Furman football head coach Clay Hendrix recaps loss at Tennessee
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Furman (1-1) played its second game of the 2026 football season on Sept. 5. The Paladins suffered their first loss in a, 56-9, nonconference matchup against No. 18 Tennessee (1-0) at Neyland Stadium.
Furman head coach Clay Hendrix discussed the Week 1 contest after the game.
"Congrats, Tennessee," Hendrix said. "Good team. I knew they would be. Good players. They do a good job in coaching them. They keep coming at you. We handled the heat okay. I knew it was going to be a challenge, and it affected us a little bit. I felt like there in the second quarter, we were in a good spot. Like I just told our team, it was 14–0. We got it on fourth and three, coach makes a great call, Jake (Garcia) makes a great throw, and we just drop the football. You’re just sitting there thinking, man, if we take this one in its 14-7. If you get a field goal and run a little time, they're going to get the ball with four minutes left in the half, 14-3, and next thing you know we’re going into half 28-0 just because we gave up.
"I don't want to call them cheapy because they were cheapy, but we let the quarterback run the ball, and then we just didn’t play very well defensively the rest of the way against them with explosives. I think the name of the game on offense continues to be dropped balls. We get a chance to make a play, especially in a game like this, then you’ve got to make the play, and we just dropped some balls that give us a chance to stay on the field. We had before the half a little speed option that they scored on. They’re not going to get the ball back, but anyway you can keep them from scoring points, and then we gave up some big plays in the second half. Kind of proud of our kids for hanging in there. They competed."
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