By MONTE DUTTON

I don’t understand why so many FCS teams want to move up to FBS, though it wouldn’t break my heart if some of those state schools from the sparsely populated northern mountains and prairies would take the ski jump.
Oh, wait. It could have something to do with money, which rules along with the ESPN Family of Networks.
Furman’s having a rough football season, but the Southern Conference is still level. The nine teams all play one another, though a hurricane prevented a few games this year. It’s not the post office (rain, wind, snow, sleet, hail, dark of night, etc.), but then again, neither is the post office anymore.
The alleged Big 10 has 16 schools, as do the SEC and the alleged Big 12. The ACC (All Coast Conference?) has 17. The basketball teams might figure out a way to play everybody else, but not football.

Mississippi head coach Lane Kiffin pointed out that a team might miss the 12-team playoff by playing the conference championship game. As much as I hate to agree with Kiffin on anything, he’s right.
Just by the way the schedule fell, Georgia has played a far tougher schedule than Texas or Texas A&M, though they do at least play each other. Clemson’s situation in the ACC is probably untenable because it hasn’t played SMU or Miami. In fact, none of the top three has played the other two. Louisville has played all of them.
The CFP (college football playoff) rankings are a masterpiece of horse trading and connivance. Kansas upset BYU last week, and the Cougars fell seven spots. South Carolina beat Missouri, and the Tigers remained the same (23rd).
It’s not just a mess. It’s a hot, steaming mess. The problem is the vast conferences (and they exist in FCS, too). It can’t be cured. This year no one knew Florida State was going to turn out to be so bad or that Indiana was going to turn out to be so good.
I’ll stick with the good old SoCon.

Not only did fourth-seeded Furman earn an NCAA Tournament bid by winning the Southern Conference.
The Paladins advanced past North Carolina (9-4-5) with a fifth-round penalty kick after regulation and overtime ended in a scoreless draw on Thursday in Chapel Hill.
Diego Hernandez buried his penalty kick opportunity in the fifth round to help the Furman men’s soccer team advance past 21st-ranked North Carolina, 5-3.
The Paladins (9-3-6) advance to face No. 13 seed Marshall in the second round of the NCAA Tournament at 2 p.m. on Sunday in Huntington, W.Va.
“I’m so proud of this team and their resilience tonight,” stated Paladin head coach Doug Allison. “We had five great penalty kicks and were able to get another shutout. We also want to thank our Furman alumni, parents and fans who made the trip tonight. It was great to see so much purple.”

After 110 minutes of scoreless soccer, each team converted on their first three rounds of penalty kicks. Slade Starnes started the fourth round by putting Furman ahead 4-3. North Carolina’s Luke Hille fired his shot over the cross bar and Hernandez finished his chance to secure the Paladins’ trip to the second round.
Sophomore Aaron Salinas, the Southern Conference Goalkeeper of the Year, notched the shutout for the Paladins with four saves while Andrew Cordes posted four stops for the Tar Heels.
North Carolina held a 10-9 edge in total shots with both teams putting four shots on goal and earning three corner kicks.

The Paladins and Tar Heels created few chances in the opening 35 minutes with Furman’s Lloyd Wamu Snell registering the only shot on goal. North Carolina came to life in the final 10 minutes of the first half, forcing Furman’s Aaron Salinas into three saves, including a point-blank stop on Riley Thomas’ shot off a corner kick with only four seconds on the clock.
Martin Vician created UNC’s most dangerous chance of the night in the 54th minute with a goal-bound header that Salinas pushed wide of the left post with a diving effort.

Five minutes later, Malachi Grant’s cross into the box just missed the on-rushing Christian Kraus before another cross found Wesley Siegel at the back post. The freshman, however, fired over the bar.
Furman’s best chance of the second half came in the 85th minute when Kraus cut inside a defender and ripped a shot that was stopped at the near post. Neither team was able to record a shot on target in the two overtime periods.
The Paladins’ victory comes 25 years to the day after Furman topped North Carolina, 2-1, in overtime in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament at Stone Stadium on Nov. 21, 1999.

Men’s basketball opens a four-game road swing on Saturday afternoon when it travels to Charleston Southern for a 2 p.m. tip-off at Buccaneer Fieldhouse.
The Paladins, who received votes in this week’s Associated Press Top 25 Poll and are ranked No. 15 in the latest College Insider Mid-Major Top 25, are in search of their sixth straight win to start the season after rolling to a 124-48 win over Oglethorpe on Wednesday night to improve to 5-0.
Furman’s 124 points versus the Stormy Petrels were the most by a Paladin squad since a 126-33 victory over Virginia Intermont on December 29, 2004. The 76-point margin of victory was also the largest since the Virginia Intermont contest.

Senior PJay Smith Jr., despite playing only 14 minutes, paced the Paladins with 29 points and set a new school standard for three-point percentage on seven or more attempts by draining 9-of-10 triples. Freshman Mason Smith added a career-high 20 points, and the Paladins matched a school record with 34 assists on the night.
Saturday’s road game marks the 18th all-time meeting between the Paladins and Bucs with Furman holding a 10-7 series advantage. Furman has won the last two meetings and four of the last five, including a 91-47 decision in the most recent encounter on Nov. 12, 2019, at Buccaneer Fieldhouse.

Charleston Southern enters the match-up at 1-5 on the season following a 77-68 loss at LSU on Tuesday night. The Bucs downed Morris College in their only previous home game this season, 108-50.
Following Saturday’s trip to Charleston, Furman is scheduled to face Seattle in the Terry’s Chocolate Vegas Showdown on Tuesday night at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nev., before tangling with top-ranked Kansas at Phog Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence, Kan., on Saturday, Nov. 30. The four-game road swing ends with a visit to Florida Gulf Coast on Dec. 4.
Saturday’s contest will be streamed live on ESPN+. There will be no Furman radio broadcast due to its conflict with the Paladins’ season football finale at Mercer on Saturday afternoon.

The 24th-ranked Furman men’s cross country team will compete at the NCAA Championship meet Saturday at the Thomas Zimmer Championship Course in Madison, Wis.
Saturday’s meet will be broadcast live on ESPNU and streamed on ESPN+ with a pre-race show beginning at 9:30 a.m. The men’s 10-kilometer race will begin at approximately 11:10 a.m., and the awards presentation will be streamed live on ESPN+ beginning at noon.

The Paladin men, who, along with the women’s team, each won their 12th straight Southern Conference titles, is making its ninth trip to the national championship meet. The Paladins placed 12th at the national meet in 1965, posted a 13th-place finish in 2015, and finished 14th in 2019. Furman most recently appeared at the national championships in 2021, when the Paladins finished 31st.
Furman is led by fifth-year student Dylan Schubert, the 2024 SoCon Men’s Runner of the Year, who won the individual title at the league championships and went on to finish third at the NCAA Southeast Region Championship. He was joined on the all-region team by fifth-year student Carson Williams, who placed 12th at the region meet.

Fifth-year student Evan Guzman, senior Nick Goldstein, junior Luke Taylor, sophomore Chris Knight and freshman Colin Eckerman complete the Paladin roster for Saturday’s meet.
Last year, Schubert became the first two-time All-American in the Paladin men’s cross country history after finishing 24th to earn his second-consecutive All-America scroll. Schubert, who finished 11th at the national meet as a junior in 2022, is making his fifth straight appearance at the NCAA Championship.

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