Mercer turns its focus to Auburn after another tough conference loss

Bobby Lamb and the Mercer Bears have been in this situation before.

Many times, in fact.

Mercer is coming off a one-point loss to Wofford in its Southern Conference opener last week. The Bears face an even tougher test Saturday when they travel to Auburn for their first game against an SEC program.

“It was a difficult loss. Looking back at the game, we had so many opportunities to win the game,” Lamb said. “Disappointed that we didn’t win it. A lot of good things came out of the game, and we’ll build on that.”

The Bears (1-1) have suffered 16 losses in conference play since they joined the Southern Conference in 2014. Ten of those losses have come by single digits.

“We’ve just got to get better, and that’s the only thing you can do is learn from the mistakes and try to get better at it,” Lamb said. “Obviously, Wofford’s got a great program, and they certainly know how to finish games. I thought for three quarters we played extremely well. I thought our offensive staff and our defensive staff had a great game plan going in.”

The loss marked the third straight year Mercer has lost its conference opener by a single point, and their first game in conference play in 2014 was a five-point loss to Furman.

“It comes down to execution. You’ve got to execute, and we weren’t able to execute in certain situations,” Lamb said. “We’ve got to do a better job of putting our guys those situations in practice, but I think they will learn from that and grow and be a better football team down the road.”

This story was originally published September 14, 2017 at 1:59 PM with the headline "Mercer turns its focus to Auburn after another tough conference loss."