Game 4 - The Citadel - Sat. 9/22 - 4:00 PM

Tale of the Tape...


Mercer is bigger and more experienced in the trenches on both sides of the ball. I've heard games are won there. We'll see if that size and experience differential is evident on Saturday evening.

BTW - I know we don’t have a lot of regular posters here, but ‘sources’ tell me we get a lot of ‘lurkers’ during Football season. SO....Does anyone like seeing this ‘Tale of the Tape’ data vs. each upcoming Mercer opponent? I find it interesting, if not, necessarily, predictive. PM me or post (as a ‘Guest’ if you’re not a ‘member’) somewhere if you like seeing this data. I’ll still do it for myself every week, but making these tables on this site is a bit cumbersome...if nobody is interested in seeing it...except me.

Absolutely correct.

Often quite challenging for teams to ‘live with’ success. FCS Teams can’t help but define ‘success’ as playing a close, winnable game vs. a P5 FBS Team, and I think we saw that with Samford this year (as you may have noted in my posts of last week) and I think we saw it with Mercer after their close game with Auburn last year.

As can be noted by Mercer’s publishing of the number of road wins over FCS-ranked Teams, that is clearly a measure of success for the Football Program. That’s fine, but if it is a measure of success for the Players & Coaches within the Program, then that could be a problem. Beating Samford, AKA winning a game, any game, is a successful EVENT, a mile marker on the road to ‘success,’ but it is not, IMO, ‘success.’

Each individual on the Team and the Team (Players AND Coaches) must decide for themselves what ‘success’ means. For some, it’s a winning record. For others, it’s not getting blown out every week.

If I were a Player or Coach on Mercer’s Team, my definition of ‘success’ today would be going 10-1, one week of 1-0 for the next 9 weeks (there is a bye week in there). That will ensure that I would reach the 1st measure of ‘success’ - a SoCon Championship. My next measure of success would be to go 1-0 for the next 4 or 5 games (might get a Playoff bye at 10-1). That would ensure my next measure of ‘success,’ an FCS National Championship. At the beginning of every season, my internal goals (success measures) would be to go undefeated 1 week at a time, win the SoCon Championship, and win the FCS National Championship. Anything less falls short of ‘success.’ It can still be considered good or even great, but it’s not a true, fully successful season unless I earn a National Championship ring. Just the way I was raised.

If Mercer’s Players & Coaches TRULY have this as their internal measures of success, there is no risk of a let down this week. That doesn’t mean they will, necessarily, win the game though. Football Games are VERY HARD to win & I know the kids and Coaches from The Citadel will come into Macon EXPECTING to win, just as Mercer’s Players & Coaches obviously did when they went to Homewood last week. Fortunately, they played a GREAT game and caught a Samford Team that had already achieved ‘success’ in their hearts & minds by ‘becoming famous’ by playing a close, winnable game vs. an FBS P5 Team in Tallahassee.

I don’t expect a let down.

Massey Ratings, which, at the beginning of the season, projected Mercer to go 5-6 and 4-4 in the SoCon, now project Mercer to go 8-3 and 7-1 in the SoCon. Mercer is currently ranked by Massey at #28 in FCS and #147 in D1.
Those numbers, IF they 'play out' should be good enough to gain a Playoff berth for Mercer, particularly if Samford recovers and has the season everyone expected.

Massey is still projecting a 4 point loss to Yale, with even a higher probability than projected for a 3 point loss to Wofford. Yale lost last week to Holy Cross of the Patriot League. Holy Cross had previously lost to Colgate, another Patriot League Team that the SoCon's Furman completely decimated last season at Colgate. I think Mr. Massey must reside in Upstate NY or New England.

Below are Mr. Massey's current projections for the remainder of the 2018 Regular Season...

 
BTW - As a reliability check...if you use Massey's Matchup Tool right now, he projects Samford over Mercer in B'Ham by a final score of 27-24 with 57% probability. So, in reality, that IF up there is not nearly big enough.

Are the players ready to win that much?

Wish the bye was after Yale.

The bye weeks can certainly be helpful. Last year, because WCU jumped at the chance to add a 12th game and travel to Hawaii, we ended up playing 12 weeks in a row (no bye). I believe it had at least a little bit to do with our slide in play at the end of the year. Fast-forward to this season and our bye was in week #2 - so we end up playing 10 weeks in a row. At least Mercer's is towards the middle of the season.

Good luck with the Bellhops this weekend. I would actually love to see teams like WCU and Mercer move into the top spots in the SoCon and get playoff bids. I would expect big crowds for playoff home games in Macon and Cullowhee (the 2 schools finished in a virtual tie for the lead in attendance last year). But of course there is a whole lot of football to be played.