Tough Times For Local SoCon Schools

What an odd year it’s been for the area’s Southern Conference schools.

Wofford, off a SoCon championship a year ago, has won just two games, and just one inside of the league, as a young Terriers squad that’s been hit with injuries is having a hard time stopping anyone. That’s the last thing you would expect from a Mike Ayers team.

The coach is looking into a sideline incident from this past weekend’s loss to Elon between an assistant coach and a player.

The Terriers travel to The Citadel this Saturday. They’ve won 10 straight against the Bulldogs and that’s a streak that could easily come to an end. The Citadel has a chance to beat Wofford and Furman in the same season for the first time since 1998.

Furman is at .500 both in the league and overall but the Paladins find themselves mired in a three-year funk in which they’ve been rather ordinary both inside and outside of the league.

Saturday’s 52-27 loss to visiting Appalachian State was another case of the Furman defense being exposed as it has throughout the season against better teams. Appalachian and Elon have separated from the pack in the league, a distressing though for Paladins fans who saw their team put up a fight in a loss in Boone last season.

This will be their third straight year of missing the playoffs, their longest stretch since things fell apart under Jimmy Satterfield in the early ‘90s.

It will be interesting to see how the Paladins brass reacts to the downturn. Their coaching staff is pretty much home grown from the head coach through most of the assistants you’ll find Furman alumns. But a program that once looked down on everyone in the league, or at the very least straight in their eye, can’t be happy that it’s become just a face in the SoCon crowd.

This Saturday, they travel to face a very good Auburn team, their second BCS opponent of the season. Such match-ups used to inspire talk of the five Division I-A upsets the Paladins have pulled over the years or other near misses.

Now, there is the reality that there’s little, if any, chance they’ll be able to hang in even for a half.

The hope for the future is that they have a quarterback who transferred in from UCLA (Chris Forcier) although he really hadn’t seen much playing time until Saturday’s second half against Appalachian, when the outcome was pretty much inevitable.

Once can only supposed that their final three games will be dedicated to preparing for next season.