The 1985 Furman Paladins football team was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

team that represented Furman University as a member of the

Southern Conference The Southern Conference (SoCon) is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I. Southern Conference football teams compete in the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly k ...

(SoCon) during the

1985 NCAA Division I-AA football season The 1985 NCAA Division I-AA football season, part of college football in the United States organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association at the Division I-AA level, began in August 1985, and concluded with the 1985 NCAA Division I-AA ...

. In their eighth year under head coach

Dick Sheridan Dick Sheridan (born August 9, 1941) is a former American football coach and college athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach at Furman University from 1978 to 1985 and North Carolina State University from 1986 to 1992, compi ...

, the Paladins compiled an overall record of 12–2 with a conference mark of 6–0, winning the SoCon title. Furman advanced to the

NCAA Division I-AA Football Championship The NCAA Division I Football Championship is an annual post-season college football game, played since 2006, used to determine a national champion of the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). From 1978 to 2005, the game was k ...

playoffs, where they defeated

Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area and the seventh-least populous, with slightly fewer than 1.1 million residents as of 2020, but it ...

in the quarterfinals,

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a state in the Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the 7th-most extensive, ...

in the semifinals, and were upset by Georgia Southern in the NCAA Division I-AA Championship Game.

Schedule

:A.Before the start of the season, Southern Conference directors elected to make this game count as a conference game for Davidson, but not for Furman.

References

Furman Furman Paladins football seasons Southern Conference football champion seasons

Furman Paladins football The Furman Paladins football program is the intercollegiate American football team for the Furman University located in the state of South Carolina. The team competes in the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) as members of ...

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