2025 SoCon Football Primer

 

GREENVILLE, S.C.—Late last month the Southern Conference coaches, media and student-athletes convened in Greenville, S.C., to talk all things SoCon football, as the league and commissioner Michael Cross, who enters his third football season in a leadership role, outlined a power-point to drive home the SoCon’s continued dedication to changing the narrative from a national perspective, while also emphasizing an outdated playoff and preseason ranking process that has be to the league’s detriment in recent years, while the old system has at the same time benefitted comparable leagues.

It’s certainly an interesting time to be an FCS football fan, with some power leagues seeming to change with each season—cough cough…the CAA…while the SoCon remains unique and old-school in its approach, sticking to a round-robin conference play process, which many feel hurts the league when it comes to selection Sunday in late November, but it makes for one hell of a competitive regular-season race.  

Media Day took place about three weeks prior to the league making a huge announcement, which was the latest member that was set to join the SoCon, in Tennessee Tech. How that alters the future of the league is not yet fully known, however, most feel that the move is not the last the league will make in the very near future in terms of new teams added to the league.

With that said, there are some coaches like Furman’s Clay Hendrix, Chattanooga’s Rusty Wright, and even Western Carolina’s Kerwin Bell for which this event is becoming almost so routine by now that avoiding cliché’ answers to the media must seem like the biggest concern to each. Other than that, all three have the understanding that the SoCon isn’t a one-bid league by any means.

Every week, however, the trio understands the reality of playing in a round-robin league, and that means there’s more on the line than any other in FCS conference with each passing week, as the other power conferences now sport conference membership affiliations of now fewer than 12 members. Hendrix, Wright and Bell have all felt the sting of having teams worthy of a playoff spot, but finding themselves on the outside look in when it came down to Selection Sunday.

For coaches like Will Healy, it’s an introduction to the coaches and players he will be facing week-in and week-out inside a league that has become one of the most grueling grinds of any in FCS, and one that still values the traditional rivalry, rather than trying to always introduce new teams and create new ones.

Cross acknowledged the outdated system with his power points, as he did his best to lay out how and why the system is hurting the SoCon. High preseason rankings have become obsolete every place but FCS football. That’s because sometimes, unlike the FBS, there is a certain bias to prop other teams up by some voters, while others are seemingly biased against to even get ranked. It really isn’t a bias against one school per-say, but rather the league as a whole.

In my opinion, FCS poll voters in the STATS poll aren’t vetted enough, and that’s exactly the reason why it has lost some credibility with the selection process, while other polls, like the FCS Nation Radio poll among others cropping up, are now considered more viable and credible for use.

Setting The Scene For 2025:

The Southern Conference is the only league in FCS football to have had six different champions over the past six seasons. In some places, that is seen as a weakness, but in the Southern Conference, it has become one of its strengths.

It gives you an idea of the nature of the football played within the conference, and though the league has changed some since it was so dominant earlier this millennium, the competitiveness to win the league and dedication to putting a high-quality on the field at all nine league institutions is something that has not changed.

Mercer is a program trying to become the SoCon’s next dominant program, and should the Bears repeat the title this season, they would be the first team to do it since Wofford won three-straight titles from 2017-19. The Bears will also be in search of making a third-straight FCS Playoff appearance after originally finally breaking through to make the postseason in 2023 in what Drew Cronic’s final season as the head coach. Since the fall of 2021 season, the Bears have posted a 34-14 overall record, which includes a 23-8 record against Southern Conference competition. It’s the closest thing that you can get to a model of winning consistency right now on the SoCon gridiron.

With 12 starters returning and the league’s preseason Defensive Player of the Year, in defensive lineman Andrew Zock, the Bears were an easy pick for the coaches to win the league title by the league’s head coaches, which didn’t include Mike Jacobs, who heads into his second year as the head coach of the Bears’ football program.

The two places most look to as whether a team can repeat or not is usually the offensive side of the ball, and those positions are quarterback and the offensive line. For Mercer, it is in good shape when it comes to both, as DJ Smith returns under center, as well as three of the five starting offensive linemen that helped the Bears breakthrough and win their first Southern Conference title.  Smith started the first five games of the 2024 season before going down with an injury and eventually giving way to Whitt Newbauer under center. Newbauer has since transferred to Oklahoma.

