By MONTE DUTTON

When I arrived at the Southern Conference’s football Media Day on Thursday, I was happy to see that my two favorite Furman players, Tyler Huff and Matt Sochovka, accompanied head coach Clay Hendrix to the Hotel Hartness in Greenville.

When I expressed my satisfaction, Hendrix smiled and said, “Great minds think alike.”

Later he said, “We need to be a blue-collar football team at a white-collar school.

“I think it starts at our place finding kids who truly value the education … and love to play. There’s got to be a healthy balance there.”

Furman was prominently featured at the SoCon soiree. Preseason picks put the Paladins on the pole. Defending champion Samford occupied the outside of the front row.

Huff and Sochovka are seniors-plus. I first got to know Huff when he starred for the spring 2021 Presbyterian Blue Hose. As hard as it is to believe now, the Tommy Spangler-coached and Huff-led Blue Hose finished with a 4-3 record in the Covid Spring. PC hasn’t had much of a drink to stir in the two seasons (2021-plus and 2022) since, finishing 2-9 and 1-10. When Presbyterian football crashed with a thud, Huff landed harder than most. Kevin Kelley brought in his own quarterback, Ren Hefley, who is now at Middle Tennessee State.

Furman surged with Huff at quarterback and Spangler coaching defensive backs and special teams.

Huff, from Orange Park, Fla., graduated from PC and transferred to Furman where he enrolled in a masters program. The rest is history. After spending most of a 2-9 season on the bench, Furman went 10-3 (7-1 SoCon) and advanced to the second round of the FCS playoffs with him taking the snaps. Huff, in one year leading the Paladins, passed for 2,199 yards and 15 touchdowns, put up a completion percentage of .682, and averaged 6.6 yards a carry while rushing for 694 yards and eight touchdowns.

The latter-day connection of Huff and Furman was a match made in heaven or somewhere thereabouts. The year before at PC, he lost 17 yards rushing, hit 17-21 passes for 224 yards … and he caught a Hefley pass for a touchdown. Otherwise, about all he got was knee surgery.

“We haven’t practiced yet,” Huff said. “We don’t know yet, but take what we did well last year. We can’t dwell on it, but we’ve got to use it to our advantage this year. Teams are going to ‘scheme’ against that now. A lot of stuff we hit on last year, they’re obviously going to be prepared for.”

The most noteworthy loss for the Paladin offense was record-breaking tight end Ryan Miller.

“We did get a new tight end,” Huff said. “He’s a phenomenal athlete. I’m very excited. His name is Mason Pline (6-7, 250, grad transfer from Ferris State). We’re gonna have two of the best tight ends (Parks Gissinger is returning) in the conference. We’re gonna replace that role very convincingly.”

Samford won the SoCon title with an 8-0 record (11-2 overall), and the difference was a 34-27 victory over the Paladins on the day of a call that lives in infamy and Huff being out with an injury suffered a week earlier at Charleston Southern.

The Bulldogs aren’t expected to go away. In the coaches’ preseason poll, Furman and Samford tied in total votes, but the Paladins got five first-place votes to the Bulldogs’ three. In the media poll, Furman won both in overall points (345-316) and first-place ballots (30-8).

It was only the third time since 1983 that the Paladins were the SoCon’s top preseason pick.

Sochovka, from Fayetteville, N.C., is the affable anchor of the Furman defensive line who made 5-1/2 tackles for loss and blocked three kicks. A friend remarked recently that it was uncommon for a team to block so many kicks (8-10) from the interior of the defense. When I asked Sochovka how they did it, he quoted line coach Kevin Lewis: “You gotta think you can.”

“We blocked two, and every week, he was, like, let’s do it again,” Sochovka said. “It really just became a thing, like, let’s try to get one or two more this week. And we were doing it.”

Huff wears No. 6, Sochovka No. 7.  Both are captains. Both were among eight Furman players selected to the preseason All-Socon second team. Seven were on the first team.

Furman’s high hopes are richly etched in preseason paper. The Paladins return 20-24 starters. They’re not going to sneak up on anybody, and the SoCon is a balanced league. The last four champions, going backwards, are Samford, East Tennessee State, VMI and Wofford. This year those schools were selected second, sixth, ninth and seventh (eighth media), respectively.

The Paladins expect to win.

“I think we’re to that point now,” said Hendrix, entering his seventh year. “I think our kids expected to win last year. If you expect to win, you’ve got a chance, and I think that’s where we are.”

“The big thing we’re hyping in this whole offseason is not be complacent and let our heads build up, thinking we’re going to be indestructible,” Sochovka said. “All respect for the media, but they’re not gonna win these ballgames. Y’all say what we are, and we gotta go out there and do it. We can’t let the small stuff compound and get us complacent.”

“It’s all belief,” Huff said. “It’s half the battle.”

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