladinFan for getting my hopes up. Maybe Woff will falter - long way to go - but I am getting impatient. They look about the same to me SO FAR

[Mocs123]

This is just me, but it's been a long time since I've been wowed by a Wofford team. They aren't flashy, they aren't objectively impressive, they don't score a bunch, the defense is decent, but they are pretty consistent at winning. That's the thing that matters.

True....Wofford teams don't ever seem to wow with their athleticism, and aren't flashy, but they do seem to win fairly consistently. I thought they would take a step back after Ayres retired, and they might still, but it doesn't seem like it yet.

[PaladinFan]

and PaladinFan had my hopes up that with all the changes in coaches at Woff ... and no Mike Ayers! they were sure to take a pretty good step back. I am still waiting. durn PaladinFan for getting my hopes up. Maybe Woff will falter - long way to go - but I am getting impatient. They look about the same to me SO FAR

Of course, I also think they would have lost to Clemson and Elon.

[woffordgrad94]

Of course, I also think they would have lost to Clemson and Elon.
Wofford lose to fElon? Never.

[FUBeAR]

Wofford lose to fElon? Never.*11 times

[woffordgrad94]

*11 times
Okay, I should say neverMORE (quoth the Raven). We got beat by the Fightin’ Christians back in 1991. That was such a cool nickname. Why did they change it? And don’t tell me Christians don’t fight!

[FUBeAR]

Okay, I should say neverMORE (quoth the Raven). We got beat by the Fightin’ Christians back in 1991. That was such a cool nickname. Why did they change it? And don’t tell me Christians don’t fight!
*2009 was most recent loss to Elon, but they were some kind of bird thing by then.

I just looked this up before the FU game. Changed it when they moved to D1. https://elonphoenix.com/sports/2013/1/3/GEN_0103134548.aspx I have heard some cynical types say that the name change was more aligned with the University’s strategy to attract students from more wealthy families, more specifically, wealthy families from NY, NJ, and Eastern PA, some of which they felt would not be interested in attending a university with “Christian” in their mascot’s name.

I agree with you. This guy was awesome! https://images.mentalfloss.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/elon.jpg

Speaking of agreeing. I’m not sure that I agree with PaladinFan’s assertion that Wofford would/would have lost to E*Loan. Love my Paladins, but they will struggle with VMI if they play the way they did against the Formerly Fightin’ Former Christians...might have even had a tough scrap with the TR DevilDogs that day. I expect ETSU to pay the penance the ‘Dins ‘owe’ for that performance.

[gofurman]

Okay, I should say neverMORE (quoth the Raven). We got beat by the Fightin’ Christians back in 1991. That was such a cool nickname. Why did they change it? And don’t tell me Christians don’t fight!

political correctness? :(

[Reign of Terrier]

FWIW I don't know how good Elon is. I'd like to think they are better. They were like wofford last year in that they won some nail biters. From what we see of Wofford so far, I think we can say they are at least as good as they were last year, if not a touch better, which may translate into less intense games down the stretch. I think Elon is the same story.

And I think Furman is missing Blazejowski (as I've said about a dozen times) and that and the turnovers is why Furman lost in the way they did

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

[PaladinFan]

FWIW I don't know how good Elon is. I'd like to think they are better. They were like wofford last year in that they won some nail biters. From what we see of Wofford so far, I think we can say they are at least as good as they were last year, if not a touch better, which may translate into less intense games down the stretch. I think Elon is the same story.

And I think Furman is missing Blazejowski (as I've said about a dozen times) and that and the turnovers is why Furman lost in the way they did

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

Elon is really good.

[SU DOG]

Wofford is really good.

[PaladinFan]

Wofford is really good.

Not suggesting they aren't. We don't know how the season will shake out, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if Elon is the best FCS team Furman faces this season. Almost assuredly the best offensive line and best running back.

[walliver]

Power rankings:
1) Wofford - still 2-0 in the SoCon
2) Mercer -beat the preseason top pick, so they're here, at least for now
3) Samford - the Bama Pups always seem to lose a couple of head-scratchers
4) Chatty - inproved, but still need to play the big boys
5) Western - could be higher, but no real impressive wins so far
6) Furman - currently on a 3 game winning streak. Need to win a game to move up
7) ETSU - hasn't shown me much, but there is still along way to go
8) The Citadel - needs to win a game
9) VMI - played better than expected last week, but only a win gets them out of the bottom spot

This week:
VMI at WCU - The kangaroos may score a TD or so, but likely give up 5 or 6. Can'ts win 38-14
The Citadel at Mercer - I never count out the toy soldier pups in any game, but El Cid's offense won't be able to keep up with the Georgia Pus and Mercer wins 31-10
Samford at Chattanooga - Are the train birds for real, or is weak competition making them look good. The Bama pups put up their usual numbers and Chatty's offense can't keep up and Sammy wins 35-24
Furman at ETSU - Have the horsey people fixed their QB issues, if so they win handily, if not this could be a low scoring slugfest. Furman struggles, but slips past the Mountain Pirates 20-17
Wofford at BYE - defense pitches a shutout and BYE goes down 2-0

[SCPALADIN]

Power rankings:
1) Wofford - still 2-0 in the SoCon
2) Mercer -beat the preseason top pick, so they're here, at least for now
3) Samford - the Bama Pups always seem to lose a couple of head-scratchers
4) Chatty - inproved, but still need to play the big boys
5) Western - could be higher, but no real impressive wins so far
6) Furman - currently on a 3 game winning streak. Need to win a game to move up
7) ETSU - hasn't shown me much, but there is still along way to go
8) The Citadel - needs to win a game
9) VMI - played better than expected last week, but only a win gets them out of the bottom spot

This week:
VMI at WCU - The kangaroos may score a TD or so, but likely give up 5 or 6. Can'ts win 38-14
The Citadel at Mercer - I never count out the toy soldier pups in any game, but El Cid's offense won't be able to keep up with the Georgia Pus and Mercer wins 31-10
Samford at Chattanooga - Are the train birds for real, or is weak competition making them look good. The Bama pups put up their usual numbers and Chatty's offense can't keep up and Sammy wins 35-24
Furman at ETSU - Have the horsey people fixed their QB issues, if so they win handily, if not this could be a low scoring slugfest. Furman struggles, but slips past the Mountain Pirates 20-17
Wofford at BYE - defense pitches a shutout and BYE goes down 2-0

What did I miss?xdrunkyx

[walliver]

What did I miss?xdrunkyx

The last game of 2017.

[ElCid]

What did I miss?xdrunkyx

Winning...losing...its all the same.

[FUBeAR]

Power Rankings

1) Wofford - Still really a tough call on how good/not good Wofford is. We know they squeaked out a win over winless CIT, whose other loss was in OT to undefeated Chatt, but that Chatt's 3 wins are over FCS Teams that are winless. So, until we see how Chatt does with Samford and how CIT does with Mercer, I don't think we can draw much from Woffy's nail-biting win over CIT. We know they blasted a winless VMI; providing us with very little information of comparative value. And we know they lost a close game (FINALLY!) to Wyoming. Well, they were on the road, in a hostile climate/altitude without one of their best Players, and Wyoming is an FBS Team with a win over an FBS Team, so that should tell us something, right? But does it? The Cowboys' lone other win is over New Mexico State, who is 0-4, and has been pretty well blasted by all of their opponents. I just can't get a read on the AnkleBiters at present, but given they are the Defending SoCon Champions, they've beaten a SoCon rival, showed OK against an FBS Team, and Samford was knocked out of the lofty perch, I'm going to 'slot' the PorchYappers here. But...I'm reserving the right to move Chattanooga, Mercer, and/or Samford ahead of them next week...even though Bye will not threaten Wofford this week. Bye is also winless, but faces VMI on 10/6 and will be looking to pull off the upset.

2) Mercer - Fantastic showing in Homewood last week for the Bears. And we KNOW that showing was against a darn good football Team...because we KNOW Samford IS a darn good football Team. Unlike Wofford, the Bullpuppies had very few changes in the offseason and they demonstrated in the 2 prior outings (well at in least their bout with FSU) that they are going to be good this season. Oh, you can tell me that FSU sux, but they would beat Wyoming and New Mexico State every day of the week and twice't on Sunday. In their other outings, Mercer showed as much against JaxU as Woffy did against VMI and, yes, they were boat-raced by an FBS Memphis Team that boat-raced GaSt last week after GaSt recently beat highly-ranked FCS Kennesaw. The Memphis/Navy score surprised me, but we know Navy doesn't suck and the game was played in pouring rain - not the friend of Memphis' explosive spread, but an ally to Navy's ball-control O. I think Mercer is strong on D, excellent on special teams, and NOW has a very promising offense. AND...Let me throw this out here (should be fun)...if we showed last week's game tape to a Football Expert who didn't know anything at all about Mercer or Samford...and we told Mr. Football Expert that one of the 2 QB's in the game was a R-Sr, the returning SoCon OPOY, and a STRONG Candidate to win the Payton Award...and the other QB was a R-FR making his 1st SoCon start...I think that Football Expert would have a very difficult time figuring out which one was which...and just may have selected the one wearing the white jersey as the decorated, award-winning QB.

3) Samford - They are young and banged up on Defense, particularly in the Secondary...but they are still a threat to score on every play...well, every pass play, at least. Still ranked and still a solid bet to make the Playoffs. They will be challenged by the Mocs this week and...IF they don't rise to that challenge, I could see them completely unraveling this season. I'm not going to look for it, but I am certain that I posted in the off-season that Samford could very well be 1-3 as they head into their OOC grudge re-match @ Kennesaw as a BIG underdog. Lose the next 2 weeks and Samford could be looking a 2 or 3 win season squarely in the face. Chatt, this week, is a MUST-WIN for the Bulldogs, IMO.

4) Chattanooga - I like what Chatt is doing more and more each week. They are not pretty when they run the ball, but their JUCO Transfer RB is a gamer and seems to like finding/making his own holes...and running over people. I like him...dang it! Chatt's OL is much improved, on the left side only though, but the rest of the OL is giving good effort and decent enough PassPro...usually. Tiano is settling in and I think they have an Offense that won't WOW anyone...other than with their fairly frequent successful deep shots...but they will help them win SoCon games. The D looks about the same as always to me - VERY talented and not nearly disciplined enough. That hurt them frequently vs. El Cid and it will hurt them against Samford if they don't improve their ability to execute their assignments. I'm not sure, but I think they are struggling a little bit on Special Teams, also. That could also be an Achilles Heel for them. Potential to move up. Potential to win the SoCon and potential to earn a Playoff spot if they don't. We'll find out a lot more about Chatt this week and certainly on 10/6 when they play Woffy.

5) The Citadel - I saw some real fire from this young bellhop squad against Chatt. If they beat Mercer this week, they can claw their way back into contention for the SoCon Championship or at least be a spoiler to 1 or more Teams. If they lose this week, we might see them play the rest of the season as they did @ Furman last year; completely uninspired; and they COULD go 0-10...or 0-11, if CSU also doesn't make the Playoffs. Mercer, this week, is a MUST WIN for the bellhops, IMO.

