Well it’s time to review the upcoming season and the battle for the Southern Conference. Overall, it is a wide open race with the conference title up for grabs. Lots of losses to graduation and some new coaching faces may level the playing field even more than it has been the last few years. Last year, 16 out of the 36 conference games were decided by one possession. In the last four years there have been 54 one possession games out of 124 conference games played. That’s over 43% of the games!
With the reigning SOCON Champion The Citadel facing some serious losses to graduation and Chattanooga with a new head coach, Wofford and Samford will be chomping at the bit to claim the title. With all four of those teams making the FCS playoffs last season, they will all be hungry for a return trip. Western Carolina and especially Furman are looking to turn things around after sinking a bit. Mercer is looking to maintain their intensity after graduating its first class after returning to Division I football. VMI will have a tough road as graduation decimated their offense. ETSU, in its third season back playing football after a 12 year hiatus, will try and build on its stunning victory in the final game of last year over a playoff bound Samford.
The schedule will obviously play an important role to see who can build momentum as the season progresses. Last years champ, The Citadel, opened the 2016 season with two conference victories against Mercer and Furman. This year Wofford will play those same two teams to open the season with Furman up first. Always a grudge match, Wofford and Furman have split the last 12 games with neither team winning more than 2 in a row. As a quarterfinalist last year in the FCS playoffs, Wofford was a dark horse. How they will perform with the spotlight on them early on may reveal a lot. After it opens with two SOCON games Wofford gets a bye week before facing Gardner-Webb at home. It then gets Presbyterian on the road, WCU at home, The Citadel in Charleston, Samford at home, at ETSU and UTC at home. It finishes off at VMI and USC where it has giving the Gamecocks fits in the past. This is a pretty good schedule if the Terriers can keep it rolling.
The Citadel has what is probably the best schedule it could hope for to start out the 2017 campaign in light of its losses, including three All Americans. It opens against Div II Newberry, a Presbyterian team that went 2-9 last year and ETSU still trying to find its way. This opening schedule will be more than adequate to shake out the kinks of its new starters before it meets Samford at the end of September in Birmingham in a game that could decide the fate of both teams. It has a bye week before Samford. It gets Mercer and Wofford at home before traveling to UTC. After playing VMI and WCU at home, it goes on the road to Furman and reigning FBS Champion Clemson.
Chattanooga can make a huge splash on the FCS map when it meets Jacksonville State in the Montgomery Classic on 26 Aug to kick off the 2017 season. The Mocs have not beaten JSU since 2011, but the last 4 games have been decided by a total of 15 points. A victory here could go a long way in giving the Mocs confidence for the 2017 season. They follow it up by a paycheck game against LSU and a home opener against a good Tenn-Martin team. Their first four SOCON games are VMI, WCU, Furman, and Mercer. Depending on how they do against JSU, they could well be 6-1 overall going into The Citadel, Samford and Wofford beginning in late Oct. They finish with ETSU at home.
Samford has high hopes this year. After winning a share of the crown in 2013, they have consistently underachieved. With one of the best quarterbacks in Div I football at the helm, Junior Devlin Hodges, they may be set to finally get it done again this year. With a 71% completion percentage, 4088 yards, and 36 TDs, and only 8 interceptions last year, Samford could be the team to beat for the conference title if he repeats his performance. Samford opens with Kennesaw State and a decent Div II team in West Alabama. After a paycheck game in Athens against Georgia, which might just be interesting, Samford begins SOCON play at WCU. It does get The Citadel at home next and it also gets Chattanooga and Furman at home later on. It does have to play Wofford in Spartanburg though, but it has a bye week prior. Not a bad schedule to make a run at the title.
Whether Furman can turn things around under their new head coach, Clay Hendrix, might be shown in its early match up against Wofford. It also gets a hapless Elon at home and then goes on the road for NC State and a good matchup against Colgate to start its season. It is a lot better schedule than last year’s meat grinder that started Furman’s fall to unheard of depths. A 2-2 start would not be unrealistic for the Paladins. While it gets Mercer and The Citadel at home, it goes on the road for UTC and Samford for its last game of the regular season.
