Lamb's contract status

furmanpaladins.com/sports/football/roster/coaches/george-quarles/332

Bear faithful,
Please read about G. Quarles... he didn't join the College Coaching ranks until 2016 when he went to Furman. I don't know if he's the right guy for Mercer or not, but I have a real problem discussing fodder vs facts ! I also would like to be told how a kid with a 3.6 gpa graduating from Mercer in baseball and our current All Conference  OT Sanders #67 who has graduated and working on his Masters degree support any of these JuCo or college transfer negative sentiments expressed by others. 
For the record, I am talking about good kids who fit the Mercer profile with proven experience at the college level !
(Sanders transferred from a small college in Miss.)  

Life dictates many decisions at a given point in time; let's open our minds and consider all win/win situations for our Mercer Bears !  We don't have another 4 years to wait to  fix all our problems internally ... there will be no one at the games except parents !

No sir, I think G Quarles is a great candidate; I was responding to the post that claimed he would not be interested in Mercer because of his previous offers to be a Head Coach! We are in agreement that he has a very good record...

As far as JuCo's are concerned we can agree to disagree. You have not stated one reason why a kid who fits the Mercer profile could not be a positive addition to our team. I don't understand your thought process when other sports at Mercer have had success with these kids. I respect everyone's opinion, but additional facts to support your argument could enlighten us all. Please tell us why you put all JuCo kids in the same basket ?

Since we are speaking in generalities, most kids end up at JUCO's in the first place because there is baggage.  Usually academic or discipline issues.  For the most part, good players who qualify academically and haven't had disciplinary issues go to a 4 year school.  So, again, generally, a JUCO player is much more risky.  Secondly, I doubt there are very few, if any, JUCO schools in the United States at are comparable to the Mercer/Furman/Wofford/Samfords of the world academically.  So, there are coming into a MUCH more rigorous environment, which, again, is extremely risky.  An academically ineligible player is good to no one.

And, before you compare this to baseball, that sport is completely different, as there is a long culture of baseball players choosing JUCO because of reputation (San Jacinto for example) and also the draft/pro/minor league system in baseball make it a totally different proposition.  Junior college baseball players can be draft eligible after every year of JUCO.  A 4 year college signee has to wait until after their 3rd year before they can enter the draft.

Also now, with academic progress requirements of schools, JUCO gets even more risky.  JUCO players graduation rate is about 55%.  It's 68% for all Div 1 football.  So, again, more risk.

So, given that all school and coaching staffs have limited resources (you can't evaluate and recruit every single potential player) it a lot more "needle in a haystack" looking at JUCO, with a lot more risk. So if you have finite time, it makes more sense to spend more time looking at true freshmen and transfers from 4 years programs.  All the numbers say the likelihood of those kids being more successful as well as graduating are much higher.

With the ETSU loss I think it is time to move in a different direction.

Not that the situations are the same, but I believe Lamb technically announced his resignation from Furman the day before the final game of the 2010 season. If it is in fact the last year of the contract and Mercer has made the decision to move on, I imagine you could hear news of that as soon as this week.

An above poster is correct. Furman was going to make a change and they were kind enough to give Bobby a choice in how it went down. Oddly enough, Bobby's tenure at Furman in a way mirrors the experience at Mercer. Started off pretty well, and there was lots of promise for their continued success as Furman was a power in 1AA when he took the reigns. Then things started to slide a bit. Some cited some untimely injuries to key players, but nonetheless, things slid into mediocrity. The base of Furmans financial fan base is/was, as far as athletics is concerned, were quickly advancing in age and wanted Furman to get back to their previous elite status. They made the wrong choice with Fowler, but then hired the guy they probably should have hired all along in Clay Hendrix. Mercer is in sort of the same position. A ton of money was raised to get the program off the ground, and to pay for first class facilities. A sudden invite into the SoCon was an unexpected raising of the bar in competition level, but that should have been accounted for by this point. And even though the academics are a higher bar than most schools, Mercer does sit right in the middle of one of the most fruitful states for recruiting in the country. Pretty sure, that like happened at Furman, the donors are wanting to see a return on their investment.