Mercer defense takes up for rough offensive day, more than Rhode Island did, and advances the Bears to FCS quarterfinals
By Michael A. Lough
The Sports Report
centralgasports@gmail.com
There wasn’t much to complain about on the defensive side for Rhode Island or for Mercer.
The offenses were handled most of the day, but Mercer avoided key mistakes and came up with one or two more plays for a 17-10 win Saturday in the second round of the NCAA FCS playoffs before a small crowd at Five Star Stadium.
Rhode Island’s season ended at 11-3 while 11-2 Mercer plays on.
Barely.
“It’s a tough team to get points on,” Rhode Island head coach Jim Fleming said. “Still battled back in the fourth all the time.
“I can’t say anything more for the defense in terms of some of the heroic things that they did out there on the field.”
Mike Jacobs was in the same frame of mind.
“Our defense was fantastic all day,” he said. “I can’t say enough about how well our defense played. That’s a team that had 250-plus rushing yards last weekend. They had 49 today. Defensively, we certainly met the bell.”
Mercer will visit second-seeded North Dakota State, which trailed 17-3 before finally pulling away from 15th-seeded Abilene Christian 51-31. Kickoff is set for 3:30 p.m. on ABC.
URI leading rusher Malik Grant had 39 yards on 13 carries before leaving the game for good in the third quarter with an injury. Mercer recorded 22 yards in losses, with two sacks, but did give up 266 yards passing on 22 of 34 completions. The yards proved empty without points.
Rhode Island, meanwhile, couldn’t take advantage of Mercer’s worst passing day of the season, and for three quarters, one of its more subpar rushing efforts.
“We knew they were incredibly good against the run,” Fleming said. “We were unable to get some explosions in the run game. We had the pick-6, which changes things quite a bit.”
The battle all afternoon was up front, neither defense giving the other offense much to chirp about.
The Rams, though, had chances from the start, the defense frustrating the Bears by stiffening up after surrendering some yardage.
Mercer drove from its 24 to the Rams’ 34, then lost 16 yards on two plays and was pushed from field goal range.
Soon, the flow of the game changed to a game without a lot of flow, and the Rams with momentum, and then, not so much.
Shawn Harris caught a punt on the 14, with some mild right-arm action that inspired the Bears to pull up. Then he got his feet stable and took off down the right side for an 87-yard touchdown.
Which was then reviewed. Officials called an invalid fair catch, nullified the touchdown and put the ball on the Rams’ 14.
Further anguish was immediate, Hunter Helms underthrowing a route to the left on the first play, and Myles Redding stepping up for the interception and 25-yard touchdown for a 7-0 lead with 3:33 left in the first.
The pain didn’t linger and Rhode Island didn’t exacerbate the situation. The Rams went three and out, wasting a boost of 15 yards on a helmet-to-helmet call and decent field position.
The defense kept plugging, and the run game stuffed, Rhode Island’s offense went into a passing mode, and it worked. And then it happened.
Helms rolled right, patiently, Marquis Buchanan got open when two Bears ran into each other, and it was an easy 46-yard touchdown. But it was one that came back because of an ineligible receiver downfield. Three plays later, Rhode Island punted.
Another snakebite soon followed, when Mercer freshman quarterback Whitt Newbauer eyeballed his target from the snap. The Rams saw that, but Fredrick Mallay and Ayinde Johnson ran into each other, effectively preventing the other from getting an interception.
A sack for a 12-yard loss by Mallay on third down forced another Mercer punt, but a drop by an open Gabe Sloat on third and 4 from Mercer’s 43 sabotaged another Rams threat.
Photo: Mercer
Then it was time for optimism, confusion, and re-thinking things, almost with disastrous results.
Rhode Island started on its 35 with 2:29 left in the half, and rolled, mostly through the air, getting to the 1 with 24 seconds left. Wideout Timmy Smith took a shotgun snap and got nothing, then he was ruled to have spiked the ball – the snap didn’t appear to be cleanly handled, enough for a spike – with 6 seconds left.
Rhode Island lined up for a field goal, and re-thought it after Mercer called timeout. Helms returned to center for the third-down play, and his pass to Harris in the end zone was batted away. With two seconds left. Ty Groff hit a 17-yarder as time expired to pull the Rams within 7-3.
“I mean, you know, it wasn’t even no doubt in my mind that we were going to come back and get that one done,” Fleming said. “We didn’t execute well … we ended up kicking the field goal.”
Jacobs said it was the key to the game.
“It was a huge stop,” said Jacobs of the unsettled series after which he consulted with officials on the way to the locker room on the iffy spike. “I thought the ball had been fumbled. But to hold them to a field goal there as opposed to a touchdown, obviously it’s the difference in the game.”
Scoring was nice, but the Rams missed chances. They won the second-quarter field position game, but did almost nothing with it. Mercer started on its 6, 4, and 10, and Rhode Island on its 20, 35, and 35.
Jacobs was not happy.
“I was not real pleased with a couple aspects of the game at halftime and I got into them pretty good,” he said. “I don't know how pointed (remarks) were. They say you're supposed to coach on the verge of a rage, right? 1 might have crossed the line a little bit.”
He wanted more effort up front, especially on offense with a struggling young quarterback against an ears-pinned-back defense.
Rhode Island had 39 more yards of offense on two fewer plays in the defensive battle, yet trailed 7-3.
“It was great stuff on defense,” Fleming said. “But you know, those things that are gross or some penalties that were not necessary ….”
Any feeling of inevitability for something good to happen to the visitors finally became reality during a defensive slugfest in the third quarter. That’s when Helms dropped a strike to Buchanan for a 56-yard touchdown and the lead with 2:33 left in the third quarter, a lead that lasted a little more than three minutes.
The Rams were wounded by a pass interference call that put Mercer on URI’s 42. Dwayne McGee, the Southern Conference offensive player of the year, had been held in check, but broke off a 33-yarder to the 10.
“All the bad had already happened,” McGee said of his patience at being held mostly in check up to that point. The worst that can happen had already happened. All we knew was to come out there … and be aggressive.”
McGee, boosted mostly by two big runs, finished with 114 yards on 21 carries, taking over the top single-season mark at Mercer with 1,132 yards, passing Alex Lakes (1,107 in 2014).
On third and goal from the 8 two plays into the fourth quarter, Newbauer hit Adjatay Dabbs on the left side for a 4-yard touchdown, Dabbs easily winning the coverage matchup with linebacker Gabe Solomons at the 14:191 mark.
Rhode Island survived a shanked punt of 14 yards that put Mercer on the Rams’ 30, aided tremendously by a hold on a run that got to the 1. The Rams got the ball on the 2 and escaped danger, but punting, and managed only one first down in each of the final two possessions.
“All credit to the D-line,” linebacker Isaac Dowling said. “Them boys up front, they do their job consistently and continue to make plays.”
McGee exploded for 40 on a first down, but the defense came through again after first and goal on the 6, forcing a 24-yard field goal with 6:10 left.
It was time for Mercer’s defense – which held URI to 3 of 14 on third down - to come up big, which it did after a 34-yard pass from Helms to Gaines, moving to the Bears’ 40. A key error followed on third and 2 when Helms kept it, but went to the turf early for no gain.
The fourth-down pass was at Buchanan’s feet, and the Bears ran out the final 2:56.
“There’s a bunch we’ve gotta get better at,” Jacobs said. “There are no bad wins, I can promise you, but there’s prettier ones.”