Aug. 11, 2007
By Bart Wright, The Greenville News
The longer this weather stays with us, the more you have to like the early season chances for the Furman University football team.
Let's say it's close, about 5 minutes left to play, and the team on defense needs to prevent Furman from scoring to win the game. The Paladins have the ball with a first down at their own 40.
Jerome Felton smiles broadly at the prospect.
"That's me," he says, "that's what I'm about."
Furman is a long way from being a one-man team, but it's fair to say teams that can't stop Jerome Felton from doing what he does probably aren't going to beat the Paladins this year. That challenge starts with the opening game on Sept. 1, when Presbyterian College makes its Division I debut at Furman.
"Of course we are pointing to them, because they're the first game," Felton said between practices this week. "There's been some chatter back and forth, I guess those guys like to talk, so it should be fun."
For Felton, football is always fun. He's 6-feet tall, weighs 245 pounds and gets to run the football a lot, especially in the fourth quarter when the game's on the line.
Getting in front of him is comparable to trying to tackle an upright freezer with legs the size of beer kegs.
The bad part for opponents is that Felton sees himself as a lithe scatback, flitting about on tiptoes.
"I always try to train in the hottest part of the day, I've done that since I was in high school," said the senior political science major. "I don't think of myself as a big guy, I gear all my workouts and training as if I was a 205-210 pound guy, that way I don't allow for excuses because it's hot or whatever.
"My approach," he said, "is the longer we play, the stronger I get; it's always been like that."
This season, Furman opponents are going to have lots of opportunities to practice tackling large bodies moving fast. When Felton doesn't get the handoff from Renaldo Gray, his quarterback, Gray, a 6-0, 230-pounder, might tuck it away and run himself, behind Felton.
For a changeup, Gray can pitch it to 5-9, 200-pound tailback Cedrick Gipson, the quicksilver component of the Furman running game.
But in crunch time, opponents will know what to expect.
Western Carolina got the idea last year. In pregame warmups, several players walked past Felton offering predictions for the ensuing events.
"I heard, `You ain't getting' nothin' today,' and `You're not gonna' be movin' the chains big boy,' stuff like that," Felton said.
That was a game in which Felton scored six touchdowns and didn't play the last 24 minutes of a 42-7 victory.
Two years ago in 14-12 playoff victory over Nicholls State, Furman got the ball at its own 38 with 4:52 remaining, needing to protect the lead and run out the clock. The Paladins ran 10 plays before time ran out, eight of them were carries by Felton, right up the middle, for a total of 35 yards.
The game ended when a 2-yard run by Felton gave the Paladins a first down at the Nicholls State 8 yard line.
"You can tell, after a while, when (opponents) start to wear down," Felton said. "Not so much by what they say, but from their body language. At the start of the game they bounce up after tackles but in the fourth quarter they get up more slowly, sometimes they hang their heads a little bit when they walk back to their huddle. That tells you something."
And how might teams react after tackling Felton in the fourth quarter on a day with the sort of record-breaking heat we've had lately?
We might just find out.
