Mercer heads into important offseason
Bobby Lamb’s Mercer program has had a lot of firsts in its four seasons of play.
Next fall will mark a different kind of first: the Bears’ first season without John Russ at quarterback and Kirby Southard at center.
Russ, Southard and the Bears’ other 28 seniors wrapped up their careers Saturday with a win over Furman. Russ and Southard are the only two players to start all 46 games for the Bears, and Mercer went 27-19 in the seniors’ four seasons.
“Obviously, the unfortunate thing about coaching college football is you get attached to a senior class, and four or five years later, they’re gone, and you’ve got to start over again with another class,” Lamb said. “Hopefully, this class has left a lot of leadership skills and have taught the younger guys how to lead. I think they did a good job with that.”
Lamb and his staff will find that out soon as they head into the offseason. Next season, they will have a new quarterback with Tanner Brumby, who will be a junior, and Kaelan Riley, who redshirted this season, as the only quarterbacks on the roster entering the offseason.
Lamb said the Bears will sign a quarterback in the upcoming recruiting class, and he expects to sign at least 20 players in that class, which will focus heavily on running back, offensive line and defensive backs.
“It looks like those kids will get a lot of reps, which is what you want during spring practice,” said Lamb, who pointed out how important Riley’s redshirt year will be. “I think it’s big. Basically, we wanted to redshirt him and be with John every step of the way, even on the road trips. He was supposed to be with John and room with John and go eat pregame meals with John and do exactly what John was doing, and I think he did a great job with that.
“Now, he’s stepping into a different role, because he ain’t got John to turn to, so he’ll have a great opportunity this spring to prove what he can do.”
Lamb pointed to rising seniors Lee Bennett, a linebacker, and Alex Lakes at running back as players he expects to lead. But with 30 seniors leaving, many players will have that opportunity.
The Bears are coming off their third season with at least six wins. They finished 10-2 in 2013 in their first season before switching to the Southern Conference. Mercer 6-6 finished in 2014, 5-6 in 2015 and 6-5 this season. After winning one conference game in 2014, the Bears won two in 2015 and four this season.
“I think we’re going in the right direction,” Lamb said. “Obviously, we’d all like to be sitting here at 7-4 and maybe in the playoff field, but we’re on the outside looking in. But we did take a step in the right direction by winning four games in the conference.”
This story was originally published November 23, 2016 at 3:51 PM with the headline "Mercer heads into important offseason."