By MONTE DUTTON

Clay Hendrix isn’t a hard man to figure. He’s a football coach by trade. He matches Steve Earle’s description of a road in Oklahoma: “straighter than a preacher, longer than a memory.”

It’s not a “Nowhere Road,” though. It’s a road to success, paved by everyone from George Halas to Bill Belichick, Knute Rockne to Nick Saban and Willie Varner to John McKissick.

Each week Hendrix reviews the most recent game. He finds “things we can clean up,” says it’s all a matter of “going out there and making plays,” and feels as if the upcoming opponent was better last week and will be better still when it plays the Paladins.

This is true. Teams get better early. Some get better all season long. Others fall apart, whether by injuries, other variations of cruel fate or just having the weight of losses bury them.

“I think the good thing is our best game is clearly still ahead of us,” Hendrix said. “We probably need it this week we’re going to get a win.”

Mercer defeated North Alabama, an FCS school, 17-7, and Morehead State, one that doesn’t award scholarships, 48-22. (It might be noted that another such school, Presbyterian, upended Wofford on Saturday.) In between, potent Ole Miss drubbed the Bears, 73-7.

This, of course, mirrors the Paladins, who felled Tennessee Tech, 45-10, fell themselves to South Carolina, 47-21, and edged Kennesaw State, 31-28.

Hendrix is a tough, plain-spoken man with a self-deprecating sense of humor and humility. Teams get better under the direction of him and his staff. They recruit young men who are also tough. Two of them, linebacker Braden Gilby and offensive lineman Wyatt Hughes, joined him on Monday for the weekly media conference to discuss the Southern Conference opener on Saturday against 21^st-ranked Mercer at Paladin Stadium. In the American Football Coaches Association’s weekly poll, Furman is seventh. The teams are both 2-1, but the Bears began their season on Aug. 26 and are coming off an open date.

Drew Cronic, Mercer’s head coach, was Furman offensive coordinator during Hendrix’s first year as head coach. He has since moved on to two years at Lenoir-Rhyne (25-3), and this is his fourth season at Mercer (21-14). Hendrix, in his seventh year at Furman, is 43-27. Each has won roughly twice as many Southern Conference games as he has lost. Hendrix is 32-15, Cronic 16-8.

The Bears are deep at runners and concentrated at receiver. Five rushers are averaging at least 26.5 yards a game, led by Al Wooten II at 46.7, but two receivers, Devron Harper (14 catches, 170 yards) and Ty James (13-232) have hauled in 27 of the team’s 42 receptions. Quarterback Carter Peevy has completed 41/65 passes for 521 yards and two touchdowns. He has been intercepted only once.

Surprisingly, for the season to date, Furman’s offense has been more skewed in favor of the pass – the Paladins average 223.3 yards over land and 144.3 on it – than Mercer, averaging 175 and 148.7.

Busting loose the ground game is a major priority for Hendrix, not to mention the veteran offensive line, which has Jacob Johanning for the first time. Neither Dominic Roberto nor Tyler Huff is averaging four yards a carry.

“He’s one of the most unselfish guys on the team,” Hughes, a senior from Chattanooga, Tenn., said of Roberto. “He’s always going to be ready to do his job, whether he’s got the ball in his hands or not. He’s willing to do whatever it takes to help the team, whether it’s the lead block for the quarterback on the run.”

The adventurous Huff has rushed for 136 yards and four touchdowns, all at Kennesaw. He has complete 53/84 passes for 538 yards. He has thrown only two interceptions but also thrown only one touchdown pass. Nine receivers have caught more than one pass, led by Joshua Harris with 13.

“I love that our quarterback (Huff) runs,” Hughes added. “It’s one of the best plays in football in terms of the numbers advantage. Dom (Roberto) just goes out every week, whether it’s pass protection, running ball, lead blocker, he’s just going to do his job, and we’ve got the utmost respect for him up front.”

Hendrix added, “Would we like to have a few more explosive running games? Yeah, we would. … We continue to want to be a team that’s balanced, as in 50/50 (run and pass), but I think it’s a little bit of taking what [the defense] gives us.

“We’re making progress there. … I kind of like how we’re trending.”

Another oddity for Furman is that all three games to date have been at night, or at least running into it. The Paladins’ remaining games all kick off between noon and 2:30 p.m. Saturday’s game opens shortly after 1 and is to be televised as the SoCon game of the week on The CW, Channel 62.

It took a clutch drive at the end to defeat Kennesaw State, which tied the score after trailing by two touchdowns in the second half.

“I feel like we played three pretty good quarters of defense, but the fourth quarter kind of got away from us,” said Gilby, a graduate from St. Petersburg, Fla. “We let a couple small things snowball into big things. They popped a run on us, popped a couple passes for touchdowns. We kept our offense in the game as much as we could.”

It’s a crucial game in the SoCon race and an exciting opener. Last year, when Furman won, 23-13, in Macon, the Bears had difficulty running, netting just 50 yards and averaging 1.7 per attempt.

“I think they’re a little like us,” Hendrix said. “They’d like to throw and run the football. I think we’re built similarly in a lot of ways.”

It’s early yet, but the SoCon has thus far evolved into two tiers. At the top, alphabetically, are Chattanooga, Furman, Mercer, Samford and Western Carolina. Less impressive are The Citadel, East Tennessee State, Virginia Military and Wofford.  The balance of power may change. One way or another, it will change.

“I have a lot of confidence in the team we have this year compared to last year,” Hughes said. “It’s basically the same team, same goals. We’ve just got to go compete and do our jobs. We’re a really confident team. I think we could beat anyone. Anyone could beat us. It all comes down to 60 minutes on Saturday, and it could go either way.

“I like our team. I like where we’re at. We’ve got great leadership and a lot of experience up front and, really, everywhere. We’ve just got to go get it on Saturday.”

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