Presbyterian’s Program Has Persevered Through Tumultuous FCS History

Maybe no program in scholarship or the non-scholarship football at the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision level of football has overcome as much or more than Presbyterian has to get where they find themselves seven weeks into the 2025 football season, which is a perfect 6-0 with wins over a pair of scholarship programs and a ranked defending conference champion, but that’s exactly where the Blue Hose find themselves heading into Saturday’s home test against Stetson (3-4, 2-1 PFL) in their return to Bailey Memorial Stadium for homecoming.

18 Years in the Making

Winners of 10-straight, Presbyterian has one of the longest winning streaks in all of NCAA Division I  and are off to their best start t since officially joining the NCAA Division I ranks in 2007. As you might imagine, there have been a lot of “firsts” in 2025 for a program that has seemingly had trouble keeping its proverbial head above water since joining the NCAA Division I ranks 18 years ago.

The date Sept. 1, 2007 means different things to different factions of FCS Football fans. For SoCon fans especially, it was the day that two-time FCS defending national champion and top-ranked Appalachian State made history for the classification, as the Mountaineers knocked off No. 5 Michigan, 34-32, at the Big House. It was also a big milestone afternoon in the small town of Clinton, South Carolina, as it would mark the first time the Blue Hose took the field as an NCAA Division I football program. That evening, the Blue Hose would play at No. 11 Furman, dropping a 40-16 contest to the Paladins in Greenville.

The loss may have been substantial, but it would be the start of a long journey to get to where PC find itself currently 18 years later, which is right smack dab in the middle of experiencing the most successful season in its NCAA Division I history and one of its best in program history.

The Blue Hose continue to rank in the current FCS polls, as PC comes in at No. 19 in the latest American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) poll, while ranking No. 21 in the STATS Perform FCS poll. The Blue Hose play in the non-scholarship league known as the Pioneer Football League, which at times has been the brunt of jokes among FCS faithful followers of big boy scholarship programs, but after the Blue Hose started the season with wins over a pair of Southern Conference programs to start the season, in Mercer (W, 15-10) and Furman (W, 39-38 OT) earlier this season.

The Blue Hose haven’t always been in a non-scholarship on the gridiron. In fact, up until 2019, the Blue Hose were a member of a scholarship conference, having called the Big South Conference home in its former iteration before it merged with the Ohio Valley. In 12 years as a member of the Big South Conference, the Blue Hose had a pair of 6-5 seasons, recording those in 2007 and ’14, respectively.

PC’s Coaching Timeline

Prior to this current season, PC’s most successful season in the PFL came in the COVID-19 compromised season of 2020, as Tommy Spangler led the Blue Hose to a 4-3 record and second place finish in the Pioneer Football League behind Davidson. The Blue Hose had been on the cusp of making it to the postseason, however, Spangler was let go by PC after the season, which came with much surprise to the Blue Hose loyal fans and alums.

Even more surprising was the man they tabbed to replace Spangler after leading the program in two different stints and posting a 54-52 record in those 10 seasons as head coach. He was the third of five coaches to lead the Blue Hose in the NCAA Division I FCS Football era.

Kevin Kelley, a successful, yet eccentric high school football coach from Arkansas was tabbed to take over the PC football program for the 2021 season. Kelley, which was a coach that didn’t believe in punting or having a kicking game, lasted just one season after the Blue Hose went 2-9 and became the laughingstock of FCS football.

Spangler and PC’s top quarterback Tyler Huff, who for some reason was benched by Kelley, moved on to Furman to play for the Paladins where they would help that program to a SoCon title and a 20-6 mark in two years, while PC hit the restart button under Steve Englehart. Englehart himself was exactly the right man for the job, as he himself came from a tough situation at Florida Tech, where the entire program ended up being canceled.

Bobby Bentley (2007-08), Harold Nichols (2009-16), Tommy Spangler (2017-20) Kevin Kelley (2021) and Steve Englehart (2022-present) represent the five coaches to have led the Blue Hose since joining the NCAA Division I FCS ranks in 2007.

“When I was at Florida Tech, we went through a lot of the same challenges I have encountered here at PC and we recruited a bunch of freshmen and we had to develop them and retain them and kind of build it the old fashioned way and then they canceled the program and then I ended up doing a few other things in real estate and real estate insurance and things like that so I got to see football from a different lens a little bit for some time which I also think prepared me to take this job over but when I took this job over it was very similar to starting from scratch and the way that we had to recruit and the way that we had to develop here and we brought in around 70 freshmen that first year and played a lot of young kids and developed them and stuck to the process and stayed faithful to that process and what we were doing,” coach Steve Englehart said.

