Al Cobb leads VMI to road win over Mercer

In most football games, third-down situations favor the defense.

But when VMI was forced to third down Saturday at Five Star Stadium, it had the Mercer Bears right where it wanted them.

The Keydets converted 17-of-19 third-down tries, including several in pivotal situations, to pull out a 28-21 win. The Bears drop to 3-4 overall and 0-3 in Southern Conference play, with those three losses coming by a combined 11 points.

Seven of Mercer's nine Southern Conference losses since joining the conference last year have been by single digits.

"That's absurd," Mercer head coach Bobby Lamb said of the Keydets' third-down conversion rate. "You've gotta get them off the field. (It's) very frustrating."

Lamb talked highly about VMI quarterback Al Cobb during the week, and the sophomore certainly lived up to that praise. He completed 28-of-40 passes for 391 yards and two touchdowns, while Aaron Sanders did most of the damage on the receiving end with 16 catches for 218 yards.

The Keydets scored on their first four drives and led 28-7 in the second quarter. VMI finished with 567 yards of total offense on 84 plays as it improved to 2-6 overall and 1-3 in conference play.

Mercer had 53 plays for 356 yards.

"They've got a really nice set of receivers, a big offensive line, and Al Cobb is as good as advertised," Lamb said. "I'm really more impressed with him in person. He can make the throws down the field.

"At the end of the day, we didn't play good enough on defense, and we didn't play good enough on offense to win the game."

Trailing by 21 points, Mercer got a 37-yard touchdown run from Alex Lakes with 1:04 left in the first half to get some momentum. The Bears then scored on their first drive of the second half as John Russ hit Chandler Curtis for a 2-yard scoring pass to pull within seven at 28-21 midway through the third quarter.

But the Bears' offense couldn't keep that momentum going, despite the defense coming up with three interceptions in the second half.

"I told them at halftime that we were going to take the ball and run down the field and go right down the field, and we were going to score and make it 28-21, and the defense would cause a stop, and we did, we made it 28-21," Lamb said. "We're in the game. The defense comes up with big stops in the second half, and we just couldn't get anything going on offense."

VMI had four turnovers total, and all of them came in the red zone, while its final drive of the first half ended with an incompletion in the end zone on a nice pass breakup by Mercer's Alex Avant. The Keydets didn't punt until late in the fourth quarter.

After that punt, Mercer took over at its 12 with 4:32 left and got to the Keydets' 25, but Avery Ward was stopped short on fourth-and-10 after catching a pass from Russ. That sealed the Keydets' win.

"It's not what we hoped for, obviously," linebacker Tyler Ward said of the Bears' defensive struggles on third down. "It's frustrating, but we realize we have to play a new set of downs, and we want to get off the field and give the ball to our offense. That's our main goal as a defense, but we didn't get that done (Saturday)."

The highlight for the Bears' day had to be the return of Curtis, who had not played since suffering an ankle injury in the opener. The sophomore had seven catches for 109 yards.

"For me, it feels amazing, just seeing the energy I can give to the guys even when I'm not on the field. It feels even better to be on the field with them in action," Curtis said of his return. "(The defenses) have to worry about how tough it is to stop me and the whole team when everybody is healthy."

The Bears hit the road this week to play The Citadel, which is tied for first place in the conference with Chattanooga at 4-0. The Bulldogs are 5-2 overall and riding a three-game winning streak.

"In this league, you come back (Sunday) and try to fix what we didn't do well (Saturday), and all of the sudden, we're playing a triple-option team," Lamb said. "It's week to week. We've got to come back in here (Sunday); we've got a small window of opportunity to coach them up and get better at what we didn't do (Saturday).

"And then again, we have to turn our attention to the triple-option because it's so hard to defend."

This story was originally published October 24, 2015 at 7:30 PM.