By MONTE DUTTON Paris Mountain from Paladin Stadium (Monte Dutton photo) Click here. Were I a prognosticator of the sports-radio airwaves – one of those outspoken men and brassy women who tell me all about how they’re betting – I might predict a bad season for the Furman Paladins. They look at the simple math, …
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County Signs: Three rivalries to open prep season
By MONTE DUTTON (Monte Dutton photos) Click here. I’m so excited. I just can’t hide it. It’s only Monday. Woodruff and Clinton played opening night for about a half century. Hillcrest and Laurens have played on opening night for as long as I’ve been back from the NASCAR wars. For years, Clinton was always Class …
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What goes down must come up
Myion Hicks (Furman photo) Running backs. RBs. Arby’s. Click here. With a little more luck than last year, Furman will have the meat. The Paladins began last season with a stable of healthy, experienced running backs, but by season’s end, injuries had decimated the group, to the point the Paladins moved a wide receiver into …
Furmanology: Green flag’s waving
By MONTE DUTTON Cambridge Academy, Greenwood (Monte Dutton photo) Click here. I wrote about my first football game on Friday night. It was an eight-man fray played on a quaint field with a shade tree on the home side, two sets of stairs and no grandstand. The score was 56-20. Eight-man football is soccer in …
County Signs: Raiders, Red Devils from a week’s distance
By MONTE DUTTON (Monte Dutton photos) Click here. Laurens football would be a question mark wrapped in an enigma, anyway. New coach with big name. Lots of new players, tough schedule. It’s not hard to figure out the Raiders are going to be better. It is to anticipate how much. Laurens has only faced another …
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Crusaders win big for Doolittle’s 100th
By MONTE DUTTON (Monte Dutton photos) Click here. GREENWOOD -- On Friday evening, at a tidy field, Laurens Academy opened its football season with a 56-20 victory over Cambridge Academy, and the game is undefeated back in Laurens County. This was in part because it was the season’s first game and in part because the …
Furmanology: Fight the good fight
By MONTE DUTTON (Furman photo) Click here. For the past few years, I’ve looked forward to football with buoyant expectations. For the past two seasons, I’ve been right. The Paladins have fulfilled those elite expectations. This year, I’m fascinated. The players who propelled Furman are mostly gone. The Paladins are ranked prominently in both the …
County Signs: Crusaders go first
(Monte Dutton photos) Click here. On Friday night, there will be football. Honest-to-gosh, bona-fide, counts in the standings, football. It’s eight-man football, and it’s in Greenwood, where Laurens Academy kicks off the whole county season with a visit to the den of the Cambridge Cougars. It’s sort of week double-zero. Clinton and Laurens open thunderously …
Furmanology: Mixing and matching with bandits, spurs
Luke Clark (Furman photo) Click here. As in old westerns, Furman’s defense features bandits and spurs, though football bandits do not wear the latter. Leading the way at bandit is one of Furman’s tops defensive returnees, Luke Clark (6-3, 253, R-Sr.), who is coming off an impressive season that saw him register 53 tackles and …
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County Signs: Change is the rage
By MONTE DUTTON (Monte Dutton photo) Click here. Here’s my prediction for professional football. Because most of the starters play little, if at all, in exhibition games – and that’s exactly what they are, even though the NFL insists on “preseason games” – the beginning of the actual season will be sloppy. The middle of …
Nightrider's Lament 