By MONTE DUTTON

Eleven players on the current Furman football roster are listed as either seniors or graduates.

The Paladins return 30 who earned letters and lose 37. Three starters are back on both offense, plus kicker Ian Williams.

Yet Furman, which was 10-3 in each of the past two seasons, was voted second by Southern Conference coaches. It’s a hell of a vote of confidence from a pool of rivals.

From the Paladins’ perspective, they’re continuing a program, not rebuilding. While humble and realistic, head coach Clay Hendrix eschewed the concept of the rebuilding year at SoCon Media Day.

“It’s funny, this group, it’s got a few less personalities,” said Hendrix. “The meeting rooms are a little quieter. There’s some good in that sometimes.

“They just go to work. Last year everybody told them how good they were. Now a few say they’re not going to be very good. What does it matter? I’m confident in what we have.

“A lot depends on who you lose and who you don’t. There are going to be some injuries. Maybe an injury would be more difficult this year. I don’t know. I don’t know if we could have more injuries than we did by the end of last year.”

The returning starters, officially, are wide receivers Ben Ferguson and Joshua Harris, guard Luke Petit, bandit Luke Clark, linebacker Evan DiMaggio and noseguard Xavier Stephens.

Not an inkling of caution emerged from the words of Harris and DiMaggio, who accompanied Hendrix to Media Day at the Hotel Hartness.

“We have experience. We have depth,” said Harris, a senior from Newnan, Ga., who caught 42 passes last season. “I feel like this is going to be a real good season. People say we’re young, we lost too many players, but we’re going to let the outside noise be the outside noise and just play the best we can.

“What I think we have to do is bounce back from adversity. Football is always a sport where anything can happen. When something doesn’t go your way, you’ve got to bounce back and come back as an offense or a defense and make up for it. You can’t dwell on it. That’s how you get beat.”

Five other offensive and three defensive players have starting experience.

Having conquered the conference in the most recent campaign, it’s time to incorporate the reinforcements.

“We’ve got experience. We’ve got old guys who want the tackles and success for themselves,” said DiMaggio, from Buford, Ga., who had 79 tackles and five sacks. “Having a bunch of young guys, we gave guys who can push [us] in practice, make us uncomfortable.

“Everybody’s got a good attitude, wanting to get better. Offense and defense pushes each other in practice. That’s how we get better and ultimately have a successful season.”

Another Furman football game is starting at 2 p.m. The Stetson game on Sept. 14 is set for 2:00 p.m. at Paladin Stadium, it was announced today by Vice President of Intercollegiate Athletics Jason Donnelly.
The game will highlight Hall of Fame Weekend at Furman, its Class of 2024 to be inducted in ceremonies on Friday, Sept. 13 in downtown Greenville.

Set to be enshrined are Allie Buchalski ’18 (Cross Country/Track & Field, Stephen Croone ’16 (Men’s Basketball), Brian Lee ’93 (Women’s Soccer), Troy Reeder ’18 (Cross Country/Track & Field) and Chris Borch ’78 (Honorary Inductee & Benefactor).
The game is to be the first between Furman and Stetson.  The Hatters compete in the Pioneer Football League.
Under the direction of head coach Clay Hendrix, who, in seven seasons, has compiled a 51-29 record, the Paladins are ranked No.14 in the FCS in the Hero Sports Preseason Top 25 Poll.
Furman has six home games.

Check out the schedule here.

Women’s lacrosse is an Academic Honor Squad of the Intercollegiate Women’s Lacrosse Coaches Association (IWLCA) while nine student-athletes are on the Academic Honor Roll.
Hannah Dintino, Molly Faul, Andrea Fisher, Paige Harman, Lily Rathbun, Anna Roser, Sophie Shaw, Katelyn Sousa, and Caroline Swaim are on the Honor Roll. To be eligible for this honor, student-athletes must be a junior, senior or graduate student and have earned a cumulative academic GPA of 3.50 or greater.
The nine Paladins are part of 1,163 student-athletes from 113 different institutions named to the Division I Academic Honor Roll.

Sophomore Harris Barth and juniors Trey Diehl and Will Morlan are Cobalt Golf All-America Scholars as chosen by the Golf Coaches Association of America.All-America Scholars must be a sophomore, junior, or senior who has participated in half their team’s competitive rounds.  Recipients must have a stroke average under 76.0 in NCAA Division I and have maintained a minimum cumulative career grade-point average of 3.2.

As football season approaches – and, let’s be real, the free memory is dwindling – I expect to streamline the site name. Since the coverage – Furman and Laurens County – is difficult to convey in a word, I may stick with Wellpilgrim (com, net, et al.). Or, if anyone thinks of anything snazzy, I’ll take it under advisement.

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