6) Western Carolina - Win a real game against a real opponent and they can move up. They won't move up after this week, but they could move down...and if Furman rolls out the same Team in Johnson City that played at Elon, the Cantamounts may be 'stuck' in my 6th spot (or lower) until, possibly, after their game on 10/6 at Samford.

7) Furman - SHOW ME THAT WE ARE BETTER THAN THIS...THIS WEEK...PLEASE!

8) ETSU - I said last week that this Team looks "sloppy" and I believe they lived up to that moniker in their close call with VMI. Defense is having some success, but they can't/won't move up until they swab all their decks, batten their hatches, re-cut their jibs, and rearrange their deck chairs.

9) VMI - GO KEYDETS!

This week's games

VMI @ Western Carolina - Too much talent and speed on WCU's O for VMI to keep up and I would imagine that, after last week's heartbreaking loss to ETSU, the Keydet Players are having serious doubts that their NEW Air Raid Offense is going to change anything for them in the W/L Columns...BUT WCU's secondary and D just may be what they need to allay those fears. So...I'm making 2 predictions on this game. 1) IF VMI can score at least 3 Offensive TD's in the 1st half, the Kangas jump up and pull off the upset 49-45. 2) IF VMI scores less than 3 Offensive TD's in the 1st half, PurpleMountainKitties win 52-17.

The Citadel @ Mercer - This should NOT be Family Day at Mercer because I don't expect this game to be suitable for Family viewing. This is going to be a STREET BRAWL. Mercer thinks they found something last week and they think, like Stanley Kowalski, they can be "CONTENDAH's." And they sure don't want a Team that they feel stole 3 games from them (2014-2016) to steal that feeling away. CIT is all out-of-sorts messed up and mad with their schedule and their losses and their youth and probably some kind of shenanigans going on in the barracks...BUT a CRAZY Opponent is a very dangerous Opponent and I expect the bellhops to play CRAZY in the late afternoon heat of Maconga. I will cringe and watch this one between my fingers and be grateful when it ends with the Bears licking their bloodied and badly bruised paws, while holding a 28-26 win.

Samford @ Chattanooga - A shootout is going to breakout in this one, unless Samford gets some of those DB's back and I don't think they are. I'm sure Devlin Hodges is LIVID about last week and about last year's game with Chatt. I expect him and McKnight/Shelling/et al to break some single game SoCon records, but Chatt isn't going to give it to them and their O is going to score with a methodical, slightly ugly run game and deep shots. Bullpups pull off the MUST WIN though and win this one 63-55.

Furman @ ETSU - 2 Predictions on this game also - 1) FU rolls out the @Elon Team and Bucs win 13-7. I give this prediction a 3.14% chance of occurring. 2) Furman makes ETSU pay for the Paladins' sins in the Valley of Elon and decimates a sloppy ETSU Team, let's say...91-6 with a 96.86% level of confidence.

Bye @ Wofford - Bye scores late to make it a 1 score game, but falls in the end. Looks ahead to their date in Lexington on 10/6.

[gofurman]

Power Rankings

1) Wofford - Still really a tough call on how good/not good Wofford is. We know they squeaked out a win over winless CIT, whose other loss was in OT to undefeated Chatt, but that Chatt's 3 wins are over FCS Teams that are winless. So, until we see how Chatt does with Samford and how CIT does with Mercer, I don't think we can draw much from Woffy's nail-biting win over CIT. We know they blasted a winless VMI; providing us with very little information of comparative value. And we know they lost a close game (FINALLY!) to Wyoming. Well, they were on the road, in a hostile climate/altitude without one of their best Players, and Wyoming is an FBS Team with a win over an FBS Team, so that should tell us something, right? But does it? The Cowboys' lone other win is over New Mexico State, who is 0-4, and has been pretty well blasted by all of their opponents. I just can't get a read on the AnkleBiters at present, but given they are the Defending SoCon Champions, they've beaten a SoCon rival, showed OK against an FBS Team, and Samford was knocked out of the lofty perch, I'm going to 'slot' the PorchYappers here. But...I'm reserving the right to move Chattanooga, Mercer, and/or Samford ahead of them next week...even though Bye will not threaten Wofford this week. Bye is also winless, but faces VMI on 10/6 and will be looking to pull off the upset.

2) Mercer - Fantastic showing in Homewood last week for the Bears. And we KNOW that showing was against a darn good football Team...because we KNOW Samford IS a darn good football Team. Unlike Wofford, the Bullpuppies had very few changes in the offseason and they demonstrated in the 2 prior outings (well at in least their bout with FSU) that they are going to be good this season. Oh, you can tell me that FSU sux, but they would beat Wyoming and New Mexico State every day of the week and twice't on Sunday. In their other outings, Mercer showed as much against JaxU as Woffy did against VMI and, yes, they were boat-raced by an FBS Memphis Team that boat-raced GaSt last week after GaSt recently beat highly-ranked FCS Kennesaw. The Memphis/Navy score surprised me, but we know Navy doesn't suck and the game was played in pouring rain - not the friend of Memphis' explosive spread, but an ally to Navy's ball-control O. I think Mercer is strong on D, excellent on special teams, and NOW has a very promising offense. AND...Let me throw this out here (should be fun)...if we showed last week's game tape to a Football Expert who didn't know anything at all about Mercer or Samford...and we told Mr. Football Expert that one of the 2 QB's in the game was a R-Sr, the returning SoCon OPOY, and a STRONG Candidate to win the Payton Award...and the other QB was a R-FR making his 1st SoCon start...I think that Football Expert would have a very difficult time figuring out which one was which...and just may have selected the one wearing the white jersey as the decorated, award-winning QB.

3) Samford - They are young and banged up on Defense, particularly in the Secondary...but they are still a threat to score on every play...well, every pass play, at least. Still ranked and still a solid bet to make the Playoffs. They will be challenged by the Mocs this week and...IF they don't rise to that challenge, I could see them completely unraveling this season. I'm not going to look for it, but I am certain that I posted in the off-season that Samford could very well be 1-3 as they head into their OOC grudge re-match @ Kennesaw as a BIG underdog. Lose the next 2 weeks and Samford could be looking a 2 or 3 win season squarely in the face. Chatt, this week, is a MUST-WIN for the Bulldogs, IMO.

4) Chattanooga - I like what Chatt is doing more and more each week. They are not pretty when they run the ball, but their JUCO Transfer RB is a gamer and seems to like finding/making his own holes...and running over people. I like him...dang it! Chatt's OL is much improved, on the left side only though, but the rest of the OL is giving good effort and decent enough PassPro...usually. Tiano is settling in and I think they have an Offense that won't WOW anyone...other than with their fairly frequent successful deep shots...but they will help them win SoCon games. The D looks about the same as always to me - VERY talented and not nearly disciplined enough. That hurt them frequently vs. El Cid and it will hurt them against Samford if they don't improve their ability to execute their assignments. I'm not sure, but I think they are struggling a little bit on Special Teams, also. That could also be an Achilles Heel for them. Potential to move up. Potential to win the SoCon and potential to earn a Playoff spot if they don't. We'll find out a lot more about Chatt this week and certainly on 10/6 when they play Woffy.

5) The Citadel - I saw some real fire from this young bellhop squad against Chatt. If they beat Mercer this week, they can claw their way back into contention for the SoCon Championship or at least be a spoiler to 1 or more Teams. If they lose this week, we might see them play the rest of the season as they did @ Furman last year; completely uninspired; and they COULD go 0-10...or 0-11, if CSU also doesn't make the Playoffs. Mercer, this week, is a MUST WIN for the bellhops, IMO.

6) Western Carolina - Win a real game against a real opponent and they can move up. They won't move up after this week, but they could move down...and if Furman rolls out the same Team in Johnson City that played at Elon, the Cantamounts may be 'stuck' in my 6th spot (or lower) until, possibly, after their game on 10/6 at Samford.

7) Furman - SHOW ME THAT WE ARE BETTER THAN THIS...THIS WEEK...PLEASE!

8) ETSU - I said last week that this Team looks "sloppy" and I believe they lived up to that moniker in their close call with VMI. Defense is having some success, but they can't/won't move up until they swab all their decks, batten their hatches, re-cut their jibs, and rearrange their deck chairs.

9) VMI - GO KEYDETS!

This week's games

VMI @ Western Carolina - Too much talent and speed on WCU's O for VMI to keep up and I would imagine that, after last week's heartbreaking loss to ETSU, the Keydet Players are having serious doubts that their NEW Air Raid Offense is going to change anything for them in the W/L Columns...BUT WCU's secondary and D just may be what they need to allay those fears. So...I'm making 2 predictions on this game. 1) IF VMI can score at least 3 Offensive TD's in the 1st half, the Kangas jump up and pull off the upset 49-45. 2) IF VMI scores less than 3 Offensive TD's in the 1st half, PurpleMountainKitties win 52-17.

The Citadel @ Mercer - This should NOT be Family Day at Mercer because I don't expect this game to be suitable for Family viewing. This is going to be a STREET BRAWL. Mercer thinks they found something last week and they think, like Stanley Kowalski, they can be "CONTENDAH's." And they sure don't want a Team that they feel stole 3 games from them (2014-2016) to steal that feeling away. CIT is all out-of-sorts messed up and mad with their schedule and their losses and their youth and probably some kind of shenanigans going on in the barracks...BUT a CRAZY Opponent is a very dangerous Opponent and I expect the bellhops to play CRAZY in the late afternoon heat of Maconga. I will cringe and watch this one between my fingers and be grateful when it ends with the Bears licking their bloodied and badly bruised paws, while holding a 28-26 win.

Samford @ Chattanooga - A shootout is going to breakout in this one, unless Samford gets some of those DB's back and I don't think they are. I'm sure Devlin Hodges is LIVID about last week and about last year's game with Chatt. I expect him and McKnight/Shelling/et al to break some single game SoCon records, but Chatt isn't going to give it to them and their O is going to score with a methodical, slightly ugly run game and deep shots. Bullpups pull off the MUST WIN though and win this one 63-55.

Furman @ ETSU - 2 Predictions on this game also - 1) FU rolls out the @Elon Team and Bucs win 13-7. I give this prediction a 3.14% chance of occurring. 2) Furman makes ETSU pay for the Paladins' sins in the Valley of Elon and decimates a sloppy ETSU Team, let's say...91-6 with a 96.86% level of confidence.

Bye @ Wofford - Bye score late to make it a 1 score game, but falls in the end. Looks ahead to their date in Lexington on 10/6.


FUBeAR - despite Riley being a Jerry Rice finalist last year and the SoCon offensive freshman of the year last year ... mercer has Riddle taking most of the snaps at QB now? Is that the case ? Wow. That means you have a super Soph and FR at QB. did I see that right? That Riddle is just as likely to be playing as Riley?

[wcugrad95]

I think what I saw with last week's performance is Riddle is the guy and Riley will play in mop-up time. Riddle just threw for over 300 yards at Samford.

[gofurman]

I think what I saw with last week's performance is Riddle is the guy and Riley will play in mop-up time. Riddle just threw for over 300 yards at Samford.