Several teams figure to provide healthy competition to un-seating Mercer from its throne as reigning kings of the Southern Conference gridiron, with one of those primary contenders to do it being the lone SoCon program that has never won a Southern Conference title—Western Carolina.  Like Mercer, the Catamounts have started to become a consistent winner under head coach Kerwin Bell, who enters his fifth season as the head coach in Cullowhee. He’s had the Purple and Gold on the brink of snapping their long playoff drought, as well as accomplishing a first in program history by winning a league title.

The Catamounts haven’t been the the FCS Playoffs since 1983, yet they have threatened numerous times. The early 1990s, as well as several times over the course of the first two-decades-and-a-half of the new millennium, however, the past couple of seasons have seen the Catamounts put themselves at a level not seen in quite awhile around Cullowhee, and that is being not only a team that wins games and is happy for a winning season, but one that has an expectation for something far greater. For a while prior to Bell taking over the WCU football program, the goal was a winning season and settling for mediocrity. That is no longer the case in Cullowhee, and it’s evident in every aspect of the culture in which Bell has built and even extends down the mantra the Bell and the team has undertaken entering the 2025 season—“No Excuses”.

Bell has a 24-21 record over four years as the head coach of the Catamounts, however, after an inauspicious 0-6 start to his coaching career in the western North Carolina mountains, Bell has posted a 24-15 record since, including posting back-to-back seven-win seasons and 20 victories over the past three. All that is great, however, it’s not where the program is satisfied being and with good reason.

The Catamounts have now acquired the kind of talent on both sides of the ball that should see them challenge for—at the very least—a playoff bid every season under Bell. The Catamounts have had elite offensive talent since Bell’s arrival in 2021, and it starts with quarterback Taron Dickens, who is the SoCon’s Preseason Offensive Player of the Year as well as being a Walter Payton Award candidate heading into the season it was announced recently by STATS Perform FCS.

Dickens took over as the starter for the final five games of the 2024 season as the starting quarterback after Cole Gonzales suffered a season-ending injury in a late-season loss at Mercer. Gonzales has moved on and Dickens is the next man up. His transition to leading the Catamount offense last season was almost seamless, and the Catamounts went on to finish out the campaign with a school-record 5,665 yards. In fact, in every season since Bell has become the head coach, WCU has surpassed 5,000 yards of total offense. Prior to 2021, the Catamounts had only amassed 5,000 total yards of offense in a season on three occasions (1983, 1994 and 2018).

The real question then, isn’t the offense at all. They have been a proven model of consistency under Bell. As much as four-straight seasons under Bell amassing new offensive records is great with more than 5,000 yards of total offense is to be praised, turning around and then surrendering more than 5,000 yards on defense (2021 and ’24) is something to be rebuked.

So the real question as to whether the Catamounts can break through and win a first Southern Conference title this fall will be whether or not defensive coordinator Jerry Odom can push the right buttons to take a defensive unit that was better last season to being one that is elite this fall. After all, that’s been the primary issue holding the Catamount football program back through the years.

Since joining the SoCon in 1976, the Catamounts have only led the league in total defense twice (1998 and 2005), and it’s been two decades since the last time the Catamounts were a statistical champion there. The Catamounts have only led the SoCon in scoring defense once at the end of a season (1984) and haven’t led the SoCon in rushing defense at a season’s end since 2003, while the last time the Purple and Gold topped the league defending the pass was 2008. There is good news and a glimmer of hope moving forward, however, as WCU topped the league in red zone defense for the first time ever in 2024.

The good news for WCU entering the 2025 season is that four veterans return to a unit that really started to play its best football towards the latter part of the season, and those four returnees, three were named to the preseason All-SoCon teams and all four had something to do with the improvement over the last half of the season last fall. Had that improvement started a little earlier last season, we might having a different conversation about “the drought” or the infamous Bob Waters curse.

The Catamounts were picked third by the league’s coaches last month, but they have title talent if they can put all the pieces into place, especially on the defensive side of the football.

While Western Carolina is primed to have another run at the title, the two Volunteer State programs want to have their say in how the season pans out as well, with both East Tennessee State and Chattanooga both knocking at the door of both a SoCon title and FCS Playoff appearances a year ago. Chattanooga has found themselves in that familiar spot every season since Rusty Wright took over the keys to the program back in 2019, and after finishing a surprising 6-5 in that first season pre-pandemic back in 2019, he has had the Mocs in position to win a title every season since.

