After comeback win over ETSU, Mercer ready to host Samford

The last drive of a football game is often the most important one — especially if your team has come back from down 10 points twice in the second half and makes a defensive stand on that last drive to win.

Mercer head coach Mike Jacobs thought differently, considering the bigger picture.

“If you go back to that drive in the first half, where they had the ball on the one-inch line about to score … we had back-to-back (tackles for loss) and an incompletion to hold them to a field goal,” Jacobs said. “That’s the difference. That not-give-up moment, that was the defining moment of the game for us.”

The stop was one of the Bears’ many impressive plays en route to a 38-34 comeback road victory over the East Tennessee State Buccaneers that moved them to 3-1 overall and 3-0 in Southern Conference play so far.

Down 10 points once in the third quarter and again in the fourth, the Mercer offense kept churning. Running back CJ Miller punched in the go-ahead score with about four minutes to play, and the Bears defense held on from there for a momentous win.

The go-ahead score capped an impressive day for Miller, who ran rampant on the ETSU defense for 172 yards and a pair of touchdowns to earn himself FCS National Offensive Player of the Week honors.

True freshman quarterback Braden Atkinson performed well yet again, passing for 187 yards and three touchdowns with one interception while staying poised despite the Bears falling behind at times. Mercer’s relatively young defensive line buried the Buccaneers’ run game, holding them to 66 yards on 33 attempts.

“What you saw was a young football team show perseverance, show resilience and get a win on the road in an environment that has traditionally been really tough for us to play in,” Jacobs said. “I think at one point I looked out there and three of our four defensive linemen were freshmen. We have a young group of guys and they’re growing up right in front of you.”

That defensive line effort, led often by preseason award-winner Andrew Zock along with contributions from younger players and veterans alike, helped limit ETSU’s approach as the Mercer offense manufactured its comeback.

“There’s a real bond between us. I love my boy Zock, that’s my dog. He’s such a great character. Having people like that on your team sets up for success, that sets us up to be where we are right now,” said defensive lineman Brayden Dudley.

Dudley, a redshirt senior who transferred to Mercer from West Virginia ahead of last season, is blossoming as a Bear. The attitude of the defensive line is one of competitiveness and confidence.

“Even if we’re down by ten,” Dudley said, “we’re gonna win the fourth quarter.”

Though youthful exuberance has been key for the Bears on both sides of the ball — especially at quarterback, where Mercer is leaning on a true freshman for the second year in a row — there is plenty of senior leadership like Dudley to keep the team glued together.

“There’s a lot of guys who are voices … Tommy Bliss is a guy like that,” Dudley said of the defensive back. “He talks to us all day every day, he knows what to say at any time. He’s gonna get us pumped. We all just have that in us. Sometimes you don’t need the voice, but the voice is always there.”

Bliss, fittingly, snagged an interception late in the third quarter that set the stage for Mercer’s 14 unanswered points in the fourth. Even after the Bears had struggled a bit to contain Cade McNamara and ETSU’s passing attack, Mercer got a big play when it needed one.

“At halftime, we talked about it. Anybody’s 11th can be the gamebreaker at any time … That never quit mentality was big for us defensively,” Jacobs said. “Another thing, we shut them out in the fourth quarter and I think we had two takeaways in the fourth quarter. So I think our conditioning was plus.”

Mercer’s offensive line helped Miller to his dominant performance and were even noticed by some Bears fans, who commented about the offensive line’s play on social media. As an O-lineman himself, Jacobs was pleased.

“They say the hardest position to play is the one the coach did (when he was a player),” Jacobs joked. “But they played really well … When people who are novice football fans are noticing that we’re moving the line of scrimmage, that’s what we wanna be as a program.”

The win marked the seventh straight victory for Mercer over a SoCon opponent dating back to the 2024 season. It was their third win over a conference foe this year, keeping them in prime position for the Southern Conference title down the line.

The Bears have another conference game on deck, as they return home Saturday to face Samford and Maconite head coach Chris Hatcher.

The Bulldogs have struggled to an 0-5 record so far in Hatcher’s 11th season at the helm, losing three SoCon games so far in addition to non-conference losses against Baylor and West Georgia.

“This is his Super Bowl, I don’t care what their record says,” Jacobs said of Hatcher coaching Samford back in his hometown. “He has hallmarks — they’ll score a lot of points, and they’ll have great quarterback play.”

The Bulldogs have not shown those traits thus far, though the defense appears to be more of an issue for the team from Alabama. Samford has allowed at least 30 points in all five of its contests so far, including giving up 50 points to Western Carolina and 40 points to The Citadel, the latter of which Mercer defeated handily in a shutout back on Sept. 20.

On offense, Samford has two rushers at almost 200 yards. Quarterback Quincy Crittendon has thrown for 1245 yards with five touchdowns and six interceptions. The team has broken the 13-point threshold only once thus far.

Still, the Bears do not want to underestimate the Bulldogs. Mercer lost its undefeated season against Samford last season, going down 28-0 in the first quarter in what was eventually the Bears’ only conference loss.

“In a conference where you have to play everybody once every season, I think anybody’s good enough to beat anybody else. Just look at The Citadel, a team we played really well against — they go on the road and beat Chattanooga,” Jacobs said. “There’s no one in this building that is taking Samford lightly.”