Woww - that's some QB depth right there.. a R-FR and a R-Soph (the Soph was in the running for Jerry Rice award and was the conference freshman of the year). I just assumed since Riley was able to start as a freshman that he had it locked up

[FUBeAR]

FUBeAR - despite Riley being a Jerry Rice finalist last year and the SoCon offensive freshman of the year last year ... mercer has Riddle taking most of the snaps at QB now? Is that the case ? Wow. That means you have a super Soph and FR at QB. did I see that right? That Riddle is just as likely to be playing as Riley?

MERCER FOOTBALL 2018
DEPTH CHART (VS. THE CITADEL)


Position
Number
Player
HT
WT
YR


QB
10
ROBERT RIDDLE
6-3
207
R-Fr.



1
Kaelan Riley
6-3
231
R-So



https://mercerbears.com/documents/2018/9/17//2018_09_22_Mercer_Football_Notebook.pdf?id=9155

Offensive


MER - Passing









Player
Cmp
Att.
Yds.
TD
INT
Long
Sack


Robert Riddle (https://mercerbears.com/roster.aspx?rp_id=5381)
23
34
316
1
1
73
0


TOTALS
23
34
316
1
1
73
0





SAM - Passing









Player
Cmp
Att.
Yds.
TD
Int.
Long
Sack


Devlin Hodges
30
41
291
3
1
35
0


TOTALS
30
41
291
3
1
35
0





MER - Rushing









Player
Att.
Gain
Loss
Net
TD
Lg.
Avg.


Robert Riddle (https://mercerbears.com/roster.aspx?rp_id=5381)
6
25
0
25
2
10
4.2





SAM - Rushing









Player
Att.
Gain
Loss
Net
TD
Lg.
Avg.


Devlin Hodges
6
38
0
38
0
12
6.3

[Mocs123]

Best case senerio (for Mercer) is that they now have a solid backup QB. Worst Case he transfers.

[tenNesseeCat]

Win a real game against a real opponent and they can move up. They won't move up after this week...

WCU's secondary and D just may be what they need to allay those fears.

Glad you can display your anti WCU bias yet again. So if we beat VMI by 60, the needle still doesn't move? makes sense in F-ed Up bear land I guess. Why don't you just make like CitDog and say WCU sucks every chance you get?

Our D isn't world beaters by any means, but they are improving. Missing some guys on D in the first game along with a couple big/broken plays allowed that game to be as close as it was. We got up early and tried to take a nap in one of those google self driving cars, that ran us in the ditch. We woke up just in time to pull the W. They have a history of playing some higher level teams close, and beating Dll top 25 teams on a regular basis. Also, I believe they provide more FB scholarships than does Jacksonville. WCU can't help that an FCS team backed out of a game with us, and this is what we could find. Not to mention that Newberry is probably a better team than the FCS team we had for that date. We played a BAD game but still got the W. I can surely understand some eyebrows being raised though.

We held GW to slightly more yards than did A&T <250, with a second half shut out, and <80 yards. <100 yard rushing for the game for GW. In last years game they had over 220 yards rushing, and 17 more points. On their lone TD drive, the refs gave them 15 yards on a WCU personal foul, that shouldn't have been. If not for that bad call, we could have held them to <200 yards for the game, and 7 less points. We didn't have to pass much vs GW this year, but +30 mph tropical storm winds didn't help the passing or kicking game any. We left 2 FG's on the field. Game was moved up a day, and away for The Cats. I was happy with the W...it was a W that could/should have been better for us.

I think we're improving, with lots of room for more.

You use a fair amount of team A beat team B, team B beat team C, team C could beat team D and E. I've always seen people say that you can't do that with a real level of confidence. Team C may match up way better with team A than did team B. But I guess it's all good in F-ed UP bear land. As long as we keep winning, I'll take your #6 slot with a smile!

[FUBeAR]

F-ed Up bearThat’s F-edUpBeAR, please.


As long as we keep winning, I'll take your #6 slot with a smile!Actually could drop to #7...even with a win over VMI.

[tenNesseeCat]

Actually could drop to #7...even with a win over VMI.

as expected, but I did expect a WCU sucks

[Smitty]

I agree to a certain extent with the bias but we haven't done anything to earn a higher spot in the pole. VMI isn't a good source to measure further success in the season... If we go out and hold Furman to 14 points while scoring 30+, I would move them up to probably 3rd or 4th. If we lose then we stay were he suggests

[wcugrad95]

Everybody has opinions. And everybody ***could*** drop. I at least have to applaud FUBeAR for not painting the "everything is ok" picture on his own team. As for his rating of WCU, I think he just likes to try and get a rile out of a few of the Western faithful. It is an opinion, and as such he is saying WCU hasn't played anybody yet (and in his mind that doesn't change this weekend). Hard to argue that we haven't had the easiest road of anybody in the conference to date, but it will all get figured out over the next 3 weeks with WCU - we'll either rise with good games against 3 conference teams, or fall dramatically.

Same thing with FU. They could rise dramatically with 2 wins this week and next, or they could stay in the bottom 6 with a split, or they could drop to 8th with 2 more losses. Same with Samford. Same with....

After 2 or 3 games, I still dont't think we really know enough. So this is all conjecture and personal feelings right now.

[tenNesseeCat]

I agree to a certain extent with the bias but we haven't done anything to earn a higher spot in the pole. VMI isn't a good source to measure further success in the season

And an o-fer Charleston team has? I really don't care where he ranks us. I just give him a hard time, because he ALWAYS gives WCU a hard time.

[tenNesseeCat]

I at least have to applaud FUBeAR for not painting the "everything is ok" picture on his own team.

So this is all conjecture and personal feelings right now.

Which team? If we were playing poker, he's playing two hands.


After 2 or 3 games, I still dont't think we really know enough. So this is all conjecture and personal feelings right now.

And in many cases with him, it doesn't matter if it's the middle or end of the season of a pretty good year for WCU.

[Reign of Terrier]

Some minor developments for you guys to chew on. These stats aren't predictive of anything, but it's worth thinking about. I don't count sub-D1 or FBS games in these numbers and I'm tempted to drop VMI.

Chattanooga's offense is much better than last year from a scoring % perspective. Last year, they finished the year at about 25%. This year, so far they are at 48% so far. Their defense is roughly the same, at 29% compared to 31%

The Citadel is about where they were last year, if not a little worse. They're scoring about 26% of the time (compared to 31% last year) and being scored on 34% of the time (compared to 31% last year).

ETSU has only one game under their belt in this little bull**** algorithm (most teams only have two), but they are at 22% against VM-freaking-I, about a possession worse at 25% last year (it's probably much worse because of the small sample and quality of the competition). Defensively, it's a 20% increase from last year to this one (36% to 16%), but again it's VMI.

Furman looks bad, but their sample is small and not worth reporting.

Mercer is scoring offensively 69% of the time and getting teams off about 29% of the time. That looks good, and if they continue to score 50% of the time or more (that number will go down unless Riddle is the next Ingle Martin) they will win the socon. Last year, Mercer's offense only scored 35% of the time. A 15-25% increase would literally mean 14+ more points on the board, enough to easily run the table in the Socon (this is why I'm high on them).

Samford only has one game in this algorithm and it was against Mercer. From that small sample, their offense is about the same and the defense is not as good as last year.

You probably wouldn't believe me, but VMI's defense is about 20% (allowing scores 40% of the time, compared to 60% last year) better than it was last year, but otherwise the same (and that improvement is still bad).

Western Carolina needs more information but they're defensive performance against Gardner Webb was better this year than last, while their offensive performance wasn't (and that's slightly attributable to missed field goals)

As for Wofford, we look better than we did last year. We're scoring 50% of the time we touch the ball compared to 42% last year, while also allowing a conference low score 11% of the time on defense. As a sidenote, I think Wofford's defense is much better than last year under Conklin. Last year we only held 4 teams to 3 scores or less, this year we've done it in the first 3 games. The only bit of caution to this statistics is that we've also played 2 of the 4 teams that we did it to last year (VMI, the Citadel). At the same time, we probably held an FBS opponent to the least amount of points in school history against Wyoming (still shoulda won!). I think we'll continue this trend against Gardner Webb, which has serious offensive question marks. At the very least we'll win and I don't think we'll learn much until we play Chattanooga.

[tenNesseeCat]

I thought some might be interested to read this.

https://www.thestate.com/sports/college/football/article217865130.html

[FUBeAR]

Some minor developments for you guys to chew on. These stats aren't predictive of anything, but it's worth thinking about. I don't count sub-D1 or FBS games in these numbers and I'm tempted to drop VMI.

Chattanooga's offense is much better than last year from a scoring % perspective. Last year, they finished the year at about 25%. This year, so far they are at 48% so far. Their defense is roughly the same, at 29% compared to 31%

The Citadel is about where they were last year, if not a little worse. They're scoring about 26% of the time (compared to 31% last year) and being scored on 34% of the time (compared to 31% last year).

ETSU has only one game under their belt in this little bull**** algorithm (most teams only have two), but they are at 22% against VM-freaking-I, about a possession worse at 25% last year (it's probably much worse because of the small sample and quality of the competition). Defensively, it's a 20% increase from last year to this one (36% to 16%), but again it's VMI.

Furman looks bad, but their sample is small and not worth reporting.

Mercer is scoring offensively 69% of the time and getting teams off about 29% of the time. That looks good, and if they continue to score 50% of the time or more (that number will go down unless Riddle is the next Ingle Martin) they will win the socon. Last year, Mercer's offense only scored 35% of the time. A 15-25% increase would literally mean 14+ more points on the board, enough to easily run the table in the Socon (this is why I'm high on them).

Samford only has one game in this algorithm and it was against Mercer. From that small sample, their offense is about the same and the defense is not as good as last year.

You probably wouldn't believe me, but VMI's defense is about 20% (allowing scores 40% of the time, compared to 60% last year) better than it was last year, but otherwise the same (and that improvement is still bad).

Western Carolina needs more information but they're defensive performance against Gardner Webb was better this year than last, while their offensive performance wasn't (and that's slightly attributable to missed field goals)

As for Wofford, we look better than we did last year. We're scoring 50% of the time we touch the ball compared to 42% last year, while also allowing a conference low score 11% of the time on defense. As a sidenote, I think Wofford's defense is much better than last year under Conklin. Last year we only held 4 teams to 3 scores or less, this year we've done it in the first 3 games. The only bit of caution to this statistics is that we've also played 2 of the 4 teams that we did it to last year (VMI, the Citadel). At the same time, we probably held an FBS opponent to the least amount of points in school history against Wyoming (still shoulda won!). I think we'll continue this trend against Gardner Webb, which has serious offensive question marks. At the very least we'll win and I don't think we'll learn much until we play Chattanooga.Good info & narrative. If you care to & can, I would love to look at some of this in tabular format.

The Wofford Defensive number is interesting to me. While each of these metrics can be parsed and broken down more granularly, I think a closer look at that particular one is worthwhile. I think you are correct in that it will get even ‘mo better’ vs. G-W. Their O looked very bad vs. WCU. I could see a shutout for the Terriers in the game next week. And you already addressed, to some extent, the ‘outlier-ness’ of CIT vs. Woffy & VMI vs. Woffy (and everybody, really).

