Iron Bowl on mind of some Furman players

AUBURN — Furman coach Bobby Lamb has 375,000 reasons to look past today’s game and gear up for the rest of the Paladins’ schedule.

Sure, the money is nice, but it’s not that simple for Lamb, who has coached at his alma mater for seven years now.

He’s got seven players on his roster who grew up learning that the Iron Bowl was the real Super Bowl and will treat today’s game as if it’s the next best thing.

“Everybody that we have on the roster from that state is very excited about going back home and playing Auburn,” Lamb said. “As a young man in that state, you grow up dreaming about playing at Alabama and Auburn. They’ll get a chance to play in that stadium, and they’re looking forward to that trip.”

Related Information:

  · The Huddle: Auburn Edition
Sports editor Jon Johnson previews the Auburn-Furman game.

 

·Jon Johnson’s blog

Two of Lamb’s Yellowhammer state natives are arguably the Paladins’ biggest contributors on each side of the ball.

Wide receiver Adam Mims, a Hoover native, leads the Paladins with 613 yards, making up more than a third of quarterback Jordan Sorrells’ passing yards. After missing the entire week of practice with a pulled hamstring, he hauled in a season-long 72-yard touchdown catch in Furman’s 52-27 loss to Appalachian State.

“The kid has been very incredible, and he is a young man that’s improved his game, and he’s our go-to guy,” Lamb said. “We look to him more; we look for him, try to get him open in man situations. With his speed, he can hurt people.”

Max Lerner, who many know simply as “Max” from season 1 of MTV’s reality show “Two-a-Days,” is one of the Paladins’ leading tacklers and has two of Furman’s five interceptions at the rover position. His interception return for a touchdown against Chattanooga in September is one of two Paladins’ defensive touchdowns on the season.
Lerner told the Greenville News this week that he grew up wanting to play for Auburn.

“I’m excited, just to go back and play in front of a bunch of my friends,” Lerner said. “A lot of my friends go to Auburn. A lot of my family’s coming. It will be fun. Every time we play at an FBS school, we get geared up because of the crowd and stuff. We really don’t get to experience that here.”

That experience, Lamb said, is what makes games like today worth more than the $375,000 paycheck Furman will receive from Auburn University just for showing up to its homecoming.

And the Paladins have some success in these types of games to bank on it not being the blowout Auburn fans expect. Of course, you have to get by their 52-12 loss at Missouri this season first.

The Paladins hung tough at Virginia Tech, going into halftime down just 3-0 before succumbing to a 21-point Hokies third quarter on their way to a 24-7 loss last season. In 2006, the Paladins held a fourth-quarter lead against North Carolina before back-to-back Tar Heels’ touchdowns put Furman away, 45-42. In 2004, they lost 41-38 at Pitt.

Its last win against an FBS school came in 1999, trouncing the Tar Heels 28-3 in Chapel Hill.

“We treat it like any other game,” Lamb said. “Certainly, you’re playing against a bigger opponent with more scholarships, more fans. But the bottom line is X’s and O’s are basically the same, and you’re going to try to execute as we would if we were playing Appalachian State, Citadel or the rest of the teams in our conference.”

His expectations, though, remain tempered for today.

“I’m not sure there’s any good time to play Auburn to tell you the truth,” Lamb said. “We’ve got to play them any time they want to play them, but it’s certainly very difficult this late in the season.”