By Michael A. Lough
The Sports Report
centralgasports@gmail.com

          Drew Cronic prepared the audience that he wasn’t going to be a great speaker, and that it would here some familiar stories.

Cronic in video
0-3:25 – General comments
3:30- 8:00 – Mercer coaching staff, player retention, transfers
8:25-12:50 - Mercer players, local connections
13:00-18:30 – Job, goals, standards, academics, delivering a ‘great experience’
18:30-22:30 - Love, compete, believe
22:30-23:25 – Get to, not have to; no fear of failure
23:25-24:20 - Program’s direction, game atmosphere
Questions and answers
24:20 - The Mississippi game, targeting rules, realignment, NIL, finances, general

          But the fresh material for the Mercer head coach at the Macon Touchdown Club’s first meeting of the year Monday was about the steady progress the program has made since the arrival of Cronic and Co.

          The Bears are 2-1 after last week’s 48-22 win over Morehead State in the home opener.

          Mercer is No. 21 in the American Football Coaches Association and No. 20 in the StatsPerform poll.

          The Bears have made consistent steps forward under Cronic.

          “It’s been an interesting three and a half years,” he said. “We came in, started trying to fix the program, trying to get the program to become a championship program.

          “We weathered a pandemic right out of the gates. We’ve been one play away  the last two years of being a playoff team, literally one play away from a conference championship, being a playoff team.”

          Mercer is 20-10 against FCS opponents under Cronic, and 16-8 in the Southern Conference. In the last four seasons, there have been four different champions: Samford, ETSU, VMI, and Wofford. ETSU, Wofford, and Furman shared it in 2018 with 6-2 records.

Four weeks worth of Macon Touchdown Club players of the week

          “There’s a lot of parity in the Southern Conference,” Cronic said. “It’s tough to win week in and week out.”

          Cronic had to find a little humor in the fact three Bears were flagged for targeting, and thus ejected, one for the rest of the game and two for the first half of next week’s Southern Conference opener against No. 8/7 Furman.

          “I’ve never seen three targeting penalties in a single game,” he said. “So maybe hopefully we’re physical, but we’ve got to clean up our tackling a little bit.”

          Cronic believes the opening win of the season against a team with a new coach and off some rough years will grow in stature.

          “I think we’ll find as the year goes on, that was a quality win,”  he said of the 17-7 win over North Alabama. That’s a team with a new coach, hadn’t had success. Next week, they turn around and beat a team in our league, up at UT-C, Chattanooga.”

          For other reasons, it’s a game Cronic won’t soon forget.

          “It was 102 degrees in Montgomery that day,” “We were playing on turf. That thing on the field said it was 125.

          “Hottest I’ve ever been in a football game in my life.”

          A week later, Mississippi unloaded. 73-7.

          “Got kicked in the gut a little bit,” he said. “Ol’ Lane (Kiffin), he threw it around a little bit, kept throwing it around on us. We’ve got to defend a little better, got to score some points. We had a rough day.”

          But it was a learning day.

          “We did not play well, and certainly that’s magnified by what we’re playing against, especially on offense,” he said. “The main thing is you want to find ways to improve. When we do things right, we gave ourselves a chance to be successful. Against anybody.

          “When you don’t do it right and play great layers, it gets magnified.”

          The Bears kept battling despite the massive margin.

          “The kids played hard the whole game. They didn’t play good the whole game, but I appreciated them that they played hard.”

          And while FCS teams don’t have the depth of talent as FBS and Power 5s, they do have several players of FBS and Power 5 talent.

          “You gotta hold up,” he said. “You gotta do it right.”

          Cronic is proud of Mercer’s unusual stability the past few years, on the staff and in the locker room.

          “Out of our top 44 players last year, it was two kids that went to the portal,” he said. “Other than that, we didn’t lose a single kid. That is very unusual in today’s world.”

          As is staff retention.

          “We’ve not had a single coach leave in the last two years,” he said, noting four assistants had chances for steps up in one form or fashion, two at FBS schools as coordinators, one as a Division II head coach, and one as an FCS coordinator. “They’ve all stayed, and that means a lot to me. It means we have a great culture.”

          Cronic reminded the crowd of his connections to Macon, some of whom were on hand, as fathers to current Mercer players Travion Solomon (Northeast’s Jeremy Wiggins) and Scooter Risper (Westside’s Spoon Risper).

          He played at East Coweta against Risper, who graduated from Upson-Lee. And he coached as an assistant at Furman against Wiggins, a standout App State.

          “That dude was good,” Cronic said. “He was playing safety back there on three national championship teams. He was a dang ballplayer.

          “I may put him in a uniform next weekend. I’ll get him oxygen after one series.”