Last week, sports columnist Marcus Rodrigue published an article in the Louisiana State University student newspaper, the Daily Reveille, explaining to LSU readers what a paladin is and why the Furman Paladins represent a threat to LSU's championship-pedigree football program. In his article, Rodrigue argued that the Furman Paladins model themselves on the magical knights of yore, describing our campus as fronting a “Paladin Brotherhood” that “more than likely [consists of] a covert international web of sorcerers and demon-killers.”
The description Rodrigue offers of Furman University is true, except that the wizardry that occurs at Furman is hardly a secret. Rodrigue is not the first person to have noted similarities between Furman and Hogwarts, the wizard-training school rumored to be located somewhere in Scotland. In fact, this comparison has in the past been used in Furman's marketing material. Furman's former president Rodney Smolla was a known practitioner of the dark arts, before he was forced out as a result of his involvement in the occult. For video proof, see "Harry Potter and the Ivory Tower," a video posted on Furman University's official YouTube channel.
In his article, Rodrigue specifically claims that LSU quarterback Zach Mettenberger was bewitched when he attended youth football camps at Furman and warned that Mettenberger may be a magically-primed sleeper agent who would be activated by the Furman Paladins to achieve victory against the highly favored LSU Tigers. Although the Paladin newspaper has been unable to uncover hard evidence that Furman paranormal practices extended to indoctrinating young participants in Furman's sports camps on the off-chance that they become renowned athletes playing for colleges and universities against which Furman will later compete, such policies do not fall outside the realm of possibility. Mettenberger's interception, thrown on LSU's first offensive drive of the game and returned 74 yards for a touchdown by Furman player Reggie Thomas, serves as indisputable empirical evidence that spells placed on the quarterback may have had some influence on the game.
If, as Rodrigue correctly notes, Furman had a magical advantage going against LSU this past Saturday, why did Furman lose 48-16? Here the facts become unclear. One might argue that the SEC-calibur play of LSU's football team triumphed over the occult shenanigans of an athletically outmatched Furman football team. A more plausible explanation, however, is that Furman's loss is the outcome of a Faustian deal, a pact made with supernatural beings to empower Furman’s soccer program in exchange for football losses in big games, even given its sorcerous superiority. This second position is supported by Furman's eerily similar loss two years ago to the nationally ranked Florida Gators, despite being up 20 to 7 at the end of the first quarter. Whatever the case, Furman's Paladins this weekend proved only to be conjurors of cheap tricks, not game-swaying enchanted knights.
NCAA President Mike Emmert could not be reached for comment on whether the use of sorcery constitutes an NCAA rules violation.