Mercer’s challenge is carrying momentum over from Auburn to East Tennessee State

Mercer’s challenge is clear.

Take the effort it had in last week’s loss to Auburn with it to East Tennessee State on Saturday as it returns to Southern Conference play. The Bears are 1-2 overall and 0-1 in conference play, but they did push Auburn last week.

That was a one-score game in the fourth quarter before Auburn was able to put the game away.

“That’s the big challenge. One thing I was proud of, we came off a very tough and disappointing loss against Wofford last week, and then all of a sudden, you’re facing Auburn, so you don’t know how your team is going to react,” Mercer head coach Bobby Lamb said. “They came to work, and we call it ‘Sunday flush’ for a reason; we come over here on Sunday, and we lift weights, we meet, and then we have a practice, and we flush everything out and restart again. ... We talked about it a lot (Sunday) at our meeting, ‘We just played an SEC team. We’ve got to flush that out of our system because now it’s seven straight Southern Conference games, starting with East Tennessee State.’

“We’ve got to go on the road. We’re 0-1 in the conference right now, and we got to go on the road. We’ve got to change our mindset and move forward back into the Southern Conference, which I think they’ll do, I think we’ve got enough leadership on this team to handle that.”

Even with a 1-2 start, there are a lot of positives for the Bears.

Mercer's eight forced turnovers lead the conference and rank eighth in the FCS. And the Bears are 13-for-13 in the red zone with 10 touchdowns.

“I feel like we have a very special team, and the sky is the limit,” Mercer quarterback Kaelan Riley said. “I feel like we’re the best team in this conference, and settling for anything less would be unacceptable. We want to finish on top.”

Mercer is 4-1 coming off its past five losses, and it is 2-0 against East Tennessee State. The Buccaneers are also 1-2 overall and 0-1 in the conference this season, coming off a 31-25 loss to The Citadel.

“The conference is really difficult and really tough. East Tennessee just came off of a very difficult fourth-quarter loss to The Citadel,” Lamb said. “I say it all the time, all conference games are going to come down to the fourth quarter no matter who you’re playing. We also reminded our team that we’re still 1-2. We might be feeling good because we played good at Auburn, but we’re still 1-2 right now.

“We don’t have a whole lot a room to screw around with because we’ve got to continue to get on a roll. The only way to get on a roll is to play one game at a time, and that’s all we’ve got to look forward to this week.”

This story was originally published September 22, 2017 at 12:08 PM with the headline "Mercer’s challenge is carrying momentum over from Auburn to East Tennessee State."