So, that leaves us looking at the FBS Wyoming game...and the quality of Wyoming’s Offense. In addition to Woffy, Wyoming has played (and lost badly to) 2 respectable Teams and undefeated FBS Teams - Washington State of the PAC12 & Missouri of the SEC. As they didn’t vs. Wofford & as one might expect, they sure didn’t light up the scoreboard vs. WSU or Mizzou either. They did score 2 1st half TD’s vs. WSU, but both were on short fields (54 & 30 yards). They only scored 1 TD vs. Mizzou and that came very late in the 3rd quarter when they were already down 30-3. But, c’mon FBS, undefeated Teams...except, among WSU’S & Mizzou’s combined 4 non-Wyo. wins, we find 2 FCS, 1 bad G5, and only 1 decent P5 win, a close one (30-27) for Mizzou over Purdue. So...nothing in there is confirming for me that Wyoming’s Offense is capable of putting up many points vs. anyone, regardless of the level of competition. But, wait...Wyoming did score 3 Offensive TD’s (and win) over an FBS Team...New Mexico State, a Team so bad the lowly SunBelt kicked them out. NMSU has given up around 6 TD’s/game in their other 3 games against meh (or worse) FBS Teams (Minnesota, Utah State, and New Mexico). So...at this point, I’m unconvinced that Woffy giving up 17 to Wyoming tells us any more about Woffy’s D than did their games vs. CIT & VMI. It looks pretty good now, but they will have a chance to validate it (or not) once they are done shutting down the Runnin’(away) Bulldogs and get into the heart of their SoCon schedule.

[FUBeAR]

I thought some might be interested to read this.

https://www.thestate.com/sports/college/football/article217865130.html
I think there is a D2 thread around here somewhere. Hold on...Yep. Here ya go.

http://www.anygivensaturday.com/showthread.php?211954-D2-Football-GSC

[Scrappy94]

Interesting stat. In the past 5 meetings, Samford's offense has put up only 14, 24, 21, 21, and 21 points against Chattanooga's defense. I really don't see their O putting up more points than they have in the past few meetings with a tough as usual Chattanooga D.

[Reign of Terrier]

I have this in a Google doc. But as I said, I don't include FBS games because they aren't predict.

As for Wyoming I don't disagree, however one of their scores was on a short field (less than 10 yards). Either way it's our best performance against an FBS team. If we let GW score 3 times, it doesn't tell us much because it's just as much as we let them do last year. I don't think we'll shut them out unless we win the TO battle by 3+
Good info & narrative. If you care to & can, I would love to look at some of this in tabular format.

The Wofford Defensive number is interesting to me. While each of these metrics can be parsed and broken down more granularly, I think a closer look at that particular one is worthwhile. I think you are correct in that it will get even ‘mo better’ vs. G-W. Their O looked very bad vs. WCU. I could see a shutout for the Terriers in the game next week. And you already addressed, to some extent, the ‘outlier-ness’ of CIT vs. Woffy & VMI vs. Woffy (and everybody, really).

So, that leaves us looking at the FBS Wyoming game...and the quality of Wyoming’s Offense. In addition to Woffy, Wyoming has played (and lost badly to) 2 respectable Teams and undefeated FBS Teams - Washington State of the PAC12 & Missouri of the SEC. As they didn’t vs. Wofford & as one might expect, they sure didn’t light up the scoreboard vs. WSU or Mizzou either. They did score 2 1st half TD’s vs. WSU, but both were on short fields (54 & 30 yards). They only scored 1 TD vs. Mizzou and that came very late in the 3rd quarter when they were already down 30-3. But, c’mon FBS, undefeated Teams...except, among WSU’S & Mizzou’s combined 4 non-Wyo. wins, we find 2 FCS, 1 bad G5, and only 1 decent P5 win, a close one (30-27) for Mizzou over Purdue. So...nothing in there is confirming for me that Wyoming’s Offense is capable of putting up many points vs. anyone, regardless of the level of competition. But, wait...Wyoming did score 3 Offensive TD’s (and win) over an FBS Team...New Mexico State, a Team so bad the lowly SunBelt kicked them out. NMSU has given up around 6 TD’s/game in their other 3 games against meh (or worse) FBS Teams (Minnesota, Utah State, and New Mexico). So...at this point, I’m unconvinced that Woffy giving up 17 to Wyoming tells us any more about Woffy’s D than did their games vs. CIT & VMI. It looks pretty good now, but they will have a chance to validate it (or not) once they are done shutting down the Runnin’(away) Bulldogs and get into the heart of their SoCon schedule.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

[gofurman]

Some minor developments for you guys to chew on. These stats aren't predictive of anything, but it's worth thinking about. I don't count sub-D1 or FBS games in these numbers and I'm tempted to drop VMI.

Chattanooga's offense is much better than last year from a scoring % perspective. Last year, they finished the year at about 25%. This year, so far they are at 48% so far. Their defense is roughly the same, at 29% compared to 31%

The Citadel is about where they were last year, if not a little worse. They're scoring about 26% of the time (compared to 31% last year) and being scored on 34% of the time (compared to 31% last year).

ETSU has only one game under their belt in this little bull**** algorithm (most teams only have two), but they are at 22% against VM-freaking-I, about a possession worse at 25% last year (it's probably much worse because of the small sample and quality of the competition). Defensively, it's a 20% increase from last year to this one (36% to 16%), but again it's VMI.

Furman looks bad, but their sample is small and not worth reporting.

Mercer is scoring offensively 69% of the time and getting teams off about 29% of the time. That looks good, and if they continue to score 50% of the time or more (that number will go down unless Riddle is the next Ingle Martin) they will win the socon. Last year, Mercer's offense only scored 35% of the time. A 15-25% increase would literally mean 14+ more points on the board, enough to easily run the table in the Socon (this is why I'm high on them).

Samford only has one game in this algorithm and it was against Mercer. From that small sample, their offense is about the same and the defense is not as good as last year.

You probably wouldn't believe me, but VMI's defense is about 20% (allowing scores 40% of the time, compared to 60% last year) better than it was last year, but otherwise the same (and that improvement is still bad).

Western Carolina needs more information but they're defensive performance against Gardner Webb was better this year than last, while their offensive performance wasn't (and that's slightly attributable to missed field goals)

As for Wofford, we look better than we did last year. We're scoring 50% of the time we touch the ball compared to 42% last year, while also allowing a conference low score 11% of the time on defense. As a sidenote, I think Wofford's defense is much better than last year under Conklin. Last year we only held 4 teams to 3 scores or less, this year we've done it in the first 3 games. The only bit of caution to this statistics is that we've also played 2 of the 4 teams that we did it to last year (VMI, the Citadel). At the same time, we probably held an FBS opponent to the least amount of points in school history against Wyoming (still shoulda won!). I think we'll continue this trend against Gardner Webb, which has serious offensive question marks. At the very least we'll win and I don't think we'll learn much until we play Chattanooga.

appreciate young terrier stats. Keeps it objective. I am a huge numbers guy too. Probably know where most teams stand by early October. Always my take. Does stink for my Paladins. Only 4 home games and it appears we MAY have 10 games total ? Boo. Not that I necessarily think we are a playoff team but I am very objective and we woulda beat Colgate. Beat em by 30 the past 3 times including last year. Now instead of 7-4 we have to go what ? 7-3 ? Boo. Don't get me wrong. Hurricane safety comes first !!! Absolutely.

But it within the realm of football my Paladins got shorted. Oh well, FU has a LOOOOONG way to go to even think about anything like that. Shame though - w Clemson FBS loss - we have to now go 6-2 rest of way just to have a winning season... 6-2 rest of way would make Furman a 6-4 team.

ANYWAY let's see if FU beats ETSU on road and maybe beats WCU next week... and then it's interesting how the narrative changes each week... And that's true for every team.

Win those two and though that's 2–2 it's 2-0 in SoCon and 2-1 vs FCS

FURMAN really needs to improve OL work. SOOO YOUNG ON OL. One junior. Three Soph. One FR now. Man that's just about too young. Because we know Coach Clay Hendrix is an OL specialist. That's what he did at Furman in 80s etc. That's (OL) what he did at Air Force ! He is an OL guru. So I think we are set to be really good next year. This year may depend on how fast can youngsters learn or is it an OL learning curve that takes until next year?

the D better show up ... 8/9 returning starters PLUS Clemson two-deep player Trapp now as starting CB. he is a great athlete - obviously if he was getting a lil' play at Clemson. No reason for all the confusion and missed tackles last week. The only small excuse would be loss of Jerry Rice award finalist Reynard Ellis at MLB so heart of our Defensive unit and was a freak - as he was on national award list. He transferred so that hurts

[chattownmocs]

Is editing posts not allowed now? If so, does it really need to give you the option of editing and then delete your entire post instead?

[chattownmocs]

Probably my own ignorance.

But, I was wondering how teams were handling freshman given the redshirt rules. I dont think any of UTC's are playing. I dont know if they are even dressing or traveling or whatever. Maybe it's a complete bust, very surprised none are ready. Could have used them at WR and D-line and those were supposedly our best positions in recruiting this year. He must be saving them for the end of the year. Or they are busts. Seems risky if not, we were dead tired at the Citadel on the D-line and had 2 injuries. All we did was just moved a former DE who is now a LB back to DE. Given the new rules, why not throw a freshman out there even if you weren't planning on playing them, unless they weren't there, because hes Cocky enough to set it in stone what games they are going to play in. Can they play in the playoffs? Would you want to wait til the end to play them? Again, why not play one of them at the Citadel?

[Mocs123]

Probably my own ignorance.

But, I was wondering how teams were handling freshman given the redshirt rules. I dont think any of UTC's are playing. I dont know if they are even dressing or traveling or whatever. Maybe it's a complete bust, very surprised none are ready. Could have used them at WR and D-line and those were supposedly our best positions in recruiting this year. He must be saving them for the end of the year. Or they are busts. Seems risky if not, we were dead tired at the Citadel on the D-line and had 2 injuries. All we did was just moved a former DE who is now a LB back to DE. Given the new rules, why not throw a freshman out there even if you weren't planning on playing them, unless they weren't there, because hes Cocky enough to set it in stone what games they are going to play in. Can they play in the playoffs? Would you want to wait til the end to play them? Again, why not play one of them at the Citadel?


I'm not sure why Arth didn't play any on the D-Line in the game vs. The Citadel (I didn't even get to watch the game - I was backpacking the Wind River High Route), but some of our Freshman have played (mostly on special teams).

Ty Boeck has played in all 3 games
CaMiron Smith has played in all 3 games
Gabe Boring has too (KO's)
Shawn McMinn has played in 1 game
Nyvan Nelson has played in 1 game
Phil Shealy has played in 2 games (due to an injury to Jared Nash)

It is true that our two biggest signings (Genuine Potts and Josh Walker) have not played - and I don't think either are listed on the two deep. I think they were both dressed and on the field for the home game vs. TTU.

[Reign of Terrier]

Is editing posts not allowed now? If so, does it really need to give you the option of editing and then delete your entire post instead?

If you are editing on a mobile browser, it will delete. It's dumb.

Having said that, I highly recommend the Tapatalk app for mobile use.


Probably my own ignorance.

