WESTERN CAROLINA
Record: 7-5 (5-3 in SoCon)Season opener: Sept. 1 vs. NewberryDate against UTC: Oct. 13 in Cullowhee, N.C.Preseason ranking (coaches/media): 4/5COMING WEDNESDAY: Wofford
For the third time in four seasons, Western Carolina won seven football games in 2017.
Last year felt different, though.
The win total wasn’t enough to catapult the Catamounts into the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs. Western Carolina had similar victory totals in 2014 and 2015, and those seasons were celebrated. Not last year.
Coach Mark Speir knew that while his Cats finished second and third, respectively, in Southern Conference competition those first two seasons, they weren’t where they needed to be to compete. Last year he felt they were.
“That’s why last year is so bitter to me,” Speir said by phone last week. “For the first time, it wasn’t like we were better than Wofford or Furman, but I felt we were just as good and we didn’t have to have luck to compete. I felt we were good enough to win, but down the stretch we didn’t do that.”
Injuries derailed the latter part of the season. The Catamounts looked like a lock for the 24-team playoff field after a 26-7 win over Virginia Military Institute on Oct. 21 gave them a 6-2 record. But a week later they lost quarterback Tyrie Adams to an injury. Adams, who was the catalyst for the league’s top offense (440.6 yards per game), either missed or was hobbled the final three games.
The lack of a quality backup quarterback derailed what the team was trying to do. Speir feels he’s solved that problem with redshirt freshman Will Jones.
WCU hasn’t been in the playoffs since 1983, when it lost to Southern Illinois in the national championship game. But Speir has had the Catamounts on the right track, with three winning seasons in his six years on the job. The program had five winning seasons from 1989 to 2011.
“It’s frustrating because every team sets goals to try to win a conference championship and make the playoffs and we didn’t get that done, and that’s 100 percent on my shoulders,” Speir said. “We’ve had opportunities in three of the last four years, and whether you’re good enough or not to be in the playoff conversation, any time you win seven games in the Southern Conference you’re at least in that conversation, and that’s a credit to our conference.”
What added to Speir’s frustration last season was how close they were. Adams was lost in the 28-6 loss to Furman (“We didn’t handle that well,” he said of the injury); the Catamounts fell 35-28 at Wofford in overtime; and they lost 35-33 to Mercer in a game where they gave up a special-teams touchdown and a kickoff return that led to another score.
“We’ve really harped on finishing in winning moments,” Speir said. “There are three or four plays in a tight ballgame that make a difference, and we didn’t make it. This offseason we showed them some good stuff from last season, but we also showed them where we fell short. To take the next step and become a playoff team, a title contender, when these moments happen in a ballgame, we’ve got to capitalize on them.
“Last year our players had a lot more expectations. There was a bigger goal and standard set, so it wasn’t feel-good in the offseason because we felt like we were better than a seven-win team and we didn’t get it done. It starts with me: We’ve got to find a way to be healthy and fresh at the end of the year, so hopefully we’ll have the opportunity we had last year and capitalize on it.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3.