Limestone Football Team Has Already Secured Back-To-Back Winning Seasons For First Time

Winning is now becoming the norm for Limestone University’s football team.

By virtue of last Saturday’s thrilling 28-24 victory over rival Newberry College, the Saints guaranteed themselves back-to-back winning seasons for the first time in program history.

In fact, this marks just the second time that Limestone has had a winning season on the gridiron – and there’s at least two games still left to be played. The Saints are currently 6-3 overall as they prepare to travel to Wilson, NC, to face Barton College this Saturday for a 6 p.m. kickoff.

The regular season then wraps up on Saturday, Nov. 11, at Emory & Henry College starting at 1 p.m. However, should Limestone knock off Barton and Lenoir-Rhyne fall to Catawba this weekend, instead of the Saints traveling to Virginia to face Emory & Henry, they would instead be playing in the South Atlantic Conference Championship game as out-right winners of the Piedmont Division.

The Mountain Division will host this year’s title contest on November 11, and Mars Hill is currently leading that side of the conference at 6-1 (7-1 overall). Lenoir-Rhyne leads the Piedmont Division at 6-1 in conference play, while 8-1 overall. Limestone’s only SAC loss this season came in a heart-breaking overtime thriller, 31-28, at home to Lenoir-Rhyne. 

With former head coach Mike Furrey back at the helm of the program in 2022, Limestone enjoyed its first-ever regular season with a winning record, going 8-3 and qualifying for the NCAA Division II National Championship playoffs. The Saints finished 8-4 following their first-round loss at the University of West Florida. The Argonauts completed 2022 at 12-2 after advancing into the National Semifinals.

With a current combined record of 14-7, Limestone now has a winning percentage of 66.7 over the past two seasons.

From 2014 through 2021, the Saints went eight seasons without a winning record and amassed a combined record of 17-59 (22.4 winning percentage). Take out Furrey’s two-year total mark of 9-12 in 2016 and 2017, that combined six-year record without him as the head coach falls to 6-47 (11.3 winning percentage). Those totals include the four-game abbreviated 2021 spring schedule in which the Saints went 1-3. Limestone’s fall 2020 schedule was moved to the spring of 2022 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

During the four seasons between Furrey’s two tenures, Limestone had a winning percentage of 11.8 with six wins and 47 losses.

“We’re very proud to have already secured our second straight winning season,” Furrey said this week. “And we’re not done this season. We still have a lot to play for. To be sitting here at 6-1 in the South Atlantic Conference and in the hunt for a SAC championship is an amazing feeling for our players and our entire coaching staff. None of this would be possible without the by-in and dedication of the young men on this team and the tireless job our assistant coaches are doing. This team goes into every game fully expecting to win. That’s the standard and the culture here now. And we’re just getting started.”

Furrey departed Limestone following the 2017 season to become the wide receivers coach with the NFL’s Chicago Bears. He is Limestone’s all-time winningest head football coach with a current four-season combined record of 23-19.