Mercer 11/12

[FUBeAR]

Why are we using the coaches poll for our advertisement? Is it any more official than the STATS FCS poll? #12 vs #13 looks like a more exciting matchup to the casual observer...

Unfortunately, it is ‘more official’ than the STATS Perform FCS Poll…

https://www.ncaa.com/news/football/art ... -need-know

What does the Selection Committee look at in its process?

For information on selecting, seeding, and bracketing teams, the committee may consider comparative data of individual teams, including but not limited to:

Overall record
Record against Division I opponents (an institution with fewer than six Division I wins may place that team in jeopardy of not being selected)
Record against opponents from other AQ conferences
Record against Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) opponents
Head-to-head record
Record against common opponents
NCAA Simple Rating System (NCAA SRS) Data
FCS Coaches Poll
Input from regional advisory committees

[apaladin]

…..and again the coaches poll is the least accurate of all the polls, rating systems so of course they woukd consider it.

[AllTimeFU]

Any thoughts on offensive game plan? I know, boring win….

[FUBeAR]

Any thoughts on offensive game plan?

[FUBeAR]

Anyone wanna have ‘fun’ and analyze these Furman/Mercer ‘head-to-head’ stats for us?

These are stats in SoCon games only - 5 common opponents (UTC, CIT, ETSU, VMI, WCU) and 1 ‘uncommon’ opponent each - FU has not played Wofford & Mercer has not played Samford. FU is 5-0 vs. common opponents. Mercer is 4-1, losing to Chattanooga 41-21.

SCORING OFFENSE G TD FG XPT 2XP DXP Saf Points Avg/G
1. Mercer 6 32 5 32 0 0 0 239 39.8
4. Furman 6 23 9 22 0 0 0 187 31.2

SCORING DEFENSE G TD FG XPT 2XP DXP Saf Points Avg/G
2. Mercer 6 11 8 11 0 0 0 101 16.8
3. Furman 6 15 6 13 0 0 0 121 20.2

TOTAL OFFENSE G Rush Pass Plays Yards Avg/P TD Avg/G
1. Mercer 6 1232 1682 409 2914 7.1 30 485.7
5. Furman 6 1354 1128 431 2482 5.8 21 413.7

TOTAL DEFENSE G Rush Pass Plays Yards Avg/P TD Avg/G
1. Mercer 6 539 987 372 1526 4.1 10 254.3
5. Furman 6 680 1693 434 2373 5.5 15 395.5

RUSHING OFFENSE G Att Yards Avg. TD Yards/G
1. Furman 6 249 1354 5.4 11 225.7
3. Mercer 6 241 1232 5.1 11 205.3

RUSHING DEFENSE G Att Yards Avg. TD Yards/G
1. Mercer 6 191 539 2.8 6 89.8
3. Furman 6 198 680 3.4 5 113.3

PASS OFFENSE G Comp Att Int Pct. Yards Avg. TD Avg/G
3. Mercer 6 116 168 8 69.0 1682 10.0 19 280.3
7. Furman 6 119 182 3 65.4 1128 6.2 10 188.0

PASS DEFENSE G Comp Att Int Pct. Yards Avg. TD Avg/G
1. Mercer 6 98 181 11 54.1 987 5.5 4 164.5
9. Furman 6 136 236 9 57.6 1693 7.2 10 282.2

PASS EFFICIENCY G Comp Att Int Pct. Yards TD Effic.
1. Mercer 6 116 168 8 69.0 1682 19 180.9
4. Furman 6 119 182 3 65.4 1128 10 132.3

PASS DEFENSE EFFIC. G Comp Att Int Pct. Yards TD Effic.
1. Mercer 6 98 181 11 54.1 987 4 95.1
4. Furman 6 136 236 9 57.6 1693 10 124.2

KICKOFF RETURNS G No. Yards TD Avg.
1. Furman 6 16 382 1 23.9
2. Mercer 6 12 269 0 22.4

PUNT RETURN AVG G No. Yards TD Avg.
1. Mercer 6 10 166 1 16.6
4. Furman 6 11 102 0 9.3

INTERCEPTIONS G No. Yards TD Avg.
1. Mercer 6 11 92 1 8.4
2. Furman 6 9 144 1 16.0

PUNTING G No. Yards Avg/P Ret. Avg. TB Net/P
2. Mercer 6 17 761 44.8 91 5.4 1 38.2
7. Furman 6 30 1189 39.6 51 1.7 5 34.6

KICKOFF COVERAGE G No. Yards Avg. Return TB Net Avg.
2. Furman 6 37 2319 62.7 262 21 41.4
5. Mercer 6 42 2016 48.0 514 0 35.8

