Furman’s Fowler Rebuilding A Championship Tradition From The Ground Up

Furman Head Coach Bruce Fowler Is 9-13 Heading Into His Third Season As The Head Coach Of His Alma Mater.

GREENVILLE, S.C.–Youth will be a watchword for the Furman football program, especially for broadcasters and members of the media when talking about the Paladins in 2013. But, there is probably another adjective that will be used in conjunction with the term youth, and that is athleticism.

Third-year Furman head coach Bruce Fowler has also shown he can recruit. He’s re-structuring the program from the ground up, building it on the tenants that made the Paladins such a successful program during the decade of the 1980’s all the way up to the dawn of a new millennium and past.

Paladin fans have had to be patient–real patient. Furman is in the middle of its longest postseason drought since re-classification, as the Paladins last qualified for the FCS playoffs in 2006. It was the end of a great era of Furman football, which saw the Paladins make playoff appearances in six of the first seven seasons in the new millennium.

The Paladins posted a 64-25 record from 2000-06, but since that ’06 season, have experienced more struggles than any period since the Division I was re-classified in 1981.

Forty-five freshmen reported for 2013 fall training camp, which commenced last Sunday, in preparations for the 2013 season. Of the 87 players that reported for camp last Sunday, 64 of those players are freshmen or sophomores.

The future is bright, but plenty of unknowns remain heading into the season. After going just 3-8 in 2012, Fowler and staff knows that is unfamiliar territory for such a tradition-rich football program.

But in his first two seasons, there are signs that Furman is a program ready to make a resounding turnaround in the very near future. With so much youth, one would be hard-pressed to imagine that would be the case this fall, however, it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibilities.

In the ever-changing world of college football recruiting, one of the things that has endeared Fowler to his players is his ability to listen to their requests, and respect who they are as people. Furman has implemented music at practices, and Fowler has even rewarded his team with new uniforms, which he presented to the team just yesterday.

Some of the tenants that Furman seems to be returning to as a program are a strong running game. The Paladins featured a 1,000-yard rusher in each of the previous two seasons, and that’s something that hasn’t been done since 2000 and ’01, when Louis Ivory was toting the rock out of the

Furman Has Six New Uniform Combinations Among Its Options For The 2013 Season, But Will Primarily Feature Its Traditional Uniform Of Purple Jerseys, White Pants and White Helmets.

backfield for the Paladins.

Now Hank McCloud steps into the role as the main rusher for the Paladins after the graduation of Jerodis Williams, who is currently in camp with the Minnesota Vikings.

With so many unknowns and so much youth going into the season, the expectations and pressure that normally greet a program with a tradition such as Furman’s, won’t exist entering the 2013 season. After all, the Paladins were picked to finish fifth in the SoCon by both the coaches and media, and fifth out of the seven teams eligible for the SoCon title this fall.

Many of the Paladins players and coaches are also excited about changes in the program from a logistical standpoint, as Furman has added turf in lieu of grass, and the beautiful new is Pearce-Horton Football Complex nearing completion.

These added ingredients figure to only enhance the Paladins’ recruiting efforts for the future, as the staff has hit the trail hard in the prior two off-seasons, bringing in solid talents on both sides of the ball.

In fact, the Paladins signed the best class of the teams eligible for a SoCon title this fall, according to rivals and scout.com. Furman has bettered in-state rivals Wofford and The Citadel on the recruiting trail each of the past two seasons.

With the pressure off, the Paladins will likely enter the season with a chip on their proverbial shoulders. It’s a team that has fallen off the FCS radar, and it’s just where any coach would want his team to be entering a season.  

Stay tuned to SaturdayBlitz.com in the coming days for a full preview for the upcoming season for the Paladins, as we wind down towards the 2013 season. Furman, which returns 15 starters from a 3-8 team of a year ago, kicks off the 2013 season on Aug. 31 at Gardner-Webb.