"Foe"Rensics: Furman

Hello. It's football season! Once again life has meaning and drinking beer all morning on a Saturday can once again be viewed as a display of loyalty and support to a public institution instead of willful destruction of self. In preparation for the first official game of the year¹, I would like to share some interesting facts about our opponent that I and my extremely well qualified team of 14 fact checkers² have compiled. It's sure to give you an interesting look inside our opponents.

FURMAN: We totally did NOT steal this off the side of a Steelers helmet

1. Who are we playing to open the season?

A. Great question! We are playing the Mighty Paladins of Furman University!

2. What the hell is a Paladin?

A. Dashing my high hopes, Furman did not name themselves after a Dungeons and Dragons character, and have thus lost any respect they had hoped to gain from me. Actually, they are named after the, ahem, "Twelve Peers of Charlemagne's Court" who apparently led his army of Franks to a great victory during the Crusades as captured in the French poem Song of Roland which is, confusingly, about a guy named Orlando. I have no idea who Orlando is or how he snuck into Charlemagne's army despite not being named 'Frank', but there you are. Basically, these are a bunch of made up dudes who rode around on adventures and killed infidels back in the day, but are a cheap French knock off of King Arthur and his Round Table. So, with the opportunity to name themselves something like the "Red Dragons" after a true Welsh hero in Arthur, instead they went with a band of 'heros' led by the Disney theme park city.

3. Okay, so they named themselves after French poetry. Got it. What and where is Furman?

A. Furman is a private university in Greenville, SC. You may be familiar with Greenville as the home of our closest rival, East Carolina, but this is a DIFFERENT Greenville in, like, a whole other state, turns out.

Furman was originally founded in 1824 as a theological institution. It was in regular financial difficulty for most of the first 30 years it existed, moving around South Carolina every time someone with two pennies to rub together offered to give them one. Towards the end of the Civil War, you may recall that a certain general named Sherman ravaged nearby Georgia from Atlanta to Savannah, then turned north through the Carolinas. South Carolinians and Georgians were super bitter about him, profaning his name with great volume and venom. The folks at the theological institution could not, of course, profane, and limited themselves to regular shouts of "F Sherman!" They became known for this in the subsequent decades, as South Carolinians are not great about letting things about the Civil War go³ and this was eventually shortened to 'Furman' as, due to the dire financial straights of the school, they could not afford to teach students how to spell. The origin of the name was later retconned to be after some Baptist Minister, but that's all just made up. Sherman was also the first Superintendent of LSU, who share with Furman the privilege of losing every game they've ever played against the Hokies in Blacksburg.

Kinda got a homeless Napoleon thing going on.

4. Has anyone important ever gone to Furman?

A. Their alumni list is mildly impressive considering that they have like 100 students. For starters, DID YOU KNOW that Hans Einstein, best known for being Albert's third cousin, went there⁴? Also, a dude named Charles Townes who, in addition for founding a town in West Virginia with a horse track and casino, totally conned the Swedes out of a Nobel Prize for inventing the "Maser".

Yeah, I call this thing the, uh, "MASER". It's a beam of invisible particles, but you can't see because they're all super invisible. But it's TOTALLY THERE.

Furman has produced more than its fair share of Christian musicians because, theology, duh, highlighted by Amy Grant who 11-year-old me thought was SUPER hot. They also graduated Herman Lay, who is famous for founding the potato chip company that has yet to produce a chip equal to Grandma Utz in deliciousness. Lastly, they actually have a bunch of famous soccer players, highlighted by Ricardo Clark and Clint Dempsey, who featured in what might have been the weirdest video starring a famous soccer player if not for the thousands of other far weirder ones.

Clint. With hair. Without shame.

5. Okay. Weird about Amy Grant, but that's cool.

A. I will fight you over 1991 Amy Grant.

6. Do they play football?

A. They do! They even won a National Championship in 1988. I wouldn't call them a I-AA powerhouse, but they are a playoff regular, reaching the second round of the playoffs in 2013 where they got pummelled by North Dakota State. They were pretty bad last year, after a 2-0 start which saw them climb to No. 12, they proceeded to lose eight straight games and finish 3-9. They started off this year with a loss to Coastal Carolina, as well. Their coach is Bruce Fowler, who is most famous for being the third cousin of Chris Fowler⁵.

7. Any particular players we should be aware of?

A. Yes. In a local note, their Athletic Director is Radford's own Gary Clark, famous for winning a Super Bowl alongside Ricky Sanders and Art Monk. In fact, to help out his former teammates, he found roster spots for their sons, Harrison Monk and Deon Sanders.

Harrison Monk...man, Art might want to get a paternity test on this one

There have been reports out of fall camp that there was a Highlander-style challenge issued by DeAndre Thornton to Diondrae Wright-Linton over the appropriate spelling of their name. As of press time, their status is not known. Being an expensive, private Southern college, they have two Reeses, a Harris, a Preston (Furry, which made me giggle) and a Riley, but the highlight is probably Carl Rider, who looks like he went there THINKING it was a D&D tournament.

Sorry, but I'm pretty sure this dude has a set of chain mail he wears to Ren Faire

Lastly, they have a dude named Tiger, a dude whose GIVEN name is Ridge, which is awesome, and Quandarius Weems, who started playing football after a hip injury ended his quidditch career.

8. Any Fullers?

Nope. Preston Furry (still giggling) is about as close as they come and that's...well, that's sad.