Regardless if Mercer maintains its characteristic tenacity in conference games (it has had 17 one possession games in the 22 SOCON games it has played!) it may be a tough year for the Bears. How Mercer does, without the energy of its first team to graduate in decades, should also be of interest. While they no doubt had a pipeline of new and capable players, the loss of the synergy and leadership of the first new team may impact them. After opening against Jacksonville of the Pioneer League, it gets Wofford at home and then goes to Auburn, the first of its two FBS games this year. The other is Alabama to close the regular season. It has to travel to Charleston, Greenville, and Cullowhee, but it does get UTC and Samford at home. I might be making too much of it graduating its first class, but I think the loss of QB John Russ will be apparent. He was a good solid QB that kept them in games. I have to go back again to how close some of the Mercer games have been because I think that it is impressive. It lost 10 of those 17 one possession games it had. And in 6 of those 10 losses, they lost by a total of 10 points. Talk about being close.
WCU, with some new faces on the coaching staff, will try and regain some winning ways. It has a pretty good QB in Sophomore Tyrie Adams. If it finds a defense as well, then it make makes some waves. The Catamounts start off with a fairly decent road game. Who am I kidding, they play Hawaii, it’s a great road trip. If my Bulldogs ever do it, I am there. Hawaii is just a so so FBS team. Their biggest advantage is mother nature and the inevitable adjustment to the time change for the players. I can see it being closer than expected if they fix their defense a bit, but a blow out could happen as well. They then get Davidson at home and that should give them some confidence, if they do not have a Hawaii hangover. After traveling to Gardner-Webb, they get a meat grinder with Samford at home, and road games at Chattanooga and Wofford. Later on they travel to VMI and The Citadel and get Furman and Mercer at home. Then they have to finish at UNC. Not the best of schedules but they could pull the odd upset. They have no bye week due to the Hawaii game. How they do in Hawaii, and against G-W will be tell a lot as to how they have ramped up their defense.
VMI opens at AF, hosts Div II Catawba, and goes to Robert Morris. Not a bad start to shake out those new offensive starters. It then gets UTC at home, at Mercer, Samford at home, at Furman, WCU at home and then goes to Charleston for the Military Classic of the South. It finishes at ETSU and gets Wofford at home to end the regular season. It really is not a bad schedule overall. It just comes at the wrong time for a VMI team that is rebuilding. Their defense may keep them in games though.
ETSU wasn’t that bad last year. In fact, they had bookend victories to their season that were downright good: Kennesaw and Samford. This year they start with a bad Div II Limestone and it should give them confidence before they travel to reigning FCS champ JMU the next week. After facing The Citadel and Mercer at home they travel to Furman and then get Robert Morris at home. During the rest of their season, they travel to WCU, Samford and UTC. They also get Wofford and VMI at home. It is very hard to measure them yet with only one year of conference play under their belt. In their victories, ball control was the key. They have decent players but not much star quality yet. They have a pretty decent OOC schedule considering their team’s development. The meat grinder than is the SOCON will take its toll on them though.
With the schedule laid out, I have to give the nod to Wofford and Samford as having the best path to the title. For Wofford, if they claim two quick opening conference victories, that will position them nicely, just as it did for The Citadel last year. When looking at Wofford playing the favorites, with Samford and UTC at home and only The Citadel on the road, where they have had success in the past, Wofford will need to stumble not to at least claim a share of the title. I think they might stumble though. Samford has a nice schedule as well with only Wofford on the road, when considering the favorites. But then again, this is the SOCON and anything can happen, just ask Samford about playing ETSU last year. In the end, I think Samford may finally put something together this year.
All that said, here are my predictions for the 2017 SOCON race. But I am sure that once the whistle blows, all bets are off and it’s best we all get familiar with the tiebreaking rules.
Samford 9-2 7-1
Wofford 8-3 6-2
The Citadel 8-3 6-2
UTC 7-4 6-2
Furman 6-5 5-3
WCU 4-8 3-5
Mercer 3-8 2-6
VMI 3-8 1-7
ETSU 2-9 0-8