Mercer stunned by Presbyterian College in 15-10 loss at home

Mike Jacobs looked at the stat sheet, ran his hands through his hair, spun and clicked a pen in his hand. None of it offered any clarity.

The Mercer head coach was clear on what he had just seen — he just didn’t expect to see it.

Non-scholarship Presbyterian went toe-to-toe with Mercer and answered everything the Bears did, eating up clock and scoring the game-winning touchdown with 56 seconds left before holding off the Bears on their last drive for a stunning 15-10 win over the No. 11 hosts.

“Obviously just a massively disappointing loss this evening,” Jacobs said, not expecting the quality performance in last week’s no-contest game against No. 7 Cal-Davis to be all but erased a week later. “We did not do a good enough job as a coaching staff putting our young players in positions where they could execute at a high level.

“Presbyterian played really well tonight, and really, they did a great job on the critical downs and we did not, and that was the difference in the game.”

So much for a relaxing long weekend. This one will fester for Mercer, which is off until Wofford comes to Five Star Stadium on Sept. 13.

And it will definitely fester for Jacobs.

“It’s one of the more uncharacteristic losses of my career, to be honest with you,” he said. “You’re talking about a staff that’s 85-20, 21 now. There’s been far more good days than bad.

“It boils down to we as a staff putting them in positions where they can execute without overthinking, and we have to get that corrected.

The Blue Hose celebrated in bowl-win fashion on the same field they took a 63-10 hazing on a year ago. They started bouncing around on the sideline before the clock ran out, displaying the joy of a 9-year-old on Christmas Day. There were the hard hugs — and some tears — of players and coaches coming to grips with the program’s biggest win in years.

Presbyterian is a member of the non-scholarship Pioneer Football League, Mercer’s home for the first season upon reinstating football a decade ago.

The Blue Hose’s last win against a top-15 team was in 2014 against another Southern Conference team, Furman, by a 10-7 margin. And the now-wide-awake Paladins are up next on PC’s schedule.

Expectations were high for a Blue Hose team that returned eight starters on offense and the most players on the PFL’s preseason team.

The same team that lost by 53 points to open 2024 closed it with four straight wins, including by three over No. 23 Butler, and came to Macon with some confidence.

“The fact that we came in here and kept it close for four quarters, I think that we did enough to keep them uncomfortable,” fourth-year head coach Steve Everhart said. “I told our guys that we’re going to fire away, you know, we’re going to go for it on fourth down. No, we’re going to go for it on fourth down. I mean, we got pump fakes. I mean, whatever we got to do.”

They also returned the league’s top offensive freshman. Now a sophomore, Collin Hurst showed that was no fluke, turning in a huge performance.

The 5-10, 185-pound quarterback completed 25 of 38 pass attempts for a staggering 303 yards with one touchdown and one interception, getting sacked only once, too.

“He played more than half the season,” Jacobs said. “He’s an all-conference guy. He completed passes, he made plays with guys in his face. They executed.”

He found eight different targets, led by Dominic Kibby’s nine catches for 114 yards. Some of the targets were uncharacteristically open against an upper-level defense.

Mercer counterpart DJ Smith went 22 for 36 for 154 yards and a matching line of one touchdown, one interception, and one sack.

The Bears were outrushed at home 113-87. As he scanned the stat sheet, more things caught Jacobs’ eye.

PC had four more first downs, had to punt only three times, and had a better night on third and fourth downs.

Mercer took the lead in the final seconds of the first quarter, with Adonis McDaniel taking a jet sweep pass of about a foot from Smith and cutting it up the middle from 11 yards out.

That was not a spark.

The Blue Hose promptly responded with an 11-play, 75-yard drive that included a 23-yard gain on third and 13 and concluded with a 29-yard flea flicker from Hurst to tight end Nathan Levicki.

But the point-after kick doinked off the upright to make it a one-point game at the 9:37 mark of the second quarter.

Smith’s pass a few minutes later was behind the target and picked off at midfield. PC was primed to take the lead with a first down at the 10.

But two plays at the 1-yard line got nothing, Drew Clare and Carmelo O’Neal coming up with the stop on an awkward fourth-down play.

Again, it was not a spark.

The Bears took over at their own 3 with 2:22 left, but punted with eight seconds left from their 41.

The inability to take advantage of anything continued in the third quarter, as a 29-yard punt return by Tattnall grad Brayden Smith set Mercer up at Presbyterian’s 25. The Bears had to settle for a 23-yard field goal.

Presbyterian answered, after a re-spotting gave the Blue Hose a first down instead of a fourth down. But the Blue Hose also had to settle for a field goal, from 32 yards with 3:54 left in the third.

The back-and-forth continued, Mercer coming up with a frustrating possession in the fourth.

The Bears got it on their 21 with 12:04 left, and ran off 11 plays – also getting a re-spot- and ate up 5:29, a sack for a 7-yard loss forcing a punt from PC’s 42.

Presbyterian took over on its 21 with 6:35 left, and proceeded to embark on the drive neither team would soon forget.

The Blue Hose opened with a 20-yard pass, and patiently mixed it up and ate up time. They got a pass interference call on fourth and 3 to keep going, then had a long run nullified by a penalty only to get a 14-yard completion on fourth and 4 a few plays later.

Mercer defenders argued it was incomplete, but the review was inconclusive.

Four plays later, Zach Switzer went in from 16 yards out with the game-winner, fairly easily.

Did Mercer let him score to save time?

“No, but at that point, we’re kind of in no man’s land, right?” Jacobs said. “Used a couple time outs, but then we couldn’t get a stop, and so, is it better to potentially let them? We probably would have on the next play had they not scored there.”

McDaniel’s 40-yard kickoff return made it interesting. A 29-yard completion to Brayden Smith made it more interesting, but time was evaporating.

DJ Smith scrambled to eat up the final three seconds. His pass into a crowd in the end zone was almost caught by Adjatay Dabbs but knocked away.

“We’ll evaluate everything,” Jacobs said. “And we’ll evaluate every position, and again, we’ll work to get the best 11 guys in each of the three phases on the field. All we can do is go back to work.”