Wofford football had a spring to forget. A full roster this fall could mean playoffs

In pure football terms, no Southern Conference team suffered as bad of a dropoff during the COVID-altered 2020-21 season than the Wofford Terriers.

In the team’s first two years under head coach Josh Conklin, the Terriers won consecutive SoCon titles and finished each regular season in the FCS Top 25. But in his third season, the perennial conference contenders suffered a series of injuries, opt-outs and canceled games saw Wofford end its spring continuation after just five games — finishing on a four-game losing streak and a 1-4 overall record.

“‘If we’re going to line up and play, then we’ll try to win a conference championship,’” said Conklin of his team’s play last season. “That was our thought going into it, and every week, as we started to lose more guys and losing numbers — if we could have kept our center healthy, we would have played the rest of the season. When he went down against the Citadel, that was kind of like, ‘we don’t have another guy,’ and we were out.”

Conklin insists the team has learned its lesson, though, entering the season with a healthy 110-man roster — the largest in school history. With a full roster ready to endure the attrition of the season, can the Terriers scrap their way back to the heights they recently fell from?

Can’t-miss game

▪ at Virginia Military Institute, Sept. 25

With many of the SoCon’s usual contenders weakened last season, VMI pounced. A hot offense that included wide receiver and SoCon Offensive Player of the Year Jakob Herres and second-team All-SoCon quarterback Reece Udinski, the Keydets won their first conference title since 1977.

One of the wins on the path to that title? A 37-31 victory over Wofford in late March.

This year, Wofford’s away clash against VMI in September will also be its SoCon opener. VMI sits at No. 18 in Athlon Sports’ preseason rankings while Wofford is unranked. An underdog win against last season’s champs could be what’s needed to prove that Wofford’s woes were temporary and that they are still a force to be reckoned with.

A successful season is ...

For a team that has won the conference title in two of the last three seasons, you’d expect Conklin and the Terriers to return to those heights immediately. However, in the preseason coaches’ and media polls, Wofford received the second-fewest and third-fewest number of first-place votes, respectively, with Chattanooga taking first place in both polls.

It’s a pattern Conklin predicted when he took over — a few years of success, followed by a few years of falling off. Though he conceded that they might not win seven or eight games, he said he wants his team to remain competitive.

“There was always (the idea that) you’d have two, three good years and then there’d be a couple of years of fall-off, and then Wofford would come back,” Conklin said, “And so what we’re really trying to do is try to maintain that level of competition so that we compete at a high level.”

Wofford’s top players to watch

Wofford football schedule

This story was originally published August 29, 2021 at 9:33 AM with the headline "Wofford football had a spring to forget. A full roster this fall could mean playoffs."