9. Any cool football related traditions?

A. Uh...not really? They're super proud of wearing Royal Purple, which must be a Carolina thing, since East and Western Carolinas as well as Clemson all go purple. They also used to be called the Purple Fighters, Purple Hurricane and, I'm sure at some point the Purple People Eaters.

10. Uh...rivalries at least??

A. Well, there is a rivalry with Citadel, which appears to be one mostly of convenience since Citadel's traditional rival VMI left the Southern Conference. Once that happened, the Citadel started emphasizing how important the game was with Furman because...they're in the same state? The game against Wofford is also called the oldest rivalry in South Carolina, and while they DO like to hold grudges down there, the internet is mostly telling me that nobody really cares about that one either. They don't even have a keg or a fake palmetto tree to bicker over.

11. What if i go to Greenville? Should I eat while I'm there?

A. Sure. If you get hungry, Google says the best restaurant is the Tropical Grille. And while the first thing that pops in my head when you say "South Carolina Restaurant" is, of course, Cuban food, let's hear from Peter Hoffman:

I don't like chicken so I was apprehensive about eating here but, when I saw they have Ropo Vieja (Fridays only), I was much more interested. I've never had that but I had recently heard of it watching an episode of "The Finder" and my curiosity was piqued.

As it was not Friday, we had pork on rice with black beans. The food was tasty and of good quality ingredients. The counter service was a little too brisk but not unfriendly. The atmosphere is a little spartan but clean and light.

What the hell, Peter. You wanted to try this place for the Ropo Vieja and you went when they don't serve it. The hell, man. That's like wanting to see a football game in Lane Stadium, but going in July. Maybe Lindsey is more informative and less dumb:

The food is pretty good, but I wish the food was as great and atmosphere was as warm and inviting as their other location in Greer (on the other side of Pelham road). I also really dislike paying .50 for a plastic cup for tap water. Oh well, I should bring my Nalgene anyways.

Is Google Reviews your personal blog, Lindsey, where you can vent about how inconvenient a restaurant is? And how cheap are you that you won't pay $0.50 for water? And should I know what her Nalgene is or is that a woman thing I don't want to know about?

12. Right. Do they barbecue in South Carolina?

A. I like to joke around with folks who prefer the western Carolina style of putting ketchup on your barbecue, but there is one thing that unites all fans of North Carolina barbecue; we would never stoop to slopping mustard all over our barbecue.

South Carolinians, as ever, have their own distinct views on this, which of course involve doing the exact opposite of what sensible people do. Maybe Greenville is close enough to North Carolina that they don't do this, but I must urge caution that wherever you go to get barbecue, mind the sauce.

According to Google, the best place in Greenville to get barbecue is Mike and Jeff's. With a website optimally viewed in Netscape Navigator and a building that looks like at least one person has been shot and/or stabbed there, it has the feel of a good barbecue restaurant. And best of all, according to Jacob:

Best hickory pulled pork in the upstate. Good onion rings .They have sauce but you won't need it.

Get out of mustard-sauce-jail free card! Let's hear more from J Framseen:

I consider my self a BBQ expert...I have eaten a LOT of BBQ in the Upstate of SC

Okay, pompous start that he immediately undercuts. C'mon, J, that's like considering yourself a culinary expert because you eat at Taco Bell a lot.

Jeff actually layers flavored bacon over the pork while it is being smoked to give it an EXCELLENT flavor

Oh...wait, you can do that?! That's...that's actually sort of genius. My concern would be losing some of the bark, but then again, you'd be replacing it with bacon....I'm gonna need a minute to myself.

13. Take your time.

...

A. Okay, I'm good. Let's move on.

14. Tell me about the FAINT count.

A. For those of you who aren't familiar with the creative statistical analysis crew here at TKP, we've devised some of our own metrics for measuring how our team is performing. For and foremost, the "Fuller Adjusted Interception", or FAINT. Any interception by a Fuller, or by extension their honorary Fuller cousin Brandon Facyson, is subtracted from our quarterback's INT total. The goal is to end up with as low of a FAINT count as possible, preferably in the negative.

Now, since Michael Brewer was injured in the preseason scrimmage, we don't get to see him finally attempt to solve the mobius strip of FAINTs by getting so many the numbers roll over into the negative. Since no one has any idea who will take the majority of snaps at QB this year, I have no idea what to tell you. The leading contender for the spot has a shot to average single digit attempts per game, which hopefully limits the interception count. Or we could play a true freshman who probably still gets lost on the way to class. Who knows!

15. Ah, Virginia Tech football. Where you will probably end up with your head between your knees dry heaving at least one Saturday per fall. What should we watch for on this Saturday?

A. Hopefully nothing that's going to make you nauseous! I'm watching for::

• How many times the announcers bring up the Hokies losing to JMU on a short week. Over/Under is at 147;
• Which position will have more players rotate through, tailback or quarterback;
• If we continue to play a true freshman left tackle, which seems like a strategy designed to knock the rest of our quarterbacks out injured;
• If a Furman player tries to replicate a Braxton spin move and breaks his own ankle;
• I watched Dadi bounce off the human redwood when he had a clean shot at a sack. I can only imagine the magnitude of force he's going to unleash on the poor Paladin quarterback to compensate for Monday.

Enjoy Lane Stadium, Hokies!

¹Lucky for us that preseason scrimmage last weekend doesn't count, eh?
²These people don't actually exist
³Is there a group of people anywhere in the world prouder of starting a war they ultimately lost than South Carolinians?
⁴I actually did not make that up.
⁵Fact checkers are still researching this one.