The SoCon Spread

 What Did We Learn From Week 0 in the SoCon Maybe this year will be better than the last? There was both good and bad news in week zero.  The good news is that most of what the SoCon needed to happen in its non-conference games in week zero, did, in fact, happen. The bad news was also the the only real shocker result, as ETSU's home-opening loss to CAA member Campbell. A team that won two games last season and never came close to scoring 49 points in any game! Kevin and I were in Spartanburg to take in the official SoCon opener for the 2026 football season, as Wofford hosted The Citadel in a game that most thought would come down to the wire.  That would not be the case, as the Bulldogs were the sloppier of the two teams on the night, and it would be Wofford which would take advantage of big plays in the special teams department to create some separation at the half, and then after the Bulldogs made things interesting for a few brief moments, order would be restored the T...

  Dartmouth transfer wideout Daniel Haughton had five catches for 87 yards in his Paladin debut (Photo Courtesy of Furman Sports Information) Furman 20, Anderson 3 GREENVILLE, S.C.—The latest meeting between old childhood friends and neighbors came under a blood moon and some fancy lights which flickered purple intermittently at the end of the third quarter, but when it was all over, Clay Hendrix’s Furman Paladins (1-0) trotted off with a 20-3 win over Bobby Lamb’s Anderson Trojans (0-1). There was not much pomp nor was there a lot of circumstance, and certainly nothing happened that famed preacher John Hagee might describe in one of his sermons about about such a celestial alignment as “blood moons”. There was nothing apocalyptic here. Sometimes paths cross and stars align because they just do, and there doesn’t have to be any meaning to it. For Furman’s 2026 opening act, it would be a mistake to put too much into the result. It’s one game and now there’s 11 more. It was a...

Earlier this week, I detailed the game of the week in the Southern Conference, which will be the lone league game of the weekend, as The Citadel travels to Wofford to open the 2026 football season, as well as the league slate. Below are the rest of the opening night previews on the SoCon gridiron.   Game 4: Campbell (0-0, 0-0 CAA) at East Tennessee State (0-0, 0-0 SoCon)                    Date: Aug. 29, 2026                    Location: Johnson City, Tenn/William B. Greene Jr. Stadium                    Time: 5:30 P.M. EST                    How To Watch: ESPN+                 ETSU Head Coach: Will Healy (35-50 in 9th Yr/7-5 in 2nd Yr at ETSU)              ...