But, I was wondering how teams were handling freshman given the redshirt rules. I dont think any of UTC's are playing. I dont know if they are even dressing or traveling or whatever. Maybe it's a complete bust, very surprised none are ready. Could have used them at WR and D-line and those were supposedly our best positions in recruiting this year. He must be saving them for the end of the year. Or they are busts. Seems risky if not, we were dead tired at the Citadel on the D-line and had 2 injuries. All we did was just moved a former DE who is now a LB back to DE. Given the new rules, why not throw a freshman out there even if you weren't planning on playing them, unless they weren't there, because hes Cocky enough to set it in stone what games they are going to play in. Can they play in the playoffs? Would you want to wait til the end to play them? Again, why not play one of them at the Citadel?

I like the new rule. It's given Wofford the opportunity to beta test some of our players without losing their eligibility. Some of those players have earned the right to play and others will probably not go past the 4 game limit. Overall, the new rules has given us more depth at the skill positions.


I'm not sure why Arth didn't play any on the D-Line in the game vs. The Citadel (I didn't even get to watch the game - I was backpacking the Wind River High Route), but some of our Freshman have played (mostly on special teams).

Ty Boeck has played in all 3 games
CaMiron Smith has played in all 3 games
Gabe Boring has too (KO's)
Shawn McMinn has played in 1 game
Nyvan Nelson has played in 1 game
Phil Shealy has played in 2 games (due to an injury to Jared Nash)

It is true that our two biggest signings (Genuine Potts and Josh Walker) have not played - and I don't think either are listed on the two deep. I think they were both dressed and on the field for the home game vs. TTU.

It's my impression (and you can correct me if I'm wrong) that UTC probably has more transfers than other teams in the conference this year, so freshmen are at a bigger disadvantage for PT

[wcugrad95]

I saw this on the Furman board, then went and checked 5dimes to make sure it was true. Mercer went from about a 7-point favorite to now GETTING 5 from Citadel in Macon. Anybody know what is up with that? Did somebody either lay some big money on Mercer losing/not covering, or somebody make a mistake at 5dimes, or is there something going on with the Bears??? Checked OddShark and it has the same (Citadel -5).

[Mocs123]

It's my impression (and you can correct me if I'm wrong) that UTC probably has more transfers than other teams in the conference this year, so freshmen are at a bigger disadvantage for PT

UTC has a few more transfers than most but there are a lot of them that are walkons.

We do have some transfers that play

Nick Tiano - from Chattanooga
Harrison Moon - from Chattanooga
Kareem Orr - from Chattanooga
Noah Ramsey - from Dalton (outside Chattanooga)


Derek Mchaffey - recruited JUCO
Joseph Parker - transfer from Wyoming - honestly have no idea how he ended up halfway across the country
Chris James - recruited JUCO
Tyrell Price - recruited JUCO
Hawk Schrider - transfer from Richmond (from the Huesman regime)
Jared Nash - Long Snapper from Western Kentucky
Chris Barnes - transfer from UGA for needed OL help
Jordan Giberti - transfer from TTU

[Smitty]

Looking for a defensive coordinator or players that can actually play defense. Name your price...

[Reign of Terrier]

VMI has some fight in them! Wow!

[Reign of Terrier]

With respect to the Keydets, they are the Browns of the Socon. I'm rooting for them!

[Smitty]

With respect to the Keydets, they are the Browns of the Socon. I'm rooting for them!

I guess that makes us the Lions then

[Reign of Terrier]

big targeting call if it stands. Could bring Adams out for the rest of this game. That was a huge play.

[chattownmocs]

I'm not sure why Arth didn't play any on the D-Line in the game vs. The Citadel (I didn't even get to watch the game - I was backpacking the Wind River High Route), but some of our Freshman have played (mostly on special teams).

Ty Boeck has played in all 3 games
CaMiron Smith has played in all 3 games
Gabe Boring has too (KO's)
Shawn McMinn has played in 1 game
Nyvan Nelson has played in 1 game
Phil Shealy has played in 2 games (due to an injury to Jared Nash)

It is true that our two biggest signings (Genuine Potts and Josh Walker) have not played - and I don't think either are listed on the two deep. I think they were both dressed and on the field for the home game vs. TTU.

Those are conspicuously the lowest rated players in the class.

[Reign of Terrier]

Upsets are a-brewing this week...

[wcugrad95]

WCU has a top-20 offense. Sadly - we have a bottom-10 defense. Maybe a bottom-5.

[ElCid]

Riddle went down on Mercer's closing drive. Any word? Hope he is ok. He is money on threading the needle. I actually think he is better than Hodges. Better touch. Knows exactly where and when and how hard/soft to throw it.

[wcugrad95]

Mercer loses to Citadel (who has had a chance in all 3 games). WCU somehow survives 52-50 to become the worst 3-0 team in America.

[Reign of Terrier]

Both VMI and the Citadel know how to fight, I'm glad we got them out of the way early

[PaladinFan]

Furman looks much better with Harris Roberts in. ETSU still stingy, but Paladins look the better team. I'll take any win here.

[PaladinFan]

Apparently Furman/ETSU is in a weather delay. I thought halftime was running a bit longer than usual.

[Reign of Terrier]

Samford is in full-on Chris Hatcher mode.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

[Reign of Terrier]

(this won't stop them from getting it together against Wofford though)

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[PaladinFan]

This doesn't score touchdowns, but Furman looks in great physical shape. Better than can just about every remember them.

The offense looks like a different group with Roberts running it.

[Milktruck74]

As long as they don’t get it together in these last 6 minutes....one drive Mocs!

[PaladinFan]

ETSU a pretty decent defensive squad. That defense will win them some games this year.

[PaladinFan]

Paladins hit an option toss to Darius Morehead for a TD. Furman up 27-6.

[PaladinFan]

Austin Herink makes his debut

[Reign of Terrier]

The ETSU coach should apologize to every ETSU fan for not playing Henrik until now.

Also Samford will probably not make the playoffs.

Chattanooga is "back"

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[PaladinFan]

The ETSU coach should apologize to every ETSU fan for not playing Henrik until now.

Also Samford will probably not make the playoffs.

Chattanooga is "back"

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Marchi is the better athlete, but Herink the better QB. Furman's battering him around, but he's hanging in there and hitting recievers.

Samford has zero margin for error. They have to win out. They will still be mathematically eligible for the SoCon autobid, but that seems increasingly unlikely. Any other loss, and I don't think they can reach 7 D1 wins.

[PaladinFan]

Furman's offense is pulling some elements of Army's (Monken's) version of the option. The WR/TE types closer to the tackles and the wingbacks in a "slot"

[PaladinFan]

ETSU is riding Herink back into this one. 27-20 Furman midway through the fourth.

[Milktruck74]

The ETSU coach should apologize to every ETSU fan for not playing Henrik until now.

Also Samford will probably not make the playoffs.

Chattanooga is "back"

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4-0 against teams that are 3-12....and one of those 3 was against a d2 team. A win next week will make us 5-0 and ETSU isn’t going to help the sos.....so, maybe another few wins and we can discuss ‘back’.....

[Reign of Terrier]

I'm pretty sure Herink has more production in the last 3 drives or so than ETSU has had for the last 3 games

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[Reign of Terrier]

Wofford @ Chatt will be yuge
4-0 against teams that are 3-12....and one of those 3 was against a d2 team. A win next week will make us 5-0 and ETSU isn’t going to help the sos.....so, maybe another few wins and we can discuss ‘back’.....

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[ETSUfan1]

It’s really unexplainable why Marchi has been playing. Just totally baffling. It’s clearly herinks team

[Reign of Terrier]

Agreed. I can see that and I am not following ETSU closely.
It’s really unexplainable why Marchi has been playing. Just totally baffling. It’s clearly herinks team

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[PaladinFan]

I'm pretty sure Herink has more production in the last 3 drives or so than ETSU has had for the last 3 games

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I cannot for the life of me see how they went with the other guy. Herink throws the ball - his man catches it.

ETSU is playing inspired. After Furman hasn't had a home game in six contests and this conference looks like a wild one this year. I'll take any ugly road win that comes to us.

[Milktruck74]

Wofford @ Chatt will be yuge

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Bigly

- - - Updated - - -

But wait, etsu.....making a game of it.

[Reign of Terrier]

ETSU offense couldn't break 20 (forgot the exact score) against a bad VMI defense that's let everyone score 50 on them with their other guy leading the team.

I don't know how good ETSU is, especially with Herink back at the helm.

Furman is a big unknown still. I think next week is the week we start to get a better impression of a lot of these teams

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[CID1990]

Samford is in full-on Chris Hatcher mode.

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Only Hatcher can lose with a team like Sammy

[PaladinFan]

ETSU offense couldn't break 20 (forgot the exact score) against a bad VMI defense that's let everyone score 50 on them with their other guy leading the team.

I don't know how good ETSU is, especially with Herink back at the helm.

Furman is a big unknown still. I think next week is the week we start to get a better impression of a lot of these teams

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Herink is a much better QB than the other guy. Even his misses are well thrown. Furman's coverage has largely been fine.

[rtzlunar]

Samford [/B]at Chattanooga - not even close, Mocs embarrassed at home



[/COLOR]

Prediction almost as bad as Western’s defense

[Reign of Terrier]

Only Hatcher can lose with a team like SammySamford got hatched

Also ETSU just scored a touchdown and is going for two to go ahead

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[Reign of Terrier]

Holding on the try. Looks like ETSU should just kick the PAT

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[PaladinFan]

Holding on the try. Looks like ETSU should just kick the PAT

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Wierd play. No signal that he ever scored.

[ETSUfan1]

FURNAN OMG

[ElCid]

Wierd play. No signal that he ever scored.

Don't think he made it. But it is moot since they got the penalty.

Just saw Furman tube the kickoff. We did something similar as well, but we went 96 yards to score in stead of 75.

[ElCid]

Ouch. ETSU gets the safety. I think that's it.

[PaladinFan]

Crippling mistake by freshman kick returner.

- - - Updated - - -


Ouch. ETSU gets the safety. I think that's it.

Furman has 3 TOs. So, they'll have a shot.

[Reign of Terrier]

And ETSU just forced a safety after a boneheaded move by the Furman returner. Wowowowow

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[CID1990]

LAWL

The wheels didn’t just fall off, they shot off into the stratosphere

[Reign of Terrier]

But ETSU gets the ball so yeah

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[PaladinFan]

This would be a huge gut punch to Furman. Herink gave them a lift and Furman just couldn't get out of their own zone.

[FUBeAR]

Anyone know the Suicide Prevention Hotline number?

...asking for a friend.

[Reign of Terrier]

This is rough, man.

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[ElCid]

Crippling mistake by freshman kick returner.

- - - Updated - - -



Furman has 3 TOs. So, they'll have a shot.


Oh yeah, plenty of time, just under pressure now. Got to get the stop. ETSU is fired up as well.

[Reign of Terrier]

ETSU is at the point of their program's development where they are *for sure* tough to beat at home, but it's unclear how good they are on the road.

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[PaladinFan]

Oh yeah, plenty of time, just under pressure now. Got to get the stop. ETSU is fired up as well.

Furman's run defense has been pretty decent. If I'm ETSU, I'd throw it.

[wcugrad95]

Wow!!! I mean wow!!!

