By MONTE DUTTON

The mood at Clay Hendrix’s weekly media conference was best expressed in an 1888 poem by William Ernest Henley, who was British and thus unlikely to have competed in American football.

My head is bloody, but unbowed. The poem’s name is “Invictus.” I had to memorize and recite it in high school. At the time, I had no idea it would occur to me while writing a sports column. I reckon that’s why Mrs. Arminta Wallace made me go to all that trouble.

Hendrix took the center microphone, joined on either side by the same two players – wide receiver Joshua Harris and free safety Hugh Ryan — who participated in the post-mortem in Columbia. They had all recovered by Monday from the 47-21 loss to South Carolina. It had been a hang-dog trio 37 hours earlier in the bowels of Williams-Brice Stadium.

It likely occurred to them that an FCS football team’s opportunity to steal an upset against an FBS squad – a member of the Southeastern (and soon beyond) Conference, at that – was as long a shot as felling a quail from 100 yards. They’d examined the video evidence, learned what they’d done wrong and concluded that, all in all, it wasn’t so bad.

“We looked at the game, and, you know, let it settle a little bit,” Harris said. “Now, it’s a general overview about what we can do to get better. I think it’s now just not wasting a failure. Make it more of a positive result. … I’m kind of excited to get back to work.”

Hendrix, a week earlier, said “we’re going down there to win,” then politely pointed out all the reasons that ought to be impossible. On this Monday, Hendrix felt like it was a botched opportunity. The timing was right, the team was right, the opportunity was there and they’d just let it slip away in less than a minute at the end of the first half.

Come to think of it, we should’ve won that game.

They believed they could do it, that they could’ve and should’ve. It’s the way championship-caliber teams think.

“I don’t think we’re going to play anybody remotely as talented as [South Carolina]. We’ll play some really good teams. We’ll play a really good one this week, but not the size and speed,” Hendrix said.

“All our goals are still out in front of us,” Ryan said. “Our confidence didn’t waver at all. I think we’re still confident about what this team can accomplish. We know we have the right makeup in that locker room and that the right culture is being created here. I think we’re all really excited about the remainder of the year.

“We’re gonna take this past weekend and learn from it. Everybody can improve on his job in some type of way. With this weekend leading up to conference play, I think we’ll have a different mindset. Last year we had a great season, but we didn’t have enough to show for it.”

One confronts his own mortality, learns from it and moves on. On this particular Saturday, it’s to a place northwest of Atlanta known mostly for a modest mountain and a Civil War battle. Kennesaw State University built a football team rapidly and is moving fully to FBS next year. This year the Owls are ineligible for the FCS playoffs because the upgrade has them moving above the scholarship limit of 65. Last week, a Southern Conference mate of the Paladins, Chattanoog, defeated Kennesaw (1-1), 27-20. The Mocs amassed 116 more yards (399-283) and led, 27-10, early in the fourth quarter.

Furman (1-1) should be favored, but the Owls’ only head coach ever, Brian Bohannon, took KSU to the FCS quarterfinals in both 2017 and ’18. The Owls reached the second round in ’19 and ’21. In 2016, Bohannon brought his team to Paladin Stadium and blasted a 3-8 Furman team, 52-42. It wasn’t that close.

“This is a team that’s very mature, but their maturity comes a lot from guys who came from the transfer portal,” Hendrix said. “Offensively, they’ve been really run-heavy in the past, but how much do you read into the fact that Chattanooga held them to their lowest rushing total (102 yards) in their history. Does that have to do with them rushing it less, or what is the breakdown on that?

“This is game two of a new offense. They’re asking those offensive linemen to do different things. There’s a triple-option element to it. I haven’t looked at their roster a lot. I know they added some transfers. I don’t know if, historically, they’ve been a big transfer place. I also think they probably lost some kids.

“There’s a lot of transition that is taking place. They were better this week (versus Chattanooga) than they were last week (Tusculum). I’m sure they’ll be better week three than they were in week two.”

This week’s game, at Kennesaw’s Fifth Third Bank Stadium (capacity 8,318), is no pre-conference warmup. A team that is ranked in the nation’s top 10 can ill afford to look past the Owls. Chattanooga (1-1) barely held on at home. Quarterback Jonathan Murphy hit 12/16 passes for 181 yards and a touchdown. He also led the rushers with a mere net of 32, but Gabriel Benyard caught three of Murphy’s passes for 123 yards. Kennesaw won its first game over Tusculum (Tenn.), 38-7.

The fight song is “The KSU Fight Song,” and the mascot is Scrappy the Owl. Kennesaw State has 41,000 students. It’s only been around since 1963 and has a separate campus in nearby Marietta.

But enough of the nouveau riche Owls. Furman’s hope lies in Furman. That’s what Furman believes.

“We just try to be grateful for the day we have and prepare,” said Hendrix, “and I think the makeup of our kids [is] they enjoy playing each week. … You want to take advantage of the opportunities you have.

“The biggest thing is we open the conference schedule the next week, and certainly those games are the most important ones we play. But right now, this is the most important game of the week, of the year, this week. We want to head into our conference schedule playing our best football, and we haven’t done that yet.”

The game begins at 5 p.m. and can be watched via ESPN+ and listened to on the Furman radio network.

My Instagram photo collections can be found at @furmanatt.

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