Bears preparing for complete Bulldogs team

Bobby Lamb knows a lot of the focus will be on The Citadel’s offense Thursday night in the Southern Conference opener for the two teams.

But Mercer’s football head coach and his players are not going to overlook the Bulldogs’ defense. The Bears saw just how good that group can be last year in a 21-19 loss to the Bulldogs.

Mercer managed just 235 yards and averaged only 2.9 yards per rush in that game, a year after another two-point loss to The Citadel.

“Their offense gets a lot of notoriety and rightly so because they do run the triple-option out of the double-slot package, but their defense was really the story last year,” Lamb said. “They held a lot of opponents down. We didn’t play very good on offense against them, but simply you’ve got to give them a lot of credit because of what they did to us.”

Lamb’s program enters its fourth season Thursday night and its third season in the Southern Conference. The Bears are 3-11 in conference play, and eight of those losses have come by single digits.

Two of the most difficult losses have come to The Citadel. In both games, Mercer had a chance to tie late but missed on a two-point conversion try.

“We’ve had two very good football games,” Lamb said. “Unfortunately for us, we’ve come up on the short end of the stick twice, and we’re anxious to get back out there and see what we can do with the 2016 football team.

“It’s definitely the way to kick the season off on Thursday night at 7 o’clock at Five Star Stadium. It’s going to be an electric atmosphere. I know our people are going to show up. Citadel will bring some folks from Charleston, and we're looking for a big game.”

Senior quarterback John Russ will make his 36th straight start for the program Thursday. He has thrown for 6,224 yards during his career but has yet to top 200 yards against The Citadel. He had 178 in 2014 and 130 in 2015.

“They attack. They want to stop the run,” Russ said of the Bulldogs. “Their linebackers attack, and they want to come down hill and make sure it’s really tough on you. And they play really fast and hard. They’re going to run to the ball. They’re not going to be loafing around out there. But they just attack and stop the run.”

And, of course, the Bulldogs’ offense is going to focus its attack on the run. The Citadel rolled up 507 yards against the Bears two years ago in a 28-26 win, and 493 of those came on the ground.

“It’s real difficult,” Mercer senior linebacker Tosin Aguebor said of the Bulldogs’ attack. “If you look the wrong way for one second, you can get turned around, and they’re heading to the goalpost. So you have to be really disciplined and do your assignment this week.”

This story was originally published August 29, 2016 at 3:32 PM with the headline "Bears preparing for complete Bulldogs team."