FIELD GOALS G Made-Att Pct.
2. Mercer 6 5-6 .833
4. Furman 6 9-11 .818

PAT KICKING G Made-Att Pct.
1. Mercer 6 32-32 1.000
7. Furman 6 22-23 .957

SACKS BY G No. Yards
2. Furman 6 13 78
7. Mercer 6 9 53

SACKS AGAINST G No. Yards
1. Mercer 6 3 24
4. Furman 6 9 57

FIRST DOWNS G Rush Pass Pen Total Avg/G
1. Mercer 6 65 73 3 141 23.5
3. Furman 6 64 56 11 131 21.8

OPPONENT 1ST DOWNS G Rush Pass Pen Total Avg/G
2. Mercer 6 22 48 8 78 13.0
5. Furman 6 40 66 12 118 19.7

3RD-DOWN CONVERSIONS G Conv. Att. Pct.
1. Mercer 6 40 75 53.3
6. Furman 6 34 88 38.6

OPP 3RD-DN CONVERT G Conv. Att. Pct.
1. Mercer 6 21 86 24.4
2. Furman 6 28 91 30.8

4TH-DOWN CONVERSIONS G Conv. Att. Pct.
1. Mercer 6 8 9 88.9
6. Furman 6 3 7 42.9

OPP 4TH-DN CONVERT G Conv. Att. Pct.
3. Furman 6 5 14 35.7
7. Mercer 6 9 14 64.3

PENALTIES G No. Yards Avg/G
4. Mercer 6 29 269 44.8
6. Furman 6 39 334 55.7

OPPONENT PENALTIES G No. Yards Avg/G
4. Furman 6 37 327 54.5
9. Mercer 6 20 187 31.2

TIME OF POSSESSION G Poss. Time Avg/G
2. Furman 6 191:52 31:58
5. Mercer 6 181:59 30:19

———————————————Gained————————Lost
TURNOVER MARGIN G Fumb Int Total Fumb Int Total Margin Per/G
4. Furman 6 3 9 12 8 3 11 +1 0.17
7. Mercer 6 3 11 14 10 8 18 -4 -0.67

—————————————————Red Zone Touchdowns Field Goals Lost possession
RED ZONE OFFENSE G Scores-Chances Pct. TDs Rush-Pass Made-Att Fumb Int. Downs Other
2. Mercer 6 24-28 85.7 20 8-12 4-4 1 1 0 2
3. Furman 6 22-26 84.6 15 6-9 7-8 1 0 1 1

——————————————————Red Zone Touchdowns Field Goals Lost possession
RED ZONE DEFENSE G Scores-Chances Pct. TDs Rush-Pass Made-Att Fumb Int. Downs Other
1. Mercer 6 13-19 68.4 7 6-1 6-8 1 3 0 0
1. Furman 6 13-19 68.4 7 3-4 6-9 0 2 1 0

[Bootie]

31 categories, Mercer leads 23-8.
On paper looks like FU is “supposed” to lose.
Glad we don’t play on paper.
Biggest game of the season thus far.
FUATT.

[The Jackal]

31 categories, Mercer leads 23-8.
On paper looks like FU is “supposed” to lose.
Glad we don’t play on paper.
Biggest game of the season thus far.
FUATT.

Mercer is a good team. There's no question.

It's hard to analyze head to head statistics. I think the numbers tell us that Mercer is pretty good on both sides of the ball. Furman, I think, has played a tougher schedule.

One statistical trend that piques my interest is turnovers. As Mercer's schedule has turned tougher in the last stretch, they've been plagued by turnovers. 13 turnovers in the last 3 gams.

Of course, Furman leads the FCS in takeaways. So, that will be interesting to watch.

[The Jackal]

Been watching some Mercer. A couple of observations. I'm sure Bear can fill in.

Offensively, we're familiar with Cronic. He's a wing-t guy at his core and Mercer's offense is a modernized version of that offense.

Pre-snap, there's a lot of mix and match. Several of their players are sort of "positionless" and line up any number of players. There's a bunch of pre-snap moving around, shifts, flipping TEs, and motion. The defense is going to need to quickly get calls in and sort out the "window dressing" before the ball is snapped.

After that, it's a lot of wing-t concepts. There's a lot of misdirection in the run game and play action passing.

They aren't super big up front on offense. I expect they'll give up a fair amount of size to Furman's bigger defensive tackles. Their line splits are very narrow and the line blocks technically well. Notably, Mercer struggled to run the ball against UTC's defensive front.

Fred Payton at QB is a big kid at 6'2 220. He can spin it. They have no issue throwing the ball downfield. He doesn't run it a ton, and isn't particularly shifty, but if he can get going downfield can cover a lot of ground. Furman has been burned a number of times this season with QBs running up the middle of the field.

