Everyone ranked ahead of us has won so far. Eastern Washington is in a tight game early with Portland State. Hopefully the outright conference championship will be enough to get a bye.

Bucs always find a way to make it exciting. Never any quit in this program.

Congratz from a former SoCon rival. At 10-1, ETSU deserves a bye.

(11-20-2021 04:36 PM)MercerFan Wrote:  Well done by the Bucs. ESPN had Mercer a 88.5% favorite with 5:30 left in the game! Big interceptions. But really the yards after contact won them this game in my opinion. Dragging defenders constantly. Also ETSU stopped getting penalized in the 2nd half. I don’t even think a single flag was thrown in the 2nd half? Maybe 1.

Congrats on the big win!

There were two second-half penalties vs. ETSU, both big ones. One was a hold for 10 yds., and the other was the personal foul for 15 yds.

ETSU: 8 penalties for 87 yds.
Mercer: 1 penalty for 10 yds. (+ 3 declined)

Those *almost* cost the Bucs the game.

Your observation about "yards after contact" are spot on. That's something our two incredible backs have done all year. Hope you had a nice and enjoyable trip up thisaway, other than the outcome.

What a ballgame!!

QB ratings for the game:

Riddell: 200.6
Payton: 171.3

Here's an amazing stat: 50(!) total first downs. 944 total yds. gained total.
The Bears gained an avg. of 8.0 yds. a play.

The interceptions were indeed "big" - led to 10 ETSU points.

Lots of ways to point at stats, and this or that "winning the game", but really, it was just about a dead-even dogfight. And I agree with other posters, that Mercer deserves to go to the playoffs, too, altho that may be a long shot.

I think Mercer is going to make it into the playoffs. All the other bubble teams lost too. I hope ETSU can curb their penalties in the playoff, that’s really the only negative to point at for them. Almost no incompletions and 2 running backs that are impossible to tackle.

I’ll also add the old Vegas saying. Good teams win, but great teams cover (Mercer +3.5)!

Let’s see tomorrow how the bracket looks.

Congrats to the whole Buc family, man that was awesome! Mercer has a good team and should be in the playoff