Keeler's Corner: In-Season Update #3

Note: The following was written by Scott Keeler, who worked as a reporter at the Greenville News for more than 25 years and continues to cover the Southern Conference. “Keeler’s Corner” will appear throughout the season.

Keeler can be found on X @Scott_Keeler

Welcome to Keeler’s Corner! This third installment is a special postseason edition with a focus on this year’s Southern Conference champion, Mercer, the lone SoCon team in the FCS playoffs. I’ll also look at other SoCon teams who were in contention for playoff bids, but ultimately were snubbed. There will be a more traditional Keeler’s Corner recapping the final games of every team in the league after Mercer has completed its season.

A year of firsts for Mercer

Mercer made history in the 2023 postseason when it recorded a win in its first ever FCS playoff game. Many more “firsts” came this season.

First-year coach Mike Jacobs guided the Bears to their first SoCon championship and first bye in the FCS playoffs as a top eight seed. Seventh-seeded Mercer (10-2) will host No. 10 seed Rhode Island (11-2) Saturday at 2 p.m. on ESPN+. The Rams advanced to face the Bears with a 21-17 win over Central Connecticut State in last Saturday’s opening round.

“I like to cook Thanksgiving dinner, so it was good to be able to spend a little time with our families. I think that mental reset for our guys, as well as physical, was good. The bye week was much needed to rest, recoup and recover a little bit. We did get work done though,” Jacobs said during his weekly press conference this week. “Now we’ve got a big-time game against a really good Rhode Island team. One of their losses is to Minnesota, while the other is to Delaware who’s moving up to the FBS level. We’ve got a team that’s chomping at the bit. They’re ready to play”

An opportunistic offense and a big-play defense has powered the Bears’ success this season. The list of Mercer “firsts” continues in FCS statistics. The Bears rank No. 1 in the country in third-down percentage defense (25.1 percent), defensive touchdowns (7), turnovers gained average (2.6 per game), defensive interceptions (22), rushing defense (67.4 yards allowed per game - 15 fewer than second place Tennessee Tech), and are second in tackles-for-loss (8.2 per game).

Individually, T.J. Moore leads the country in interceptions with seven while teammate Myles Redding is tied for second place with six.

The final path to the SoCon title

The Bears won at least a share of their first conference championship since winning the 1932 Dixie Conference, clinching in style on Nov. 9. Mercer’s offense piled up more than 500 total yards while its defense recorded the program’s first road shutout since 2014 in a 34-0 win at VMI. That marked the fourth time this season that the Bears held an opponent without a touchdown.

It was Mercer’s sixth consecutive win, matching the school record, and was its seventh victory in its last eight road games in the regular season. The victory featured some quick striking offense by the Bears. Two of their six scoring drives took 41 seconds, while the longest was three minutes. That one was a 13-play, 88-yard effort to close out the first half as Mercer took a 17-0 lead into the break. Freshman quarterback Whitt Newbauer finished with 282 yards passing, three touchdowns and no interceptions.

The Bears fell to 0-2 against teams from Alabama - and undefeated against the rest of the country - the following week with a 52-7 loss at FBS power Alabama.

Mercer got to celebrate winning the SoCon title outright at home in the regular season finale on Nov. 23, when the Bears knocked off Furman 49-23.

That game featured a back-and-forth opening quarter. Mercer took a 14-10 lead with 42 seconds left on Newbauer’s 46-yard touchdown pass to freshman Adjatay Dabbs. Just 20 seconds later, the Bears’ prolific scoring defense came up with arguably the biggest play of the game as linebacker Tommy Bliss snagged a loose ball out of midair and returned it 35 yards for Mercer’s FCS-best seventh defensive touchdown this season.

The Bears again posted more than 500 yards of total offense with a balanced attack of 290 yards passing and 213 rushing. Dabbs finished a career-high day with eight receptions for 181 yards and two touchdowns. Senior Dwayne McGee rushed 15 times for 74 yards to become the third Mercer back with more than 1,000 yards in a season.

“I couldn’t be more proud to be a part of Mercer football. I had a unique opportunity when we were at Notre Dame College to be the first to do a bunch of things there - first time being ranked, first time winning a conference championship, first time winning a (Division II) playoff game,” Jacobs said. “To be part of Mercer’s first Southern Conference title is something really special. I can’t say enough about the work that our team has put in. They’ve bought in since the day we got here.

“To see that culminate on the field for all of those who helped bring Mercer football back, there’s so many that were a part of that, it was an unbelievable moment for our institution. It’s something I’m really happy that our kids got to be a part of.”

To the victor go the spoils

In August, Mercer was picked to finish fourth in the SoCon and four players made the All-SoCon preseason teams. After winning the league, a total of 17 Bears earned All-SoCon honors and the program nearly swept the league’s yearly awards.

McGee was named SoCon Offensive Player of the Year, while Brayden Manley earned Defensive Player of the Year honors. Defensive lineman Andrew Zock was named the league’s Freshman of the Year, while Jacobs earned Coach of the Year.

While his teammate earned the SoCon’s top defensive honor, Moore is one of three finalists for the Buck Buchanan Award which is presented annually to the top defensive player in the FCS. The winner, selected after the regular season by a national voting panel, will be announced at the Stats Perform FCS National Awards Banquet Jan. 4 in Frisco, Texas.

Black Saturday

Mercer became the SoCon’s sixth different champion in the past six years. One would think that parity would be good for the league, but it seems to have had a negative impact on Selection Sundays when the FCS playoff brackets are announced.

For the third time in the past five seasons, only the SoCon’s automatic qualifier made the playoff field this season. Mercer is the lone team in, despite the fact that six of the league’s nine teams ranked in the top 25 polls at some point this season.

It seemed that the SoCon was poised to send at least three teams to the playoffs before what may now become known as “Black Saturday” took place in Tennessee on Nov. 16. At ETSU, the Bucs were upset by Furman 24-21. Meanwhile at Chattanooga, the Mocs were stunned by Samford 36-13. ETSU and Chattanooga bounced back with wins to close out the regular season, but it wasn’t enough for a playoff bid.

The Bucs finished 7-5, but one of those wins was a non-Division I victory making ETSU ineligible for an at-large bid. For the third consecutive season, Chattanooga won seven games in the regular season but only made the playoffs one of those years. The Mocs were listed as one of the first four teams out despite being ranked No. 19 in the Massey ratings.

The playoff committee uses Massey as one of the metrics for determining the field, but some teams behind the Mocs in those ratings received at-large bids. That includes Tennessee State, which was No. 46 in Massey and lost at Montana in last Saturday’s opening round.

It seems that win-loss record style outranked substance as Tennessee State went 9-3 with no FBS games scheduled, while two of Chattanooga’s losses were to FBS opponents - including a three-point loss at Georgia State.

Lest we forget Western Carolina, who actually finished alone in second place in the SoCon thanks to a head-to-head win over Chattanooga. While the computers didn’t like the Catamounts as much as the Mocs, a Western Carolina team that had second-half leads at N.C. State and Montana was seemingly not even in the postseason conversation. A loss to a Campbell team that went 3-9 seemingly doomed the Catamounts. Western Carolina became just the second program since the playoff field expanded to 24 to win at least six conference games and seven Division I games and not make the playoffs.

Meanwhile, larger conferences where every team doesn’t play each other continue to put multiple teams in the playoffs each year. Just imagine if ETSU and Chattanooga had non-conference victories on Nov. 16 despite what happened in league play, or if Western Carolina had a non-conference win instead of playing Mercer. It’s likely they could’ve all made the playoff field with what would’ve been each team’s eighth win.