Staying faithful to that process would see the Blue Hose go through some trials and tribulations early on under Englehart, as the Blue Hose went just 1-11 in the first season of 2021 and then in 2022, there was a little improvement, with PC finishing 4-7 overall and would win their first two Pioneer Football League wins. The Blue Hose would begin to hit their stride towards the middle part of Englehart’s third season as the head coach in 2024, winning their final four games of the season and that momentum would obviously carry over to the current campaign PC is enjoying.

The memorable start to the season included a five-point win at reigning SoCon champion Mercer (W, 15-10), snapping a 12-game home game winning streak for the Bears. The win by the Blue Hose also snapped a 35-game losing streak by PFL teams against ranked opposition. Before the Blue Hose win over No. 11 Mercer to open the season, the last PFL team to beat a ranked FCS team was Butler back in 2018, as the Bulldogs knocked off Youngstown State. It was just the fourth win by a PFL team over ranked opposition.

Since 2010, the Blue Hose have two wins against FCS Top 25 opposition, and the win over the Bears snapped a streak of eight-straight losses against ranked opposition on the gridiron, with the last win over a ranked foe coming in 2014, when the Blue Hose took down another defending Southern Conference champion and 12th-ranked Furman, 10-7, on a foggy evening in Clinton in a game, which featured also featured lightning delay.

That would be a great segue to the week two heroics of the Blue Hose who, after taking down the 2024 SoCon champions, went ahead and knocked off the ‘23 SoCon champions, taking down Furman, 39-38, in overtime, despite trailing the game at one point, 28-7. The Blue Hose were able to overcome a long weather delay, as redshirt sophomore quarterback Collin Hurst was able to end the game with a beautifully thrown fade pattern to tight end Nathan Levicki, who made a diving catch, on a two-point conversion play to allow the Blue Hose to escape with the one-point win.

The Blue Hose faced adversity seemingly all afternoon against Furman, overcoming three INTs, a two-and-a-half hour lightning delay and a 28-7 second-quarter deficit to leave Greenville with a huge dub. Those two wins would be a harbinger of good things to come for a program that had rarely tasted success in 18 years at the FCS level.

Hurst Providing Great Leadership Under Center

Part of the reason the Blue Hose were able to be so successful in the first two games of the season, which featured wins over two strong scholarship programs from the SoCon, is the play of their outstanding quarterback Collin Hurst. Hurst is playing wise beyond his years through the first half of the season, having connected on 102-of-149 passes for 1,498 yards, with 17 TDs and only four INTs through the first six games of the season.

In wins over Furman and Mercer, the redshirt sophomore quarterback connected on 49-of-77 passes for a combined 554 yards, with six TDs and four INTs. He was sacked only two times in 77 pass attempts against two of the top pass rushes in all of FCS football, as he was sacked only twice against Mercer and Furman programs that currently rank No. 1 and No. 4 nationally in total sacks. In fact, protecting Hurst has been a priority for the PC offensive line, which has allowed its QB to be tackled just seven times through the first six games of the season.

Hurst has been the kind of leader this team has rallied behind dating back to last season, and not only has his offensive line done a nice job of protecting him, he also makes quick decisions with football, making him a nightmare for opposing defensive coordinators to scheme against.

“I think a lot of Collin’s success has a lot to do with our offensive coordinator Jason Martin as well as Collin’s ability and for example the Furman game…we knew that their defensive line was really good and that we had to find ways to get the ball off pretty quick and that’s really what Collin’s strong suit is and he processes things really quickly and he takes a really good snapshot of the defense before the ball is snapped and is able to dissect and diagnose what is happening really quickly and he’s not going to hold the ball long and he can get to his first read…to his second read…and to his third read faster than anyone I have ever coached,” Englehart said of his quarterback.

Through the first six games of the season, Hurst leads an offense that ranks 10^th nationally in total output (467.7 YPG) and seventh nationally in scoring offense (40.7 PPG).

Last weekend, the Blue Hose won 31-25 on the road over Butler, and that would see the Blue Hose improve to a perfect 6-0 and just one win away from matching the best start to a season in school history for the program.

“We’ve seen a real boost in support with this start to the season and one of the things is we’ve had great crowds this season, especially after knocking off two good football programs from the SoCon like Mercer and Furman,” head coach Steve Englehart said.