However, the only problem is that despite being picked to win the league in four out of the past six years, the Mocs have yet to do so and as good as they have been, have only been to the FCS postseason once under Wright, which came back in one of the two seasons they haven’t picked to win the SoCon in 2023.

The Mocs, like many teams in this new transfer portal era, will have almost a completely new team hit the field in 2025. UTC has just five starters back for the 2025 season, including just three among its 22 starters on the offensive and defensive sides of the ball. In fact, no team in the SoCon returns less in terms of starting talent from last season than do the Mocs.

Among the many things to figure out for Wright and staff will once again who will be the starting quarterback, with a battle between Bowling Green transfer Camden Orth to battle returning veterans Luke Schomburg, Matthew Clemmer, and redshirt freshman Battle Alberson all contending for the job during fall camp.

With that said, the Mocs did bring in a haul of talented players from the transfer portal that should make them a viable title contender this fall, and one thing we always know about Wright’s teams is that they will be disciplined, play the right way, and extremely physical. We can also assume that the Mocs will once again have one of the top front seven units in the SoCon once again this season.

The Mocs were picked to finish second by the league’s coaches, but much like Furman in 2024, who was picked second a year after winning the title a year earlier, fell on hard times when it returned only six starters a last season. The jury is still out on whether with only five starters back as to whether the Mocs can sustain their winning edge with, so few left over from last season’s team. The biggest question mark is under center. Schomburg has been inconsistent under center at best in his two seasons with the Mocs, albeit both situations in which he was called into action weren’t exactly ideal.

While the Mocs are no stranger to top-tier finishes in the SoCon, ETSU had been a program that had fallen on hard times during the George Quarles era. Then came Tre Lamb, and he would resurrect the program back to being a contender atop the league last fall, and the 2024 season almost felt like a huge tease, especially the loss that should have been a win against North Dakota State.

Still, at 7-5 and 5-3 in the league, it was a huge improvement. Then there was another unexpected twist when Tre Lamb bolted to take the head coaching job at Tulsa, leaving the program once again in a bit of disarray. The Bucs made the smart decision—hire the young coach, in Will Healy, who had been humbled already at the FBS level in his career, if you want to call a job like the Charlotte job that, which was one with unrealistic expectations for a program in the heart of Charlotte with no tradition to lean on. It’s Georgia State 2.0, but that’s another story for another day. The point being is that the Bucs got the bargain hire, and with it, they got some transfer quarterbacks, in power conference transfers Cade McNamara and Jacolby Criswell that can come in and make an immediate impact this season.

It reminds me of a different time in Southern Conference football, when earlier this momentum the league got guys like Ingle Martin (Furman 2004 and ’05) and Chattanooga with BJ Coleman (2009-12), and those are two guys that came into those respective programs and were able to make an immediate impact at each. I look for McNamara and Criswell to both do the same at ETSU this fall. The biggest question mark is who will start under center for the season opener against Murray State on Aug. 30. Coach Healy has some big decisions ahead of him, as we move closer to kickoff of the 2025 season.

The biggest question marks for ETSU will be the offensive line and defensive backfield, but should they adequately address both, the Bucs should more than live up to their preseason projection of fourth by the league’s head coaches, and be sound enough to potentially win the program’s third Southern Conference title, which is exactly what I have picked them to do in the preseason.

Finally, sometimes just as important as the hire of a head coach is, the hiring of his assistants or coordinators is just as important. In this case, the Bucs hit home runs with both coordinator hires, in bringing the likes of Chad Staggs and Cam Aiken to the defensive and offensive coordinator positions. Both have an aggressive approach and will have an effect this season.

Samford returns just one offensive starter from a year ago, in quarterback Quincy Crittendon, but then again, the portal hasn’t been an area that hasn’t been unfamiliar to utilizing the transfer portal and then some during the past few seasons. In fact, the 2022 season was Hatcher’s first major haul of 40+from the transfer portal, and he turned that into one of the best seasons ever in program history. Since then, though the Bulldogs have tried mightily to get back to that form by utilizing similar types of portal hauls, they have yet to find it in each of the past couple of campaigns, as the Bulldogs have a combined 11-12 over the past couple of seasons.