[FUBeAR]

Riddle went down on Mercer's closing drive. Any word? Hope he is ok.He’s not.

[Reign of Terrier]

Furman has it at mid field
He’s not.Looked like a wrist or shoulder. He hit the ground *HARD*

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[ElCid]

He’s not.

Looked like he hurt his hand or arm???

[ElCid]

Wow, Furman's fall is complete.

[Reign of Terrier]

Socon power rankings and pick em be like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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[ETSUfan1]

Oh my God. I can honestly not imagine being a furman fan. Unbelievable collapse, and how about them Bucs

[awBison]

That was a fun game to watch if youre not a Furman fan!

[PaladinFan]

Good grief. Mentally I've accepted this as a bit of a rebuilding year with the youth we have on offense, but this one was tough.

Congrats to ETSU, they didn't quit when the game was stacked against them. They wanted it more in the second half than Furman did.

[PaladinFan]

Oh my God. I can honestly not imagine being a furman fan. Unbelievable collapse, and how about them Bucs

You obviously haven't been around Furman football that much. Furman has national records for gut wrenching losses.

[FUGameBreaker]

SoCon is a super crappy league, and Furman is a really crappy team in it

[Reign of Terrier]

Herink is the guy for ETSU and the whole conference should be on notice now

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[FUGameBreaker]

Wow, Furman's fall is complete.


You guys suck too bro lol

[BlackNGoldR3v0lut10n]

Furman @ ETSU - Bucs pull out a close one (going out on a limb here).

Wow, I nailed it. Herink coming in during the 2nd half was just what the doctor ordered. He needs to play the rest of the season.

[Mocs123]

Only Hatcher can lose with a team like Sammy

Samford has crazy talented receivers, and their D-Line is the best I have seen them have - ever. They are a good team, though. It's a shame they probably won't make the playoffs - scheduling hasn't done them any favors playing a D2 team and really only having a shot at 9 D1 wins.

[Schism55]

http://www.anygivensaturday.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=28937&stc=1
Every SoCon team.....

[wcugrad95]

Socon power rankings and pick em be like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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No kidding. Chatty and Wofford, then dart board roulette. And that is coming from a guy who's team is 3-0 and I have little confidence in.

[FUBeAR]

Looked like he hurt his hand or arm???
I’m sure MU will release some info about his status. Nothing life threatening or anything. I just don’t ‘discuss’ Players’ injuries publicly. Probably shouldn’t have even said he’s not OK. My sources may be wrong.

[Mocs123]

The ETSU coach should apologize to every ETSU fan for not playing Henrik until now.

Also Samford will probably not make the playoffs.

Chattanooga is "back"


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We can say we're back if we beat ETSU and Wofford, until then we are improved, but not "back" IMO

[BlackNGoldR3v0lut10n]

ETSU is at the point of their program's development where they are *for sure* tough to beat at home, but it's unclear how good they are on the road.



Given that the team we played two weeks earlier flat out quit tonight and that VMI took Western Carolina to the limit in defeat, it's hard to tell. I think Sanders made a mistake in naming Logan Lucky the starter at the start of the season.

[Milktruck74]

As each week ticks by, I’m beginning to believe that my Mocs might actually have an outside shot at backing into the playoffs....we shall see.

[Mocs123]

The SoCon is crazy again this year isn't it? Hopefully we don't cannibalize each other so much that we only get one or two teams in the playoffs.

Going into this week, I didn't think there was a team that we couldn't beat, or a team we couldn't get beat by execpt VMI. After the VMI/WCU game, I'm not so sure of that. Putting up 50 points is a big deal against any D1 D. Is VMI's offense for real, or is WCU's D that bad?

Did anyone see the targeting call on Dowdell during the first quarter of the Mocs game? It looked clean from where I was in the stands, but admittedly, I didn't have the best view and they didn't show a replay on the board. What did it look like on the broadcast? Good call or not?

[Reign of Terrier]

Who looks really good today, more than any other team did 24 hours ago?

The Citadel.

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[wcugrad95]

The SoCon is crazy again this year isn't it? Hopefully we don't cannibalize each other so much that we only get one or two teams in the playoffs.

Going into this week, I didn't think there was a team that we couldn't beat, or a team we couldn't get beat by execpt VMI. After the VMI/WCU game, I'm not so sure of that. Putting up 50 points is a big deal against any D1 D. Is VMI's offense for real, or is WCU's D that bad?

Did anyone see the targeting call on Dowdell during the first quarter of the Mocs game? It looked clean from where I was in the stands, but admittedly, I didn't have the best view and they didn't show a replay on the board. What did it look like on the broadcast? Good call or not?

Western's D looked that bad.

[Reign of Terrier]

VMI's offense has definitely improved but it's worth mentioning that they scored 50 today when they scored 88 *all season* last year.

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[Mocs123]

Tyree Adams is such an amazing player, it's a shame you haven't been able to surround him with a good defense. (BTW- please don't figure it out against Chattanooga).

We had amazing offenses under Donnie Kirkpatrick but no D so I know how that feels. We would score 50 points per game and still lose.

[Reign of Terrier]

My power rankings:
Chatt
Wofford
Citadel
ETSU
Mercer
samford
Furman
Western
VMI

But everything is close. I think 2-3 teams will break away in the next 2-3 weeks.

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[wcugrad95]

WCU's offense was good today, but we still didn't help the defense out. In the 2nd half we started running the ball at will, but the OC decided he still wanted to throw the ball. That led to a couple of mediocre drives and then a terrible interception to give VMI the ball back to let them go score their last TD. I am not going to blame an offense that scored 52 points and had well over 500 yards, but when they need to protect the D and don't do it that is a problem. Not that 52-44 sounds much better, but that game should have been Western by 10 or more if the O would have just ran the ball outside and controlled the clock after scoring the first 2 drives of the 2nd half and never letting it get down to that point. Three drives where you take another 4 or 5 minutes off the clock gives the opposition 2 or 3 less chances.

[wcugrad95]

My rankings:

Chatty
Wofford
Everybody else

[Milktruck74]

Please stop putting the Mocs on top...we may be the only 4-0 team in FCS, but we haven’t beaten anybody yet. If we get to 5-0 against a pretty solid etsu team at their place, we may start thinking we are alright....and if we get to 6-0, then we’ve actually beaten somebody.

[wcugrad95]

Sorry:

Woffy
Chatty
Everybody else

[FUBeAR]

we may be the only 4-0 team in FCS, but we haven’t beaten anybody yet. If we get to 5-0 against a pretty solid etsu team at their place, we may start thinking we are alright....and if we get to 6-0, then we’ve actually beaten somebody.OUCH!, said The Citadel Fan. OUCH! said the Samford Fan.

[FUBeAR]

My power rankings:
Chatt
Wofford
Citadel
ETSU
Mercer
samford
Furman
Western
VMI

But everything is close. I think 2-3 teams will break away in the next 2-3 weeks.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using TapatalkWouldn’t ‘fight you’ on this ranking. But I would still put Woffy up ahead of Chatt. & I’d think about sliding ETSU down 1 or 2 rungs. Depending on Riddle’s status, which I do not expect to be good, I might move Mercer below Samford despite the win last week.

[The Cats]

Prediction almost as bad as Western’s defense

You are right, but I didn't realize that Hatcher would do so much coaching this past week. He's the only coach in the SoCon that can lose in conference with the talent he has on that team.

[wcugrad95]

Wouldn’t ‘fight you’ on this ranking. But I would still put Woffy up ahead of Chatt. & I’d think about sliding ETSU down 1 or 2 rungs. Depending on Riddle’s status, which I do not expect to be good, I might move Mercer below Samford despite the win last week.

If you are going to slide ETSU down a couple, and put Mercer behind Samford, does that mean ETSU is behind both of them? And we know you will put Furman (0-3) ahead of WCU (3-0). Not saying I disagree with any of that, but it is amazing to me that I felt like Western's season hinged on what they did with back-to-back road games against FU and Samord. Now that stretch is against a winless Paladin team and a 1-3 (0-2 in SoCon) Samford squad. WCU could be 5-0 in 2 weeks and still not be a very good team, or we could be 3-2 and those wins by FU and Samford would be mediocre at best. It was already shaping up for a crazy ride, but it is a wild state of affairs after today.

[longtimemocfan]

OUCH!, said The Citadel Fan. OUCH! said the Samford Fan.The only nobody I think we've beaten is TTU. The Citadel was a quality opponent who without the cancellation could have the same record we do. UT Martin just blew out Austin Peay 37-7. Samford is still a excellent team. Best defensive line we've seen this year. Not sure what has gone wrong with a team returning 20 starters ?

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[Milktruck74]

The only nobody I think we've beaten is TTU. The Citadel was a quality opponent who without the cancellation could have the same record we do. UT Martin just blew out Austin Peay 37-7. Samford is still a excellent team. Best defensive line we've seen this year. Not sure what has gone wrong with a team returning 20 starters ?

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To clarify, when I said nobody, I was referring to records...we have hit some decent teams (sans tutu) but none of them have shown it in the win column yet.

[longtimemocfan]

To clarify, when I said nobody, I was referring to records...we have hit some decent teams (sans tutu) but none of them have shown it in the win column yet.I knew you didn't mean anything by it.

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[FUBeAR]

Welp...I may have to re-think my position on Replay in the SoCon. Guess I placed too much faith in thinking that the SoCon Ref's do WANT to get the calls right and that some of their incompetence might be ameliorated when they were able to see their errors on video. But, I was wrong. They, obviously, place more value in 'protecting' their colleagues than they do in getting it right.

I took the screencap below from the ESPN+ Replay without the benefit of being able to quickly move forward and backward or frame-by-frame as they do when they review calls on the field.
https://i.postimg.cc/gjr3gRhm/CITFUMBLE2.jpg

This was initially ruled as the runner being down (which he wasn't) and reviewed. Mercer recovered the fumble at the CIT 20 with 34 seconds left in the 2nd quarter, while leading 17-7. The review ruling was that the (obviously wrong) call on the field would stand. Not overturning this led to as much as potential 14 point swing in the score...Potentially, huge, in the outcome of the game...but maybe not....no one knows. What we do KNOW is that this was a fumble. The SoCon refs had a chance to get the call right and they CHOSE to allow a BAD CALL by one of their 'brethren' to stand.

So...good job Woffy and Chatt (I think were the 2 holdouts) in holding off installing Replay until you have to. I was wrong. Replay Review in the SoCon is, essentially, worthless.

[chattownmocs]

When and where did replay ever work? Just makes things more frustrating most of the time. The whole idea that you would take the ruling on the field into account is mind-boggling. "I think I saw....., on the video we are watching it looks like this... ok let's go with what I think I saw.

[chattownmocs]

The idea that you would cede to the call on the field, is not only comical, but it shows that subconsciously we know its shouldn't really be part of the game.

[chattownmocs]

No one ever talks about it but the whole catch, non-catch issue was a non-issue until replay. We know a catch when we see it. Youd be better off just having officials watching the game and throwing electronic flags in real time.

[chattownmocs]

Ironically the one place where replay is still taboo in sports is balls and strikes. The same area in which poor officiating contributes to unfair outcomes far more than anything else.

