Lord have mercy. I wasn’t there. Gibbs Stadium isn’t currently a happy place for a Furman grad.

In each of the previous two football meetings, Wofford won, 19-13. This time the score was 31-13. I was watching unbeaten Presbyterian crush Stetson, 42-7. The story in Clinton is extraordinary. Spartanburg is to the north, but Furman is turning south.

This time the score was 31-13.

Why was I in Clinton? The game in Spartanburg started at noon, and I was up till 2 a.m. on the Friday-night high-school beat. Nine months after I left a rehabilitation hospital, my legs are still weak, andfthe Gibbs Stadium postgame involves going up and down stadium steps and a walk up a hill to the visiting locker room.

Mainly, though, I’ve developed a faint aversion to Wofford College, not without reason. I wasn’t happy at the outcome, but I didn’t mind not being there. The game was on local TV. That wasn’t so hot, either.

J.T. Fayard passed for 179 yards and two touchdowns, and Wofford used opportunistic defense to beat Furman, 31-13, in Southern Conference football action on Saturday afternoon.

Ninety-nine times the Paladins and Terriers have played each other. Furman has won 56 of the games. Not lately, though. Wofford has prevailed in seven of the last 10.

The win in the the Deep South’s oldest football rivalry was the third straight for Wofford (2-5, 1-2 SoCon) over Furman (4-3, 2-2 SoCon).

Fayard, a sophomore from Katy, Texas, who transferred from Northwestern (La.) State, completed 18/25 passes, and his two scoring strikes, covering 29 yards to Colby Alexander and 21 yards to Terrence Honeywood, came in the first half to help the Terriers take a 21-6 lead into intermission.

The Wofford defense amassed five sacks and intercepted Furman quarterback Trey Hedden three times, including a 66-yard “pick-six” by Javario Tinch three minutes into the fourth quarter that gave the Terries a 28-13 advantage.

 Hedden, operating without the benefit of his three primary receivers — injured wide receivers Evan James, Ja’Keith Hamilton and Ethan Harris — completed 27/39 passes attempts for 257 yards.

Sophomore running back Gavin Hall ran for 61 yards and a touchdown and was also the Paladins’ top receiver in the contest with seven catches for 49 yards.  Devin Hester had six catches for 82 yards, including a 10-yard touchdown catch-yard preceded by an interception return by A.K. Burrell to the Wofford 19.

The opposition has outscored the Paladins 83-20 in their two-game slide.

Clay Hendrix and his staff of assistants bear the burden of the slump. The rest of us just lose sleep.

Furman plays another ancestral rival, The Citadel (3-4, 2-2,) next Saturday in a 2 p.m. homecoming game at Paladin Stadium. Western Carolina (5-3, 4-0) held off the Bulldogs, 45-38, in Charleston.

Take a look at the stats here.

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