Like the Mocs, the Bulldogs have very few returning on either side of the ball that played a down of football for the program last season. While just one returns on the offensive side of the ball, only three highlight the returnees on the defensive side of things. The Bulldogs had a talented group within their front seven last season, and that included one of the very best linebackers in the entire country, in Noah Martin, who finished out the season as an All-American, finishing with 114 tackles, 10 tackles-for-loss, 2 INTs, 2 sacks and forced a pair of fumbles. He was key in Samford’s 55-35 win over No. 7 Mercer, which was the only team to have defeated the Bears on the SoCon gridiron last fall.

While Martin has moved on, one of the big names that does return on the defensive side of the ball is linebacker Jaden Mosley, who like Martin, had a big outing against the Bears last season. Mosley finished second on the team in tackles last season, posting 75 stops, while leading the team with 14 tackles-for-loss, and ranked third on the team with four sacks.

Getting after opposing quarterbacks was something the Bears did very well a year ago, as the Bulldogs posted a 34 sacks on the season, finishing second to only Mercer in that particular category last season. The 344.4 YPG, which ranked the Bulldogs third in the league in total defense, was the best unit Samford has fielded under head coach Chris Hatcher, and best overall in 11 years, dating back to the 2014 season, when Samford surrendered just 312.7 YPG to rank second to only Chattanooga at the end of the regular-season. The Bulldogs also ranked fourth in the SoCon in scoring defense (20.5 PPG) and also finished second in the league in rushing defense (107.8 YPG).

Despite Crittendon having a good year under center in his first year as the starter, Samford struggled for the most part throughout the 2024 season in what was easily its worst offensive production in all phases during the Chris Hatcher era. That will have to change this fall for the Bulldogs to find themselves back in the mix for a league title.

For most programs, averaging 353.5 YPG is decent offensive production, but for the “Hatch Attack”, that’s well below the standard and expectation. Add to that the 20.5 PPG scoring average and you start to get the picture that the season that, though it had its moments like wins over No. 7 Mercer and at at No. 19 Chattanooga, was by-and-large very un-Samford-like. The Bulldogs were picked fifth by the league’s coaches. The year the Bulldogs won 11 games and claimed an outright Southern Conference crown back in 2022, the Bulldogs were picked sixth in the preseason coaches poll and seventh by the league’s media.

Furman’s 2024 season in a word was “terrible” for many reasons. The tragedy of losing defensive lineman Bryce Stanfield to a pulmonary embolism was followed by a season that was very much forgettable for fans, coaches, and players alike. Like head coach Clay Hendrix has said numerous times since the conclusion of the season, there’s not much of anything that the Paladins did right.

Much of the reason as to why 2024 went wrong has some to do with the fact that in the Paladin coaching staff and players committed all-out to being a dominant force in 2022 and ’23, using the luxury of an extra year of eligibility due to the COVID year loophole. That was smart, as it yielded one of the best seasons in school history and Furman’s first outright Southern Conference football crown in 34 years. The Paladins nearly broke through to become the first team to make the FCS Semifinals of the playoffs of the current membership since they themselves did it back in 2005.

The flip-side of all that success and fielding one of the best SoCon Championship teams since 2012 was the fact that team was loaded with seniors or graduate transfers, and for the team, which featured 46 total seniors and lost 37 of a possible 44 players from the two-deep roster, it was always going to be a steep hill to climb in 2024. While most knew it was going to be tough, few could have foreseen just how tough it would be.

The Paladins, who started a true freshman quarterback, in Trey Hedden for much of the season, struggled through one of their least-productive seasons in the program’s storied history. In fact, for the 15-time SoCon champions, the 2024 season was one that might have been the worst in league history to defend its title. Now that all that negative is out of the way, there are far more positives heading into 2025.

One major positive is that the reason for Furman’s struggles had nothing to do with a lack of talent, and everything to do with lack of experience virtually anywhere on the field. Add to that the fact that injuries hit Furman as hard in 2024 as they have in any season since maybe the late 1990s, and the recipe for disaster is there. But there was also some to build on. A late-season win at No. 21 East Tennessee State, which knocked the Bucs from the postseason for one.

But maybe the biggest positive for Furman is that they have completely transformed their fortunes with four additions from the transfer portal at defensive back, as well as on offense, Trey Hedden, who was already an uber-talented quarterback last season, will only be more talented this fall. If he can cut down on the mistakes, and the Paladins can improve on a running attack that averaged just 88.9 YPG last season on the ground, the Paladins already have one of the deepest and most-talented groups of receivers and tight ends in the league returning this fall, featuring the league’s top tight end, in rising true sophomore Jackson Pryor, who is coming off a freshman campaign that saw him factor in more than he probably imagined coming into the season, finishing the campaign by garnering SoCon All-Freshman team accolades.

