By MONTE DUTTON

In the next few days and nights, Nebraska is playing Cincinnati, East Carolina-North Carolina State, Georgia Tech-Colorado, Auburn-Baylor, Syracuse-Tennessee, Northwestern-Tulane, Texas-Ohio State, Louisiana State-Clemson, Alabama-Florida State, Notre Dame-Miami and South Carolina-Virginia Tech.

Among many others. Big deal. William & Mary is playing Furman. I speak for no one but myself. That’s where I’ll be.

Those other games? Oh, I’m interested. I’ll watch the highlights. I might even watch a replay.

Paladin Stadium is such a pleasant place to be. So few are the hassles. The band will come marching in. The tailgating is impressive. It won’t take a shuttle bus to get there.

If you must, tune in another game on your cell. Me? I’m not much of a multi-tasker. I have to concentrate on one game. One reason is I plan to write about it.

Last season, Clay Hendrix’s eighth, was a rough one, 3-8. It happens. Not that often, though. The Paladins were 10-3 in both 2022 and ’23. Last season found the cupboard a bit bare, but young players made the best of it. Boys became men. This season’s story is going to be titled Growing Up Purple.

“I think it’s a night-and-day difference,” said head coach Clay Hendrix to radio voice Dan Scott. “A lot of that’s just natural maturity that takes place. We had very few veterans (last year). Now we have a lot of veterans [who] have played.

“It just goes back to controlling what you can control. When I look back, there were a lot of things we couldn’t control. … All the personnel issues, that’s part of it. If we took better care of the ball. I think we’ve learned that attention to detail is important in all we do. I don’t think we ever had an identity. It helped us to go back and re-evaluate.”

The last two times Furman went 3-8 (2013, ’16), the Paladins made the FCS playoffs the following year and won a first-round game.

The game kicks off at 2 p.m. It’ll be on TV at ESPN+ and broadcast on radio at 97.7 FM/1330 AM in Greenville and 97.1 FM/950 AM in Spartanburg. Don’t succumb to the sedentary, though. Saturday is likely to be a perfect day. William & Mary won last year in Williamsburg, Va., 34-24.

The game will mark the 17th meeting in a series that is tied 8-8. The Paladins and Tribe, once Southern Conference rivals, have met only twice on the gridiron this century. The last time the two schools met in Greenville was in 2000, a 34-10 Furman victory.

Furman returns 14 starters and 40 lettermen. A total of 22 players count career starting experience as Paladins. The program is composed of 116 players, including 14 graduates, nine seniors, 14 juniors, 29 sophomores, and 50 freshmen.
Five Paladins earned preseason All-Southern Conference recognition, including four first team picks: redshirt junior offensive tackle Eli Brasher, sophomore tight end Jackson Pryor, redshirt sophomore linebacker Ryan Earl and nd graduate placekicker Ian Williams.  Redshirt senior offensive guard Luke Petit made the second team.

Williams, possibly the top triple-threat specialist in the FCS (placekicker, kickoffs, punts), was named to the Stats Perform Preseason FCS All-America first team as a placekicker, while Petit landed second-team honors.
Another key returnee is sophomore quarterback Trey Hedden, who passed for 1,767 yards and 13 touchdowns a year ago, including 264 yards and two scores versus William & Mary.

“A lot of attention with any football team starts with the quarterback position, and we’ve seen a lot of promise,” Hendrix said. “Trey’s done everything he could possibly do in the offseason. … He’s significantly lighter, stronger. I don’t know if we have a guy who works out more than him.”
Several graduate transfers figure to play prominent roles, particularly in the secondary, where three are listed as probable starters on Saturday. The trio includes cornerbacks Keon Jones (Prairie View A&M) and A.J. Seay (North Alabama), and safety Taylen Blaylock (Lindenwood).

Hendrix enters his ninth season as head coach and 32^nd year of service to his alma mater. He’s 54-37 overall and 41-21 in the SoCon.
“We’re light years ahead of where we were a year ago,” Hendrix said.

That’s the distance light travels in a year, which translates to 186,000 miles per second. The Paladins are faster. Maybe not that much faster but faster nonetheless.

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