The SoCon Spread

No. 24 Western Carolina (4-3, 3-0 SoCon) at No. 14 Mercer (6-1, 3-1 SoCon) Game Time and Venue: 3:30 EST/Five Star Stadium (10,200)/Macon, GA. How To Watch: ESPN+ Series: Mercer leads 8-2 Game Overview: When No. 13 Mercer hosts No. 24 Western Carolina Saturday, it won't just be a game between two teams trying to break through and win a Southern Conference title this season, if one of these two teams do manage to do that, it would manage the first time either has won a league crown. The Bears have posted an 11-23 mark against ranked opposition all-time, while the Catamounts are 16-88-3 all-time against teams with a number to the left of their name, which includes a 5-49-2 record on the road against ranked foes.  With its overtime win at No. 22/24 Chattanooga last season, the Catamounts snapped what had been a 47-game losing streak on the road against ranked foes, which dated all the way back to a 1984 win at Furman's Paladin Stadium.    The Catamounts are 4-2 against thei...

Eighth-year  Furman head coach Clay Hendrix has prided himself on making his football program a developmental one in a time when the easy thing to do is go to the transfer portal for all your season-by-season needs, however, as Furman is finding out this season, that developmental aspect of building a program can sometimes come with a huge dose of humility--at least in the short-term.  The 2024 season has had its share of strange and mostly negative occurrences for Furman's football program, and the latest came Saturday against Western Carolina, which handed Furman as thorough of a beating as they have had since the season-opening setback vs. Ole Miss (L, 0-76), on what turned out to be a record-setting Homecoming Saturday for all the wrong reasons, as the visiting Catamounts rolled to a 52-20 win over the Paladins before a crowd of 9,987 fans on-hand at Paladin Stadium. Cole Gonzales passed for a SoCon record 620 yards and five touchdowns, as WCU rolled up a league record 801...