The offensive line is also vastly improved, welcoming four starters back, including preseason all-league selections Luke Petit (second-team All-SoCon) and Eli Brasher (first-team All-SoCon), while adding a veteran like Wake Forest transfer Jaydon Collins, who should have an immediate impact and step in as the starter at right tackle this fall, helping add both size and agility to the other side of the offensive line opposite preseason first-team all-league pick Eli Brasher. Petit is coming off a 2024 season, which saw him garner preseason All-America recognition by STATS Perform FCS.

Furman’s defense didn’t find the treading quite as tough as the offense did a year ago, but things were far from being okay on that side of the ball either. However, there were some young individual stars that began to emerge, in preseason first-team All-SoCon pick Ryan Earl at inside linebacker, as well as others like defensive back Billy Lewis, who garnered some lofty accolades in his first season as a Paladin.  Up front, Caldwell Bussey returns as a leader along the defensive front, as does Joshua Stoneking, but the player that might surprise along that Paladin defensive front this fall is defensive tackle Demetrius Baldwin. The Paladins also made one of their most significant acquisitions from the transfer portal at the nose tackle position, adding Joseph Perez-Garibay at the nose tackle position, and he will add an immediate force in the middle at nose tackle for the Furman defense. He is comparable to what the Paladins had back in 2022, with Cameron Coleman.

As bad as Furman’s ground game was last season, it was probably rivaled by how poor the secondary played. Most of that was due to youth, but some of it due to just a rash of injuries that hit the unit from early in the season until late in the campaign, forcing guys like Maurice Jenkins to play out of position, while also forcing guys like Darren Coleman to get trial by fire right away. Furman also had some players transfer out of the program from the defensive backfield, like Hysan Dalton, who ended up at Idaho and Charles Ingram V, who ended up at Eastern Kentucky. The biggest loss by far was freshman corner Jaylen Moson, who was Furman’s most talented cornerback last season before going down with a season-ending injury on the game-sealing INT against The Citadel. Moson transferred to Utah after the conclusion of spring practice. Furman added four from the portal at defensive back, and it’s easily the most improved position on the team, with the Paladins set to have notable depth at cornerback.

Ultimately, Furman could be the easy pick for a dark horse in the SoCon title race this fall. There are several reasons for that, but the two that come to mind most vividly stem from the fact that the Paladins return a lot, as well as the fact that the Paladins return a lot of players that were young last season, but not un-talented. With many of them now having an unexpected year of experience under their collective belts, expect the Paladins to again be a player in the SoCon race and likely be contending for a playoff spot come November. Furman was picked to finish sixth in the league by the league’s head coaches. The year Furman won its only national title in 1988, the Paladins were picked fourth. In 2022, the Paladins were picked fourth and finished second.

Another two teams that have their eyes set on being named a “SoCon Darkhorse” in the league race this fall also happened to be a pair of Palmetto State programs, in Wofford and The Citadel.  Both have similar question marks entering the season, with the most notable being quarterback, with each losing its starter for differing reasons. The Terriers lost Amari Odom, who transferred to Kennesaw State, and now is apparently without a home, having entered the portal again after being third on the depth chart for the Owls following the spring.

The Bulldogs, meanwhile, lost Jonathan Bennett to graduation and for a long time this off-season, it seemed as if the Bulldogs were ready to go with returning understudy Dustin Fletcher under center, who is entering his third season with The Citadel since transferring in from Northern Illinois. But then a funny thing happened, as the Bulldogs added Air Force transfer Quentin Hayes from the Air Force Academy. Hayes wasn’t just on the roster in Colorado Springs, but he went 4-2 as a starter, seeing action in 10 games, including six starts.

The Bulldogs should be in good shape when it comes to the ground game this fall, with Corey Ibrahim back at running back this fall, while the Bulldogs’ most electrifying playmaker on the offensive side of the ball from a year ago—Javonte Graves-Billips—who is coming off a campaign which saw him lead the Bulldogs in receiving, as he posted 31 catches for 429 yards and four scores last season. That was good enough to rank Graves-Billips second on the team last season in receiving yards, and his four receiving scores led all Bulldog players. Graves-Billips’ tremendous speed also makes him a threat in the run game.