[FUBeAR]

Welp...I may have to re-think my position on Replay in the SoCon. Guess I placed too much faith in thinking that the SoCon Ref's do WANT to get the calls right and that some of their incompetence might be ameliorated when they were able to see their errors on video. But, I was wrong. They, obviously, place more value in 'protecting' their colleagues than they do in getting it right.

I took the screencap below from the ESPN+ Replay without the benefit of being able to quickly move forward and backward or frame-by-frame as they do when they review calls on the field.
https://i.postimg.cc/gjr3gRhm/CITFUMBLE2.jpg

This was initially ruled as the runner being down (which he wasn't) and reviewed. Mercer recovered the fumble at the CIT 20 with 34 seconds left in the 2nd quarter, while leading 17-7. The review ruling was that the (obviously wrong) call on the field would stand. Not overturning this led to as much as potential 14 point swing in the score...Potentially, huge, in the outcome of the game...but maybe not....no one knows. What we do KNOW is that this was a fumble. The SoCon refs had a chance to get the call right and they CHOSE to allow a BAD CALL by one of their 'brethren' to stand.

So...good job Woffy and Chatt (I think were the 2 holdouts) in holding off installing Replay until you have to. I was wrong. Replay Review in the SoCon is, essentially, worthless.
Oh...I forgot to include this "Touchdown" ruling that was also upheld after "Review" - Complete waste of time, money, and technology...
https://i.postimg.cc/Tw2W7mbh/CITOOB.jpg

[The Cats]

Somebody get chattownmocs his meds.......

[Mocs123]

We had a targeting call (that from my less than optimal angle) that I felt like was a bogus call. They wouldn't even show the replay on the video board.

[UCMoc]

We had a targeting call (that from my less than optimal angle) that I felt like was a bogus call. They wouldn't even show the replay on the video board.

To be fair, hardly any replays were shown. I’m not really sure why they got it if they won’t ever use it.

[Mocs123]

I get the impression that they haven't quite figured out how to use it yet.

[wcugrad95]

Pretty much every replay I see takes 5 times too long and whenever I absolutely, positively, 100% know what the call should be.... it goes the other way.

[Sandlapper Spike]

The game between The Citadel and Mercer also featured the replay booth not assessing a targeting penalty against a Mercer player who speared a Bulldog in the facemask, and not even bothering to review a bobbled catch on the sidelines by a Mercer player that led to a touchdown. So yes, I would say replay didn't do much for the game on Saturday.

Neither did the on-field officiating, truth be told, as it also included two terrible pass interference penalties against the Bulldogs that probably cost The Citadel 21 points (Mercer scored on both drives, and on one the Bulldogs had picked off the pass and would have been deep in Mercer territory). There was also an obvious block in the back on Mercer that went uncalled during a long punt return.

Just your typical SoCon Saturday (whether it be football or hoops)...I'm just glad The Citadel overcame all that to win the game.

[chattanoogamocs]

I get the impression that they haven't quite figured out how to use it yet.

Hi, I run the video board I know perfectly fine how to use it. :)

We aren't going to show a replay of any penalties (especially one's against UTC). The video board is "biased". We aren't going to show anything that isn't positive for UTC (and we aren't going to show any highlights of the visiting team). If you want balanced viewing, you'll have to watch it on ESPN (btw, UTC does a much better job than most of being balanced...showing the good and bad of both teams...I appreciate that our ESPN broadcast crew aren't homers).

We did show 25+ replays last night. But what most people don't realize is, we don't have full control of replay capabilities (we aren't even in the same room as ESPN production crew). We are using the same feed as the ESPN telecast, they get "first dibs" at doing a replay. Sometimes we piggy back off of their replay and show it simultaneously on the video board and sometimes when the ESPN telecast chooses not to replay, it frees us up to drop one in on the video board. Replays are important to us, because each one is sponsored and we have contracts with how many times their names are shown (before and after the replay).

Also, with the speed that Samford was coming under the huddle most of the night, it makes it really hard to replay anything on defense.

Be assured, we've figured it how to use it...but that doesn't mean we're using it in the way you expect (btw, we are always happy to listen to ideas and criticisms from fans).

Will we continue to work to try and get more replays up when we can? Sure. But the honest truth is, it is not the primary function of the board (it's more of an added bonus). We have sponsors that have paid to be on the boards, stats, scores from around the conference, third down, fourth down, etc, etc. to also run. It's a lot of stuff...and it is non-stop for 4+ hours (we start an hour before kick off).

In a word...there is a lot more going on than most people realize.

***and just wait until basketball season...we'll be running 8 boards at McKenzie (scorers table, press row, the two old video boards up top and 4 the boards from the center hung)***

[chattanoogamocs]

Man...y'all pulled me out of retirement. That was my first post on a SoCon or AGS messageboard since, I think, December of 2016 (I do still occasionally read over topics anonymously)

[FUBeAR]

The game between The Citadel and Mercer also featured the replay booth not assessing a targeting penalty against a Mercer player who speared a Bulldog in the facemask, and not even bothering to review a bobbled catch on the sidelines by a Mercer player that led to a touchdown. So yes, I would say replay didn't do much for the game on Saturday.

Neither did the on-field officiating, truth be told, as it also included two terrible pass interference penalties against the Bulldogs that probably cost The Citadel 21 points (Mercer scored on both drives, and on one the Bulldogs had picked off the pass and would have been deep in Mercer territory). There was also an obvious block in the back on Mercer that went uncalled during a long punt return.

Just your typical SoCon Saturday (whether it be football or hoops)...I'm just glad The Citadel overcame all that to win the game.yeah, yeah, yeah. we know socon officiating sux...and it sux both ways....I could (but won't) compile an alternate equal list of judgement calls/lack of calls, etc. that were unfavorable to Mercer...but that's NOT my point.

I know targeting can be, but rarely is, instigated from the booth even if a penalty is not called. So, I guess that one could possibly fall into the point I am discussing. I don't think there were any targeting calls made by the officials...right? So, I think it would have to be something that was obvious to the booth and everyone. Can you give some more details around when/where/who on that. I'd like to see it. Didn't see it Sat., but I missed a few plays in the 2nd quarter (had to go to the car for a minute) and haven't watched the replay straight through. Don't recall the 'bobbling' one either, but in both cases, you are talking about reviews NOT done. Maybe they should have been...I don't know....both still fall pretty much in that 'judgement' realm.

BUT....when they do Review and it is absolutely obvious that they made the wrong call...and they don't overturn it...THAT's not judgement....that's a lack of integrity...and that should not happen and should not be tolerated by any Members of the SoCon...whether it favors their Team or another.

[ElCid]

Welp...I may have to re-think my position on Replay in the SoCon. Guess I placed too much faith in thinking that the SoCon Ref's do WANT to get the calls right and that some of their incompetence might be ameliorated when they were able to see their errors on video. But, I was wrong. They, obviously, place more value in 'protecting' their colleagues than they do in getting it right.

I took the screencap below from the ESPN+ Replay without the benefit of being able to quickly move forward and backward or frame-by-frame as they do when they review calls on the field.


This was initially ruled as the runner being down (which he wasn't) and reviewed. Mercer recovered the fumble at the CIT 20 with 34 seconds left in the 2nd quarter, while leading 17-7. The review ruling was that the (obviously wrong) call on the field would stand. Not overturning this led to as much as potential 14 point swing in the score...Potentially, huge, in the outcome of the game...but maybe not....no one knows. What we do KNOW is that this was a fumble. The SoCon refs had a chance to get the call right and they CHOSE to allow a BAD CALL by one of their 'brethren' to stand.

.

The refs were not on their game for sure. The only issue I have with the fumble is that while the ball is visible, since his body was blocking most of it, you can't see whether he still had a hand on it. Has to be indisputable. The photo is not proof in and of itself without the action. I honestly think it was a fumble but that is the way the ball bounces. Has to be indisputable. And they probably believed so, but they don't make calls on what they believe. And just to keep things in the spirit of the issue, that is why they probably gave you a couple phantom pass interference calls later, at key times, one of which was called really late, especially on our interception, which was nullified. Both calls were a stretch. And let us not forget the no call on the strong man pose over our QB when you got a stop (at clock 7:08 in 3rd). Seems I remember a couple years ago we GOT called for exactly the same thing on a key drive that time. You skated. I can find the thread. Hmm. I think there was enough bad calls to go around.



http://www.anygivensaturday.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=28968&stc=1

[FUBeAR]

The refs were not on their game for sure. The only issue I have with the fumble is that while the ball is visible, since his body was blocking most of it, you can't see whether he still had a hand on it. Has to be indisputable. The photo is not proof in and of itself without the action. I honestly think it was a fumble but that is the way the ball bounces. Has to be indisputable. And they probably believed so, but they don't make calls on what they believe. And just to keep things in the spirit of the issue, that is why they probably gave you a couple phantom pass interference calls later, at key times, one of which was called really late, especially on our interception, which was nullified. Both calls were a stretch. And let us not forget the no call on the strong man pose over our QB when you got a stop (at clock 7:08 in 3rd). Seems I remember a couple years ago we GOT called for exactly the same thing on a key drive that time. You skated. I can find the thread. Hmm. I think there was enough bad calls to go around.

WOW - Let's reach into the wayback machine....That Unsportsmanlike call on Jeter after a sack in, what 2014, was borderline...hated it for him, honestly. He wasn't being a jerk. He was just happy and had made an important play. Probably shouldn't have been called, but I think he accidentally slightly brushed up against the ref when he was (spontaneously) celebrating...so, that sort of forced the ref into calling it. I don't think he would have called it without that 'brush-up.' Don't know what "skated" means. I think these have been my thoughts on the play since it happened. Great memory you have though! Yep - Here it is...


3rd and 7 at MER42
John Russ sacked for loss of 7 yards to the MER35 (Mitchell Jeter), PENALTY CIT unsportsmanlike conduct (Mitchell Jeter) 15 yards to the 50 yardline, 1ST DOWN MER.


RIP Mitchell Jeter - it was a joy to watch you play the game, regardless of the jersey you were wearing at the time!


But...c'mon....the ball is an entire body width away from the ball carrier...and if the ball is 'loose' before he's down...and if it comes out, which it did...that's a fumble. Are you trying to say that ball...that's in the air...that is nowhere near any part of the runner's body, is possibly in his control. C'mon...I've told you this before. You are better than that. You can SEE it's a fumble in this pic and I'm sure the refs could see it was a fumble in the undoubtedly much better re-views they had of the play. They CHOSE to not overturn because they care more about not making their 'buddy' look bad than they do about getting the calls right. Are you going to say that you also can't see that his foot is on the white line and the ball is nowhere near the endzone in the 2nd pic? Just another example - BTW - 2 Ref's did the 'Confirm with each other' thing before they called this one a TD in live action...so they doubly didn't want to make themselves look doubly bad by overturning an obvious error.

This is really not a 'HOMER' issue unless you choose to make it one...as you and Sandlapper seem to want to do....recalling plays from 4 seasons ago and comparing them to that screencap and griping about a list of judgement calls that you know are going to be inconsistent every week - pretty well indicates that. I'm not being a HOMER here. My point is about the integrity (not judgement or competence - we know where that stands) of the SoCon Officials and the value/use of Replay Review.

