By Scott Keeler
SPARTANBURG, S.C. – In 2017, Wofford was the preseason favorite to win the Southern Conference football championship. It marked the first time in school history that the Terriers were the voted atop the preseason polls. Back-to-back SoCon titles later, they’re back there again.
Wofford led voting by the league’s media and coaches as the favorite this year. The preseason polls and coaches’ all-conference player selections were revealed at the SoCon Media Day festivities Monday. The Terriers received 21 of a possible 29 first-place votes in the media poll and seven of nine in the coaches poll.
“The one thing we’re not going to do as a program is shy away from those rankings,” said second-year Wofford coach Josh Conklin. “We know it doesn’t mean a whole lot this time of year, but on the other side of that, I always talk to our coaching staff and our players about being a top-tier FCS program in the country. So if you are that, this is the world and environment you’re going to live in.”
The Terriers return nine starters on offense from a team that went 9-4 last season and shared the league title with ETSU and Furman. Wofford advanced to the second round of the FCS playoffs, where it fell to second-ranked Kennesaw State, 13-10.
After replacing retired legend Mike Ayers, Conklin’s team didn’t look much different – in style or results. The Terriers ranked fifth in the FCS in rushing at 311.7 yards per game. Wofford’s entire starting offensive line returns this season, including preseason All-SoCon first-team selections Justus Basinger and Michael Ralph and second-team pick Blake Jeresaty.
A Wofford defense that ranked 12th nationally allowing an average of 305.5 yards per game returns five starters, including preseason All-SoCon defensive lineman Thad Mangum.
“It’s not like you’re taking a program where you’re rebuilding, so the worst thing you can do in that situation is blow everything up and be ignorant enough to say, ‘Well I’m going to do it this way,’” Conklin said. “We came in and made some minor changes, and we will continue to evolve offensively and defensively. As we do that, your stamp, your players’ stamp and your coaches’ stamp of ‘this is what Wofford football is becoming’ will just slowly progress.”
Coming off its SoCon-record 14th conference title, Furman was picked to finish second in both polls. The Paladins, who ended 2018 on a four-game winning streak to finish 6-4, received six first-place votes by the media and one first-place vote from a coach.
Like Wofford, Furman also returns each of its starters on the offensive line, including preseason All-SoCon first-team selection Bo Layton. Defensively, the Paladins return seven starters not including bandit linebacker Adrian Hope. Despite not starting a game as a freshman last season, Hope led the country in sacks (15) to earn preseason All-SoCon first-team honors.
“The thing I’m probably the most excited about this year is the amount of depth we have coming back,” Furman coach Clay Hendrix said. “We’ve had some glaring holes the last couple of years. Between recruiting, developing and retaining guys, I think we’ve addressed those pretty well.”
After finishing tied for first place last season, Wofford, Furman and ETSU were picked 1-2-3 this preseason as the Bucs were the No. 3 pick in both polls. In Randy Sanders’ first season as head coach, ETSU went 8-4 in 2018 and returned to the FCS playoffs for the first time since 1996.
Nasir Player, the preseason SoCon Defensive Player of the Year, leads a Bucs unit that ranked second in the SoCon in total defense last season (351.2 yards allowed per game). That stingy defense helped ETSU go 6-0 in games decided by three points or fewer last season. All six of those were league games.
“Every team has its own mentality and personality, but hopefully what we did last year will be able to carry over,” Sanders said. “At the same time, we’ve got so many new faces this year. I’ve got more freshmen and redshirt freshmen than I do sophomores, juniors and seniors right now.
“Guys like (offensive lineman) Ben (Blackmon) and Nasir (who represented ETSU at Media Day) are going to have to do a great job with senior leadership and setting the example. Those young guys will listen to me, but they’re going to listen to them a whole lot more.”
The only discrepancy between the coaches and media in the preseason poll came in the middle as the media picked Mercer to finish fourth and Chattanooga fifth, while the coaches had the Mocs fourth and the Bears fifth.
Each poll was rounded out by Samford, The Citadel, Western Carolina and VMI. Western Carolina will be led by dynamic dual-threat quarterback Tyrie Adams, who was voted as the preseason SoCon Offensive Player of the Year.
Monday’s Media Day also marked the first for new SoCon commissioner Jim Schaus. In addition to addressing those in attendance Monday, Schaus also got the opportunity to meet with the coaches. One of the topics of those conversations was what could be done to ensure that the SoCon remains a multiple-bid league in the FCS playoffs.
In 2016, a league-record four teams made the playoffs. It was a different story in 2018 as Furman became just the second SoCon championship team to not make the playoffs.
“Strategic scheduling is one of those things we really need to focus in on,” Schaus said. “Our football is fantastic entertainment. There’s not a lot of space in the linear platforms, so finding a way to get it promoted more visibly is certainly one of my objectives.”
In this day and age of social media, Schaus said it’s also important for the SoCon to highlight those athletes providing that entertainment. Players like Adams, who became just the 11th player in FCS history to run for 1,000 yards and throw for 2,000 in the same season last year, and graduated Samford quarterback Devlin Hodges. Hodges earned the Walter Payton Award as the top offensive player in the country in 2018 after breaking Steve McNair’s FCS record for career passing yards with 14,584.
“In that window of time when you have a Walter Payton Award winner – one of seven we’ve had in our history – or you have a (Wofford basketball standout Fletcher) Magee that has that kind of talent that’s so unique, you’ve got to optimize it,” Schaus said. “Not only their schools, but the conference. We’ve got to find some creative ways of blowing that up. We need to keep working on that because there’s going to be things that happen in the future and you must be prepared to step forward and optimize it.”