Mercer Bears to Resume Dormant Football Program; Resumption of Gridiron Series with Georgia Bulldogs to Follow?
by T Kyle King on Nov 19, 2010 12:15 AM EST
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PrintA lengthy church council meeting on Thursday evening kept me from getting home until it was almost halftime of the Alabama-Georgia State game, but I was pleased to learn upon my return that Mercer reportedly will announce the revival of its football program on Friday. (The hat tip on that datum goes to MaconDawg.)
This is splendid news for fans of the Georgia Bulldogs. We have a long history with the Macon institution, dating back literally to the inception of Red and Black football: Mercer initially organized a football team for the purpose of providing Georgia with its first opponent. The future Bulldogs inaugurated the Athens football program against the Baptists. Mercer also served as the first opponent for the eventual Yellow Jackets, although the Bears’ 1892 meetings with the Peach State’s two present-day Division I-A teams ended quite differently, with a 50-0 loss to Georgia but a 12-6 win over Georgia Tech.
Wally Butts, the second-winningest head coach in Bulldog football history, was a Mercer University alumnus, and the Bulldogs faced the Bears 22 times between the inception of both gridiron programs in 1892 and the discontinuation of Mercer football during the Second World War. Georgia holds a 22-0 series lead, with only four of the Red and Black’s wins coming by margins of a touchdown or less. In the most recent series meeting in 1941, Coach Butts guided the Orange Bowl-bound Bulldogs to an 81-0 victory in the season-opener in Macon.
Since taking over as athletic director, Greg McGarity has made clear his intention to increase the number of home games between the hedges and schedule less challenging non-conference opponents. That almost certainly means the Bulldogs will take on one Division I-AA squad each autumn, so the resumption of the series with Mercer would be a beneficial move for both programs. The ‘Dawgs would get a win, the Bears would get a paycheck, everyone would be pleased to see the money remain within the state, and a small yet significant sliver of the Red and Black’s football heritage would cease being an historical footnote in sepia tones and become instead a present-day reality in living color.
This is good news. I wish the Bears well on the gridiron, and I hope I may look forward to seeing Mercer take the field in Sanford Stadium a few short seasons hence.
Go ‘Dawgs!
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It would be great to see Georgia on the field once again playing Mercer.
On the rare occasion that the Dawgs play the Bears in basketball (which is the only sport in which I’ve witnessed Georgia and Mercer compete), I always get the sense of being connected to history in a very special way, and I think that would be great to experience in Sanford Stadium.
Georgia has more historical ties to Mercer than any other school in the Peach State (our first game and Wally Butts being two that Kyle mentioned), and if the Bears are re-starting their football program, we should absolutely play them Between the Hedges (again).
I think the NCAA rules say that you can’t count a victory against a I-AA team towards bowl qualification unless you play that team no more than once every 4 years, right? So, we could schedule the following annual rotation:
Year 1: Mercer
Year 2: Georgia Southern
Year 3: Kansas Kennesaw State
Year 4: Some other I-AA team (not from Georgia)
Rinse and repeat.
I'm 100 per cent on board for that, vineyarddawg, . . .
. . . and I’ll even be willing to make Georgia State our “Year 4” team, as soon as Bill Curry retires. As long as he’s there, though, the Panthers can bite a hog in the hindquarters.
For what it’s worth, Georgia and Mercer continue to play regularly in baseball. This year, the Bulldogs face the Bears in Macon on March 8 and in Athens on May 10.
Go 'Dawgs!
And basketball.
Coach Fox’s team will visit Mercer’s University Center on December 23. The “UC” replaced Porter Gym as the home of the Bears, with the latter being the best college basketball venue I’ve ever seen. It was the size of a high school gym and roughly 400 years old. The officials actually had to stop the game at one point because the crowd noise was shaking the baskets. Those Baptists can get pretty raucous.
by MaconDawg on Nov 19, 2010 9:43 AM EST via mobile up reply actions
Both Ga State & Southern play in 12 team conferences.
I assume that it means those conferences are “full”. It would be neat if these 4 teams could play in the same conference and have a network of in-state rivalries between them. I had to look up the information on the Colonial Athletic Association and Southern Conference, so I’m not familiar enough with FCS football to know what conference Mercer and Kennessaw state could land in.
According to Wikipedia
which admittedly is not always the best source:
On November 19, 2010, Mercer announced its plans to return to collegiate football in the Fall of 2013. Mercer plans to join the Pioneer Football League.
However, Wiki is actually correct according to Mercer’s website.
I can bake like a demon.
The Pioneer does not appear to be a permanent destination.
It includes (I swear I’m not making this up) Butler, Valparaiso and the University of San Diego.
While no one here will be presumptuous enough to say it, I think the near term goal would be a conference like the colonial or SoCon. The Big South Conference also makes sense because it includes several school with whom Mercer has ties in other sports (Gardner-Webb and Winthrop among them).
by MaconDawg on Nov 19, 2010 3:50 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
Well I'm rethinking
According to the news release –
The Pioneer League is one of three conferences – the others being the Ivy League and the Patriot League – composed of institutions fielding non-scholarship football teams.
So if Mercer is trying to avoid giving scholarships to football players, they only have the 3 choices. We can all guess who’s part of the Ivy League (Harvard Yale etc), and the Patriot league is made up entirely of schools from the frozen yankee wasteland tundra So having easily eliminated both of those leagues, Mercer is left with the Pioneer league who at least includes Jacksonville State and Morehead State in FL & KY respectively.
It may still be a stop on their way to having football players on scholarship – only time will tell.
I can bake like a demon.
I think you've hit on the ultimate goal.
But the Pioneer makes sense in the short term because it allows the school to float a trial balloon without a significant investment. It’s also worth noting that given Mercer’s tuition, it would likely take decades to accumulate the backing for a full D1 compliment of 85 scholarships. At this point, I’d just be satisfied if the Bears carried their recent basketball rivalry with Harvard over to the gridiron and upset Tech (assuming we can get them to play us). On another note, this referring to “us” in reference to football and a school other than the University of Georgia feels very strange.
by MaconDawg on Nov 19, 2010 4:22 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
When you have tangible ties to a program that is 0-22 all-time against Georgia, . . .
. . . you get a free pass on referring to that team as “us.”
Go 'Dawgs!
Technically
I have tangible ties to the University of Tulsa (so says that degree in my office) – and I just can’t refer to them as “us” in any sport – ever. Mercer, with whom I have less tangible ties (I was only enrolled 1 quarter, and probably actually attended class for only about the first 1/2) I could actually refer to as “us.” How strange.
I can bake like a demon.
Thank you... good luck with yours.
How has that new intra-city rivalry been working out for you?
by vineyarddawg on Nov 19, 2010 11:33 AM EST up reply actions
Yeah, Georgia has always treated Mercer in football like ....
…. Florida treats us now. :(
It's a gas, gas, gas.
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