Towards the latter half of Maurice Drayton’s second season at the helm, the Bulldogs finally started to run the football with some authority, and that included gaining 250 yards rushing in the regular-season finale at Clemson last fall. All told, the Bulldogs ranked second to only ETSU last season in rushing yards per game average (174.6 YPG), and four of five starters return from that unit that helped power that unit last season, as the unit will be anchored by center Mike Bartilucci, who will be a candidate for the Jacobs Blocking Award this fall, which is given to the league’s top offensive lineman at the end of each season. Bartilucci was a preseason first-team All-SoCon pick.

The Citadel’s defense is underrated, but one that also enters the season with a fair amount of questions at each level. Losing DeVonyae Pitts to the transfer portal is a significant blow, but the Bulldogs do return Je’Mazin Roberts to the fold and he might be the most athletic player on the entire defense. Roberts is a preseason first-team all-league pick, as is defensive back Cale Williams, where he will be the main leader on that Bulldogs’ back line with Dominick Poole having graduated.

Wofford’s issues seem a little more complicated under center, as the Terriers have yet to really find “the guy” so far. There are some capable candidates going through fall camp in a heated competition for the starting job when the 2025 season kicks off. Jayden Whitaker (Gannon), Ethan Drumm (Freshman/Bolles School/Jacksonville, FL), J.T. Fayard (Northwestern State) and Chalmers Ballard (Freshman/Lucy Beckman/Mount Pleasant, S.C.) all remain locked in a battle for the starting responsibilities.  

Another loss to the transfer portal for the Terriers was running back Ryan Ingram, who has opted to play his final season of eligibility in the Scenic City for the Chattanooga Mocs. The Terriers do bring back some offensive firepower, with Kyle Parsons expected to be the main cog in ground attack, while Isaiah Scott returns for his sophomore season at wideout, ranking second on the team in receiving last season, hauling in 28 passes for 350 yards and a touchdown last season, averaging 12.5 YPR.

Just how prominently the Terriers figure into the SoCon race this fall will all depend on how the issues at quarterback will be solved. Wofford figures to be pretty solid on the back end of the defense and in the defensive backfield this fall, returning an all-league performer, in CJ Coombes and Maximus Pulley give the Terriers a pair of big playmakers on the back end of the Terrier defense heading into the 2025. Wofford has been pretty consistently good on the defensive side of the football under head coach Shawn Watson’s leadership.

Rounding out the projections in the Southern Conference is VMI, who should be better this fall, however, figuring out the quarterback situation or just keeping one healthy in Lexington ever since Reece Udinski pre-pandemic, has been anything but easy. Danny Rocco heads into his third season at the helm of the military institute situated in the Shenandoah Valley with a little better idea of what should transpire under center this fall, returning viable veteran leadership, in Chandler Wilson, Colin Shannon, and JoJo Crump all sport valuable experience under center heading into the season. Keeping them healthy this season will be a priority, and if the Keydets can do that, there’s reason to believe the Keydets can be competitive in the league this fall.

With that said, there were some losses that will be tough to overcome on both sides of the football, as the Keydets have to replace top running back Hunter Rice on offense, while over on the defensive side of the football, the Keydets will need to figure out how to replace Eric Rankin, who anchored that defensive unit last fall. Steven Riveros is capable of making a name for himself in that VMI defensive unit this fall, as is fellow veteran linebacker Stephen Dean III.  Redshirt junior defensive back Kouri Crump was a preseason First Team All-SoCon selection according to the league’s head coaches, and that comes on the heels of a 2024 campaign, which saw him start all 12 games at safety, recording 90 tackles, six tackles-for-loss, five pass breakups, three forced fumbles and a blocked kick.

Overall, the league looks to be on the rise and should be a Top 3 conference in the FCS this fall. There could be 3-5 teams I see that could be in the mix throughout the campaign for an FCS Playoff bid: The three primary teams I see competing for a postseason bid are East Tennessee State, Western Carolina and Mercer, with Furman and Chattanooga rounding out the five teams that I feel have a realistic shot. If the league is as improved as I think it will be this fall, don’t be shocked if the league repeats its breakthrough season of 2016, when the SoCon received a total of four bids to the FCS postseason.