Feel free to homer on though...

[ElCid]

Oh...I forgot to include this "Touchdown" ruling that was also upheld after "Review" - Complete waste of time, money, and technology...
https://i.postimg.cc/Tw2W7mbh/CITOOB.jpg


Again you fail to understand indisputable. Once the refs make a call, it has to be disproved. If they go the wrong way, the burden of proof to overturn, must be there. As in the other call, it has to be clear. Neither of these were. On this particular play, if you look at the replay at 2:48:40, the runner actually goes out of camera view for a couple seconds. But if you do go frame by frame, or as good as you can with ESPN+, it is not clear that his left foot ever actually touched since in the wide angle view you can see he pushed off with his right foot and it is the left that is in question (his legs are crossed in this shot). Neither camera shot is clear as to whether the left foot touched. The still photo shows the foot over/on the line but it very well could have been in the air. It did not appear he pushed off with it (got to watch it in action as well). It just wasn't clear enough, and again here is the key issue again, to OVERTURN a call that had been made. If they had called him out of bounds, it would have gone the other way since it wasn't clear, and he would have been short. The initial call can be key sometimes.

Part of the problem is the limited camera angles that are available. Also, and this bit us with WCU last year on a goal line crossing fumble, is that the video that the replay officials see may not be the same that the audience sees. I know that sounds weird, but it was confirmed last year. Everyone knew we were getting screwed because all we saw was what ESPN kept putting up, but the officials were actually watching another shot that ESPN did not use on air. At least that is what we were informed of. Not sure if it was the case here, but a good question to ask.

[ElCid]

WOW - Let's reach into the wayback machine....That Unsportsmanlike call on Jeter after a sack in, what 2014, was borderline...hated it for him, honestly. He wasn't being a jerk. He was just happy and had made an important play. Probably shouldn't have been called, but I think he accidentally slightly brushed up against the ref when he was (spontaneously) celebrating...so, that sort of forced the ref into calling it. I don't think he would have called it without that 'brush-up.' Don't know what "skated" means. I think these have been my thoughts on the play since it happened. Great memory you have though! Yep - Here it is...


3rd and 7 at MER42
John Russ sacked for loss of 7 yards to the MER35 (Mitchell Jeter), PENALTY CIT unsportsmanlike conduct (Mitchell Jeter) 15 yards to the 50 yardline, 1ST DOWN MER.


RIP Mitchell Jeter - it was a joy to watch you play the game, regardless of the jersey you were wearing at the time!


But...c'mon....the ball is an entire body width away from the ball carrier...and if the ball is 'loose' before he's down...and if it comes out, which it did...that's a fumble. Are you trying to say that ball...that's in the air...that is nowhere near any part of the runner's body, is possibly in his control. C'mon...I've told you this before. You are better than that. You can SEE it's a fumble in this pic and I'm sure the refs could see it was a fumble in the undoubtedly much better re-views they had of the play. They CHOSE to not overturn because they care more about not making their 'buddy' look bad than they do about getting the calls right. Are you going to say that you also can't see that his foot is on the white line and the ball is nowhere near the endzone in the 2nd pic? Just another example - BTW - 2 Ref's did the 'Confirm with each other' thing before they called this one a TD in live action...so they doubly didn't want to make themselves look doubly bad by overturning an obvious error.

This is really not a 'HOMER' issue unless you choose to make it one...as you and Sandlapper seem to want to do....recalling plays from 4 seasons ago and comparing them to that screencap and griping about a list of judgement calls that you know are going to be inconsistent every week - pretty well indicates that. I'm not being a HOMER here. My point is about the integrity (not judgement or competence - we know where that stands) of the SoCon Officials and the value/use of Replay Review.

Feel free to homer on though...


By the time the ball was CLEARLY in the air, he was down. Need indisputable.

[FUBeAR]

you fail to understand
Nope. I understand perfectly.

[ElCid]

Nope. I understand perfectly.

But you must embrace it.xnodxxthumbsupx

[FUBeAR]

By the time the ball was CLEARLY in the air, he was down. Need indisputable.Arrgggh, I hate myself for responding to this.

The ball doesn't have to be "in the air" to be ruled a Fumble. It only has to be out of the Player's possession. This is the NCAA Football Rules definition of "Player Possession"...

a. Player Possession - The ball is in player possession when a player has the ball firmly in his grasp by holding or controlling it...

It is INDISPUTABLY OBVIOUS that the Player in the white jersey DOES NOT HAVE THE BALL FIRMLY IN HIS GRASP and IS NOT HOLDING OR CONTROLLING IT....before his knee has hit the ground.

I'm done. Wasting key strokes....
https://www.sportrx.com/sportrx-blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/costa-del-mar-tunaalley-sunglasses-black-blue.jpg

[ElCid]

Arrgggh, I hate myself for responding to this.

The ball doesn't have to be "in the air" to be ruled a Fumble. It only has to be out of the Player's possession. This is the NCAA Football Rules definition of "Player Possession"...

a. Player Possession - The ball is in player possession when a player has the ball firmly in his grasp by holding or controlling it...

It is INDISPUTABLY OBVIOUS that the Player in the white jersey DOES NOT HAVE THE BALL FIRMLY IN HIS GRASP and IS NOT HOLDING OR CONTROLLING IT....before his knee has hit the ground.

I'm done. Wasting key strokes....


You missed my point. It was not indisputably clear from the camera angle that he lost total control before he hit. The only reason I brought up the ball being in the air, is because it would then be indisputable. Anything short of that is guesswork due to available camera angles. The call was that he was down. High threshold to overturn. You are not embracing it....

[FUBeAR]

You missed my point. It was not indisputably clear from the camera angle that he lost total control before he hit. The only reason I brought up the ball being in the air, is because it would then be indisputable. Anything short of that is guesswork due to available camera angles. The call was that he was down. High threshold to overturn. You are not embracing it....I hope the SoCon approves your Referee’s application soon. You obviously meet the vision requirements.

[ElCid]

I hope the SoCon approves your Referee’s application soon. You obviously meet the vision requirements.

Dude we have been burned so many times on replays it is just nice to get the opposite treatment finally. I know it sucks, but WE know what that feels like.

[FUBeAR]

Dude we have been burned so many times on replays it is just nice to get the opposite treatment finally. I know it sucks, but WE know what that feels like.
https://thumbs.gfycat.com/ZigzagAdeptHound-max-1mb.gif

[walliver]

Why does anybody think that SoCon officials would be any more competent in the booth than they are on the field.

- - - Updated - - -


https://thumbs.gfycat.com/ZigzagAdeptHound-max-1mb.gif

This is a football, not soccer, thread. ;)

[FUBeAR]

Why does anybody think that SoCon officials would be any more competent in the booth than they are on the field.I guess I am the only person (here) that draws a solid line between lack of competence and lack of integrity.

Lack of competence, while certainly not ideal, is something that we may just have to (continue to) live with as, possibly, the Officials used by the SoCon are the best we can get.

Lack of integrity is completely unacceptable and should, IMO, be viewed as such by all SoCon Fans, Coaches, Member University Officials, and the League Office, itself...regardless of the impact of the lack of integrity upon your Team or any others.

Despite El Cid’s mumbo jumbo, inspired by his ‘homerism’ (as he tacitly admitted in his most recent post), these 2 FAILURES to overturn erroneous calls despite indisputable video evidence (unless all laws of physics & the basics of human anatomy were not in effect in Macon on Saturday) were a result of the latter.

We can hope & pray for competence, but we should demand integrity.

[ElCid]

Despite El Cid’s mumbo jumbo, inspired by his ‘homerism’ (as he tacitly admitted in his most recent post), these 2 FAILURES to overturn erroneous calls despite indisputable video evidence (unless all laws of physics & the basics of human anatomy were not in effect in Macon on Saturday) were a result of the latter.


I think you misunderstood. I think we have gotten screwed on calls, including replays the last couple years despite the video. You may or may not have gotten screwed, but I understand you may feel the same way I did. This was just karma evening the scales. The karma came in the form of absence of definitive, indisputable video evidence to overturn a call made on the field. You really need to let it go.

And I finally pieced together where the key phantom pass interference calls on us came from, the side judge, that bane of Bulldog football, Chris Rape, probably the worst official in the SOCON and who has personally destroyed more Bulldog drives and gotten more opponent first downs than anyone. He threw the dang flag like 15 seconds late on the interception. He needs to be terminated. So when you talk about a possible lack of integrity among the officials, I totally agree with you.

[Catamount87]

We can only hope that the introduction of instant replay at every institution will help resolve the lack of competency issue. Then again, after what is being said about some of the other games in the SoCon this past week, maybe not.

[FUBeAR]

I think you misunderstood. I think we have gotten screwed on calls, including replays the last couple years despite the video. You may or may not have gotten screwed, but I understand you may feel the same way I did. This was just karma evening the scales. The karma came in the form of absence of definitive, indisputable video evidence to overturn a call made on the field. You really need to let it go.

And I finally pieced together where the key phantom pass interference calls on us came from, the side judge, that bane of Bulldog football, Chris Rape, probably the worst official in the SOCON and who has personally destroyed more Bulldog drives and gotten more opponent first downs than anyone. He threw the dang flag like 15 seconds late on the interception. He needs to be terminated. So when you talk about a possible lack of integrity among the officials, I totally agree with you.LOL - How does “you really need to let it go” fit with anything else in this post, with invoking karmic ‘payback, & with your earlier citation of a single call from a game 4 years ago?

You continue to fail to grasp the distinction between competence & integrity. And you continue to let your baby-blue-tinted brain tell your eyes they are seeing something they aren’t...or not seeing something that they are.

I know it’s hard, but you can do it. Stop viewing this as Mercer vs. The Citadel because that is not & never has had any bearing whatsoever on the point I am making.

That point is: Video Replay Review may be useless in the SoCon because it became obvious in Macon, GA on Saturday in a game between 2 unnamed Teams that finished with an unstated final score, that there is an unwritten policy, at least with the crew that officiated this game, that states, “...regardless of indisputable, conclusive video evidence otherwise, we are NOT going to overturn a call made by one (or two) of our own.”

I’ll phrase this nicely...If, in your heart of hearts, you don’t think they had indisputable, conclusive video evidence to overturn these calls, then there’s really not a lot you can add to or comment upon that addresses the point of my post, which is fine.


You may continue enumerating your historical lamentations instead.

Good thing they didn’t have Replay at Ft. Sumter...

[FUBeAR]

LOL - DIRECTLY from The Citadel Message Board...posted by dogfan1987...

“The Southern Conference
Immediate release:

The referee of the week was Thomas Graham. He and his crew earned stifling criticism on both sides of the field while keeping The Citadel - Mercer game tight all day. Alas the Bears went down ending their unbeaten record in the SoCon and chances of putting another SoCon school in the top 20. No comment from the Commissioners office but the disappointment was evident. This crack squad went an impressive 7-7 when crucial calls were scrutinized by the instant replay official. One zebra was quoted as saying "we don't need no freaking instant replay" after none of their calls were overturned. Congratulations Thomas and Crew and dilly dilly.”

I guess I’m not the ONLY one who can see beyond ‘homerism’ enough to call out the integrity issue.