By MONTE DUTTON

A football season has a life of its own. Life has been good this week.

Furman became the first team in America to clinch a spot in the FCS playoffs. The Paladins’ 17-14 victory at Chattanooga was about as gallant as anything in modern life ever gets.

On Saturday, Tyler Huff was winged by the Mocs, who are now birds. On Thursday, he was honored with the highest honor conveyed on a college football player for military distinction. The Armed Forces Merit Award goes to one young man, or one team, or one coach, each year. It ran and reran on SportsCenter.

To paraphrase Lincoln, this was altogether fitting and proper.

Saturday’s opponent, Virginia Military Institute (4-5, 3-3 SoCon), has progressed throughout the year. It’s hard to imagine that this Furman that fought back against such adversity on a bend in the Tennessee River isn’t going to take care of business at home.

Then again, Presbyterian upset Vanderbilt in basketball Tuesday night. And, by dark on Saturday, either The Citadel or Wofford is going to win a football game.

“Go pull a tape from a month ago and watch it, and then watch last week or the week before,” Furman head coach Clay Hendrix said. “That’s credit to their kids. It’s credit to their staff that they get better.”

The Keydets have the SoCon’s second leading rusher in Hunter Rice (682 yards, 10 TDs, 5.1 ypc) and fifth leading passer in Collin Ironside (122/193, 1,222 yds., 4 TDs, 5 INTs).

Furman leads the all-time series against VMI, 30-10, and is 17-3 in Greenville, where the Keydets haven’t won since 1977 in Sirrine Stadium. Though VMI is winless in Paladin Stadium (0-14), Furman head coach Clay Hendrix knows his program was fortunate to come away with a 37-31 win against VMI two years ago.

The veteran Paladins must be forever vigilant, and that they have been to date. They may run up against a team comprised of Power Five deportees in a blizzard, but if they are eliminated, whoever does it will know it beat a football team.

At the same time, the job, even the Southern Conference job, isn’t done. Furman (8-1, 6-0) has clinched the automatic playoff bid. It hasn’t clinched the outright championship, needing two to win one versus VMI and at Wofford. Not running this table would be a shock to the system, and it would give the great powers of the West excuses to devalue the SoCon’s seedings.

“Just knowing we left a mark, left a legacy at this university, for this program, for this team, and knowing that we gave it all,” Travis Blackshear said. “One of the main reasons we came back … everybody had a little more to give. Obviously, the job is not finished. We’re going to continue building this legacy, keep writing this story.”

“There are things we’ve got to do better,” Hendrix said. “We could run the ball better. We got away from it because that’s the way the (Chattanooga) game went, especially in the fourth quarter.”

The rushers are getting healthier. Kendall Thomas and Grant Robinson are back at practice.

Carson Jones, who might as well be the Rock of Chickamauga (Gen. George Thomas), gets to let everyone see what he can do for an encore in front of the home folks, at what certainly must be the happiest venue in the state.

“He has an ability to stretch the field, and he’s such a calm presence,” Hendrix said of Jones. “Tyler’s been great for him, and we’ll get Tyler back.”

Furman began the season with depth and has built more of it with the development, among many, of Colton Hinton and Ben Ferguson in the receiving corps and the addition of grad transfer Mason Pline. Ferguson and Jones are roommates.

“Just seeing [Jones] step up in that big situation and become a leader in the second half,” Ferguson said, “obviously, we’ve got a little connection as roommates. It was awesome to see.”

The dominance of the Paladins’ defensive unit has been accentuated in recent weeks as Furman has limited scoring (19.3 ppg), the run (97.1 ypg, 3.1 ypc), rushed the quarterback (25 sacks, 19 in the past four games) and frustrated opponents on third down (6/3 in the past two). Fifteen interceptions ranks the Paladins fifth in FCS.

Furman has continued a penchant for making opponents pay for miscues, scoring 62 points (6.9 ppg) on possessions following 18 turnovers this season while posting a plus-1.34 turnover margin, which ranks third nationally.

The list of defenders delivering top-shelf play is longer than space allows, but it starts with a deep and experienced front.  The principals include nose guard Xavier Stephens, tackle Matt Sochovka, end Jack Barton, bandit Luke Clark, and a relief corps: Sirod Cook, Bryce Stanfield, Jeremiah Jackson, and Alex Maier. Furman’s 25 sacks are spread among a cast of 12 players.

The emergence of Evan DiMaggio (48 tackles, team-leading 6.5 for loss, 4 sacks) at inside linebacker, along with the play of Braden Gilby, who has 314 career tackles and has appeared in more games (56) than any player in program history, has proved large.

Furman’s secondary has also excelled. After sitting out the win over East Tennessee State following minor hand surgery, Blackshear returned to make the 12th interception of his career in the win over Chattanooga.  A year ago he had a 41-yard “pick-six” in the Paladins’ 41-3 road triumph over VMI.

Just how rosy can it get between the thorns? Pretty damn rosy, so far.

“We’ve got a lot of really bright kids at Furman,” Hendrix said. “They have great goals later on. They’re gonna do really great stuff. I think they value Furman and what it’s gonna do for them. They love to play football. They love to be around one another, and we want kids who value school and love the game. That’s probably a rare combination.”

Reckon I can find 20 people who like this independent site enough to chip in $20 to keep it going?

Support the advertisers, and help keep the site – the game stories, the blogs, the photos – alive by making a donation to DHK Sports, P.O. Box 768, Clinton, S.C. 29325 or making a small monthly donation via Patreon. The Laurens County site is here. The Furman site is here.

Another way I can derive some revenue is if you purchase my books at MonteDutton.net. They’re quite entertaining in spite of the fellow who wrote them. Two of my novels, Cowboys Come Home and Lightning in a Bottle, are available in audio versions. The latest, The Latter Days, is about baseball.

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The next Fiesta Grande open mic is Wednesday, Nov. 8, at 8 p.m.