By MONTE DUTTON
What challenges lie ahead.
Furman’s Southern Conference champion football program has 14 players who have started, at least by recent calculations. Players who have started are not the same as returning starters.
Duplicating the 10-3 records of the past two seasons is going to be a challenge for Clay Hendrix and staff. Ample talent is wearing purple this fall, but when practice commences, some will rise and others will fall. A veritable jigsaw puzzle must be completed leading up to a rather harsh opener in Oxford, Miss., against Ole Miss on Aug. 31, just over two months away.
Charleston Southern visits Paladin Stadium for the home opener on Sept. 7, followed by another game against visiting Stetson on Sept. 14.
Men’s basketball, under Bob Richey, must similarly rebuild. On the heels of a 17-16 season, Furman lost four key players – J.P. Pegues, Marcus Foster, Alex Williams and Carter Whitt — to the transfer portal.
Both head coaches face considerable assimilation as they rebuild. Don’t count either out, but don’t underestimate the task ahead, either.
Golf’s Anna Morgan and football’s Tyler Huff were honored as Furman’s athletes of the year, and head football coach Clay Hendrix was voted by his peers as J. Lyles Alley Coach of the Year.
A senior from Spartanburg, Morgan earned her third-consecutive Edna Hartness Furman Female Athlete of the Year award. A WGCA first team All-American and GolfWeek second team All-American, she competed in her fourth-straight NCAA regional last month and concluded the season ranked 17th nationally, recording a 70.1 stroke average over 33 rounds this season, the lowest single-season stroke average in program history. Her career stroke average of 72.2 is also a Furman standard.
Morgan graduated in May with a 3.6 GPA in politics and international affairs.
Huff, from Orange Park, Fla., won SoCon Player of the Year honors in balloting by league head coaches after passing for 1,869 yards and 10 touchdowns and rushing for 589 yards and six scores in helping lead Furman to a 10-3 season and 2023 SoCon championship.
Though sidelined for two late regular season games due to injury, Huff directed Furman to a 6-0 record against SoCon foes as the Paladins’ starter to run his two-year record as the starting quarterback to 13-0 versus league foes.. Huff went 19-4 in his two seasons as Furman’s starting quarterback.
Huff, who began his career at Presbyterian, started at quarterback for two years and earned a masters degree in strategic design at Furman. He will play at Jacksonville (Ala.) State this fall.
Hendrix was the architect of Furman’s 10-3, SoCon championship football season last fall that put Furman in the company of South Dakota State and North Dakota State as the only three FCS programs to post double-digit wins the last two years.
The 2023 playoff appearance was the fourth for Furman with Hendrix at the helm (2017, ‘19, ‘22, ‘23). The Commerce, Ga., native sports a 51-29 record (.638) as head coach at his alma mater and has guided the Paladins to a pair of SoCon championships (2018 & ‘23). The Lyles Alley Coach of the Year honor is the second for Hendrix, who first captured the award in 2017.
Furman senior Carson Williams, as well as former Paladins Allie Buchalski and Gabbi Jennings, competed at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore.
“Team USA is the hardest team in the world to make, and regardless of the outcome, I am confident our Furman athletes are ready to maximize themselves in these special moments,” said Furman head coach Robert Gary, a two-time Olympian who represented Team USA at the 1996 and 2004 Olympic Games. “Having made two Olympic teams myself, I’ve always felt one of my most important roles as their coach was to prepare my athletes for these special opportunities.”
Buchalski competes in the women’s 1,500 beginning on Thursday. Further rounds will continue through Saturday should Buchalski and Jennings advance.
The Sir Douglas Quintet produced a 1965 hit with a song titled “She’s About a Mover.”
The Official Mover of Furman Athletics is Smith Dray Line.
Smith Dray Line has long been associated with Furman University through a history of collaborative efforts, making the new partnership a natural progression. Bill Turrentine III, vice president and owner of Smith Dray Line, his father, Bill Turrentine II, who graduated from Furman in 1964, and uncle Sam Turrentine II, 1971 Furman graduate, are all proud alumni reinforcing the deep ties between the company and the university.
Smith Dray Line will play a pivotal role in supporting the logistics of Furman’s athletic programs, ensuring that equipment and materials necessary for the teams’ success aretransported safely and efficiently.
Furman placed eight on the College Sports Communicators’ At-Large Academic All-District Team.
Three women’s golfers, two men’s golfers, and three women’s lacrosse players comprised the Paladins’ selections.
Name GPA Major Sport
Caroline Crumrine 3.74 Applied Mathematics Women’s Golf
Alise Knudson 3.77 Business Administration Women’s Golf
Anna Morgan 3.60 Politics & International Affairs Women’s Golf
Harris Barth 3.96 Economics Men’s Golf
Trey Diehl 3.60 Business Administration Men’s Golf
Hannah Dintino 4.00 Teaching (M.A.) Women’s Lacrosse
Lily Rathbun 3.98 Accounting Women’s Lacrosse
Sophie Shaw 3.90 Health Sciences Women’s Lacrosse
Furman football announced two more 2 p.m. home starting times in the coming season for the Oct. 12 game against Chattanooga and Nov. 9 versus Wofford.
The reigning SoCon champion is coming off a 10-3 campaign in 2023, Furman advanced to the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) playoff quarterfinals last season after earning a first-round bye and defeating the Mocs, 26-7, in second-round action in Greenville.
Under the direction of head coach Clay Hendrix, who in seven seasons has compiled a 51-29 overall record (.638) and 39-16 SoCon worksheet (.709), the Paladins are ranked No.14 in the FCS in the Hero Sports Preseason Top 25 Poll.
Furman, which kicks off the season on Aug. 31 at Ole Miss, has six home games on this year’s 12-game schedule.
Check out the schedule here.
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