SoCon football preseason all-conference team, poll announced
soconsports.com
Southern Conference Preseason Poll
1. Mercer (6) - 60 pts
2. Chattanooga (2) - 50
3. Western Carolina (1) - 49
4. East Tennessee State - 43
5. Samford - 40
6. Furman - 36
7. Wofford - 19
8. The Citadel - 17
9. Virginia Military Institute - 10
Look at you go Mercer. Finally taking over SoCon where Georgia Southern left off.
en.wikipedia.org
The
Mercer Bears football program is the
intercollegiate football team of
Mercer University located in
Macon, Georgia, United States. The team competes in the
NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) and is a member of the
Southern Conference. The team plays its home games at the 10,200-seat
Five Star Stadium on the university's Macon campus.
Mercer's first football team was fielded in 1891, but the school did not consistently field teams until 1906. The sport was dropped in 1917 and 1918 during U.S. involvement in
World War I, but returned after the war. Until 1924, the Mercer Bears were known as the Mercer Baptists. After the 1941 season, with
the beginning of U.S. involvement in
World War II, Mercer dropped football again, but did not resume the sport after the war. The program was reinstated after a 72-year hiatus in 2013; the first game was on August 31, 2013, when Mercer defeated (40–37)
Reinhardt University in front of an overflow crowd of 12,172 at the Moye Complex.
[1]
Mercer football became nationally ranked in the FCS Coaches Poll in 2022. The Bears stayed within the FCS Coaches Poll rankings through the entire 2022 season, and reached as high as 11th in both the FCS Coaches Poll and FCS STATS Perform Poll.
The rankings streak continued through the first four games of 2023. Mercer fell outside of the rankings after losing to
Furman, but would eventually join back in after an upset win at
Western Carolina. Mercer finished 8–3 in 2023 and obtained a program-high eight wins against Division I opponents in their 2023 campaign, helping pave the way to the Bears' first-ever
FCS playoff berth.
bigskyconf.com