At skill positions, the RBs are talented, but not anything beyond what we've seen all season. The concerning guys are the WRs - James and Harper. Both can really run and catch. The two of them average about 150 yards a game receiving and get by far the most of the action in the passing game.

Furman, as we all know, has struggled at times with defending downfield passing game. They've improved over the past several games, but if we're going to beat Mercer, we can't let those two take over the game.

[stonemd]

Got my bus charter ticket today
Who else going to the game

[Flagman]

Got my bus charter ticket today
Who else going to the game

Hope it fills up.

[FUBeAR]

If you’re not doing the cool bus trip from/to GVL, you might want to take advantage of this ticket deal…

https://mpv.tickets.com/?agency=MERCER ... cher=false

[FUBeAR]

Been watching some Mercer. A couple of observations. I'm sure Bear can fill in.

Offensively, we're familiar with Cronic. He's a wing-t guy at his core and Mercer's offense is a modernized version of that offense.

Pre-snap, there's a lot of mix and match. Several of their players are sort of "positionless" and line up any number of players. There's a bunch of pre-snap moving around, shifts, flipping TEs, and motion. The defense is going to need to quickly get calls in and sort out the "window dressing" before the ball is snapped.

After that, it's a lot of wing-t concepts. There's a lot of misdirection in the run game and play action passing.

They aren't super big up front on offense. I expect they'll give up a fair amount of size to Furman's bigger defensive tackles. Their line splits are very narrow and the line blocks technically well. Notably, Mercer struggled to run the ball against UTC's defensive front.

Fred Payton at QB is a big kid at 6'2 220. He can spin it. They have no issue throwing the ball downfield. He doesn't run it a ton, and isn't particularly shifty, but if he can get going downfield can cover a lot of ground. Furman has been burned a number of times this season with QBs running up the middle of the field.

At skill positions, the RBs are talented, but not anything beyond what we've seen all season. The concerning guys are the WRs - James and Harper. Both can really run and catch. The two of them average about 150 yards a game receiving and get by far the most of the action in the passing game.

Furman, as we all know, has struggled at times with defending downfield passing game. They've improved over the past several games, but if we're going to beat Mercer, we can't let those two take over the game.

This is a very good breakdown of Mercer’s Offense. A couple of additional points…

Mercer’s TE, Drake Starks, is no Ryan Miller, but he is a threat. He only has 10 catches this season, but 4 of them are for TD’s. That’s a very high TD/Reception ratio. Interestingly, all of Mercer’s TE’s only have 14 catches this year, but in the Bears’ most recent game @ VMI, they threw 3 INT’s with all 3 being ‘targets’ of 3 different Tight Ends. Also, 2 TE’s did catch 1 ball each vs. VMI. That TE usage and, perhaps, ‘forced’ usage, doesn’t seem like it could be just a coincidence to FUBeAR. Not sure what it means ‘zactly, but if FUBeAR is an FU Defensive Coach, he’s a-ponderin’ on that a little bit this week.

Also, Mercer’s RB situation could prolly use a little more elaboration than Jackal provided…Last year’s All SoCon RB, Fred Davis, is unavailable to play for Mercer this season. Davis was, essentially, replaced by JMU transfer, Austin Douglas and Sophomore, Al Wooten. And, although Douglas was lost for the rest of the season early in the ETSU game, 3 weeks ago, he had almost as many yards, 3 more TD’s, and about double the YPC that Wooten has now. Losing Davis and Douglas for Mercer is the equivalent of Furman losing Roberto & Abrams, or Chatt losing Ford & Appleberry, or Samford losing Stanton & Thomas, or ETSU (2021) losing Holmes & Saylors. Their loss cannot be overstated. That said, Wooten is a good, solid 225 pound RB who does find the seam at the LOS, and likes to run thru 2nd & 3rd level Defenders. Finally, Mercer appeared to take the redshirt off of True FR RB, CJ Miller and use the VMI game as his ‘tune-up’ game. Miller is a similar back to Wooten, except he’s heavier, at 238. Against VMI, Miller had 12 Carries for 105 yards and a touchdown. Brandon Marshall is a smaller RB (5-8, 190), but has quite a burst. He’s the veteran of the group. He’s been banged up and thought he was done after he was carted off at Chatt, but he looked fresh as a daisy @ VMI (14 for 79 & 1 TD). Here’s their RB stats..sorted by YPC (bolded), FWIW.

# Player GP ATT Gain Loss Net AVG TD Long AVG/G
37 Miller, CJ 2 16 129 0 129 8.1 1 28 64.50
8 Marshall, Brandon 9 43 315 10 305 7.1 3 53 33.89
2 Douglas, Austin (OUT) 7 58 411 8 403 6.9 5 65 57.57
36 Coleman , Justin7 29 141 4 137 4.7 0 15 19.57
5 Wooten II, Al 9 108 456 37 419 3.9 2 28 46.56

Would imagine Jackal will do a breakdown of the Mercer Defense also. Will add anything FUBeAR thinks may interest y’all to that effort also.