A Brief Look at The SoCon’s Newest Member

The Southern Conference announced its first new addition to the conference for the first time in over a decade, as the league will expand its footprint in the Volunteer State, adding Tennessee Tech, which is located just outside of Nashville in Cookeville, TN., where it currently plays as a member in the Ohio Valley Conference member.

The Golden Eagles will be joining the Southern Conference in all of the league's sponsored sports, including adding an 11th member in basketball, while bringing the league's membership to an even 10 on the gridiron. All told, the Golden Eagles will compete in 14 sports in the league, which will officially a little less than a year from now on July 1, 2026. 

The SoCon's last expansion was in 2014, when the league added former members VMI and East Tennessee State, while adding brand new member Mercer, which was at that time restarting its football program for the first time since before World War II. 

Tennessee Tech's move to the Southern Conference will bring to an end what has been a 76-year membership in the Ohio Valley Conference, which saw the Golden Eagles officially join that league back in 1949. The Golden Eagles football program posted most of its success in its first three decades in the league and have won 11 regular-season conference titles, however, success until recently had been tough to come by on the gridiron. 

The Golden Eagles won their 11th league title as an OVC member in 2024, sharing the league regular-season title spoils with UT-Martin (6-2), Tennessee State (6-2), and Southeast Missouri State (6-2). The Golden Eagles other 10 football titles as an OVC member came in the following years: 1952, '53, '55, '58, '59, '60, '61, '72, '75, 2011 and '24. 

The 35-year drought between conference titles on the gridiron is notable, with the Golden Eagles snapping the three-decade-and-a-half drought by posting a 6-2 league record to tie with Eastern Kentucky for the '11 OVC title and would finish that season with a 7-4 overall mark. The Golden Eagles were under the direction of former UAB head coach Watson Brown back in 2011. 

That '11 season would also result in a historic first for the Tennessee Tech football program, which was selected to play in its first FCS postseason in program history. The Golden Eagles would lose their opening round contest, 34-14, to Central Arkansas at Tucker Stadium in Cookeville. 

The Golden Eagles have sponsored a football program for 103 seasons, heading into season No.104 this fall under the direction of second-year head coach Bobby Wilder, who helped lead Tennessee Tech to a 7-5 record and a tie for the league regular-season title in year No. 1 as the head coach. 

The Golden Eagles, who were picked to win the OVC-Big South Conference this fall for the first time since being a preseason favorite in 1978, enter the season as the No. 21 ranked team in FCS Football, according to the preseason STATS Perform poll.

Coaches Projected Order of Finish:

1.        Mercer

2.        Chattanooga

3.        Western Carolina

4.        East Tennessee State

5.        Samford

6.        Furman

7.        Wofford

8.        The Citadel

9.        VMI

SoCon John’s Projected Order of Finish:

1.        East Tennessee State—Bucs have a big-time transfer under center in Cade McNamara, and he’ll lead the Bucs to big things in 2025.

2.        Western Carolina—The Catamounts are left knocking at the door of a SoCon title once again, but this time make enough noise to reach the postseason for the first time since 1983!

3.        Mercer—Andrew Zock is the best defensive lineman in the SoCon, and he’ll help a defense that lost a ton of production maintain its status as being among the most formidable in the FCS, leading the Bears back to the postseason for a third-straight year.

4.        Furman—The 2024 season was record-breaking for all the wrong reasons, but the ’25 season will see Furman back in the Top 25 polls and back in the mix for a postseason bid.

5.        Chattanooga—Like so many teams in the league, the Mocs have questions to be answered under center, and they don’t have a big-named stud returning on defense for the first time under Rusty Wright.

6.        The Citadel—The addition of Quentin Hayes late in the summer coupled with the momentum the Bulldogs had towards the end of the 2024 season, could make Maurice Drayton’s team the surprise package of the 2025 season in the SoCon.

7.        Samford—There’s no doubt Quincy Crittendon is one of the best QBs in the FCS, however, the problem is there’s not much around him, as he’s the only starter among 10 new faces as a starters for the 2025 campaign.

8.        Wofford—The Terriers haven’t had much success at any point offensively without Amarri Odom under center in the Shawn Watson era, which is exactly where the Terriers are entering 2025, as Wofford looks to find Odom’s replacement.

9.        VMI—Was the ’24 season a regression to the mean for VMI football, or was the ’23 season more along the lines of what we should expect under Danny Rocco—a steady improvement. We should find out a lot more in 2025.