[gofurman]

Been watching some Mercer. A couple of observations. I'm sure Bear can fill in.

Offensively, we're familiar with Cronic. He's a wing-t guy at his core and Mercer's offense is a modernized version of that offense.

Pre-snap, there's a lot of mix and match. Several of their players are sort of "positionless" and line up any number of players. There's a bunch of pre-snap moving around, shifts, flipping TEs, and motion. The defense is going to need to quickly get calls in and sort out the "window dressing" before the ball is snapped.

After that, it's a lot of wing-t concepts. There's a lot of misdirection in the run game and play action passing.

They aren't super big up front on offense. I expect they'll give up a fair amount of size to Furman's bigger defensive tackles. Their line splits are very narrow and the line blocks technically well. Notably, Mercer struggled to run the ball against UTC's defensive front.

Fred Payton at QB is a big kid at 6'2 220. He can spin it. They have no issue throwing the ball downfield. He doesn't run it a ton, and isn't particularly shifty, but if he can get going downfield can cover a lot of ground. Furman has been burned a number of times this season with QBs running up the middle of the field.

At skill positions, the RBs are talented, but not anything beyond what we've seen all season. The concerning guys are the WRs - James and Harper. Both can really run and catch. The two of them average about 150 yards a game receiving and get by far the most of the action in the passing game.

Furman, as we all know, has struggled at times with defending downfield passing game. They've improved over the past several games, but if we're going to beat Mercer, we can't let those two take over the game.

This is a very good breakdown of Mercer’s Offense. A couple of additional points…

Mercer’s TE, Drake Starks, is no Ryan Miller, but he is a threat. He only has 10 catches this season, but 4 of them are for TD’s. That’s a very high TD/Reception ratio. Interestingly, all of Mercer’s TE’s only have 14 catches this year, but in the Bears’ most recent game @ VMI, they threw 3 INT’s with all 3 being ‘targets’ of 3 different Tight Ends. Also, 2 TE’s did catch 1 ball each vs. VMI. That TE usage and, perhaps, ‘forced’ usage, doesn’t seem like it could be just a coincidence to FUBeAR. Not sure what it means ‘zactly, but if FUBeAR is an FU Defensive Coach, he’s a-ponderin’ on that a little bit this week.

Also, Mercer’s RB situation could prolly use a little more elaboration than Jackal provided…Last year’s All SoCon RB, Fred Davis, is unavailable to play for Mercer this season. Davis was, essentially, replaced by JMU transfer, Austin Douglas and Sophomore, Al Wooten. And, although Douglas was lost for the rest of the season early in the ETSU game, 3 weeks ago, he had almost as many yards, 3 more TD’s, and about double the YPC that Wooten has now. Losing Davis and Douglas for Mercer is the equivalent of Furman losing Roberto & Abrams, or Chatt losing Ford & Appleberry, or Samford losing Stanton & Thomas, or ETSU (2021) losing Holmes & Saylors. Their loss cannot be overstated. That said, Wooten is a good, solid 225 pound RB who does find the seam at the LOS, and likes to run thru 2nd & 3rd level Defenders. Finally, Mercer appeared to take the redshirt off of True FR RB, CJ Miller and use the VMI game as his ‘tune-up’ game. Miller is a similar back to Wooten, except he’s heavier, at 238. Against VMI, Miller had 12 Carries for 105 yards and a touchdown. Brandon Marshall is a smaller RB, but has quite a burst. He’s the veteran of the group. He’s been banged up and thought he was done after he was carted off at Chatt, but looked fresh as a daisy @ VMI. Here’s their RB stats..sorted by YPC (bolded), FWIW.

# Player GP ATT Gain Loss Net AVG TD Long AVG/G
37 Miller, CJ 2 16 129 0 129 8.1 1 28 64.50
8 Marshall, Brandon 9 43 315 10 305 7.1 3 53 33.89
2 Douglas, Austin (OUT) 7 58 411 8 403 6.9 5 65 57.57
36 Coleman , Justin7 29 141 4 137 4.7 0 15 19.57
5 Wooten II, Al 9 108 456 37 419 3.9 2 28 46.56

Would imagine Jackal will do a breakdown of the Mercer Defense also. Will add anything FUBeAR thinks may interest y’all to that effort also.

that's a huge hit at RB. Fred Davis was awesome.

[The Jackal]

I had a nice long write up about Mercer's defense.

Then my computer reset.

[gofurman]

I’m very very very skeered