FUBeAR
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Post by FUBeAR on Oct 21, 2024 11:32:46 GMT -5
Foosbear posted this on the Samford board, prior to the Mercer/Samford game (earlier in the week) I'll bet there's not a #1 ranking out of that entire group of rankings, now that Mercer has played a good team... Close … only about a dozen or now…it was 13 or 14. “Scoring Defense” took a (bigger) hit from Samford’s 2 Defensive Scores. The 3 game-opening super-short-field Samford possessions notwithstanding, Mercer’s Offense has directly given up 23 (3 TD’s/XP’s + 1 Safety) of the 101 points ‘charged’ against Mercer’s “Scoring Defense.” South Dakota’s #1 ranked (scholarship-only) “Scoring Defense” has given up 80 points…all scored on their Defense. (101-23 = 78. 78<80). SDSU’s #2 ranked (scholarship-only) “Scoring Defense” has given up 100 points…all scored on their Defense. (78<100). Mercer - selected NCAA FCS Statistics Rankings - as of 10/14 | as of 10/21- Scoring Defense - #1 | #3 (among scholarship Teams)- Total Defense - #1 (among scholarship Teams) | #1 (among scholarship Teams)- Rushing Defense - #1 (and no other Team is even close) | #1 (and no other Team is even close)- 3rd Down Conversion Defense -#1 (among scholarship Teams) | #1- Defensive TD’s - #1 | #1 (among scholarship Teams)- 1st Downs Defense - #1 (among scholarship Teams) | #1 (among scholarship Teams)- Passes Intercepted - #1 | #1- Team Passing Efficiency Defense - #1 | #1 (among scholarship Teams)- Red Zone Defense - #2 | #2- Team Sacks - #1 | #1- Team TFL’s - #6 | #3- Time of Possession - #4 (among scholarship Teams) | #8 (among scholarship Teams)- Turnover Margin - #3 | #5 (among scholarship Teams)- Turnovers Gained - #1 | #1- Completion % - #4 | #8- Net Punting - #4 | #7- Punt Returns - #3 | #3- Punt Return Defense - #5 | #21- QB1’s Completion % - #1 | #3- QB1’s Passer Rating - #3 | #5- Indiv. All-Purpose Yds - #9 | #8- Indiv. Combined Kick Return Yds -#3 | #2- Indiv. INT’s per game - #1 | #1 and #1 (2 Mercer Players tied for #1)- Indiv. Punt Return TD’s - #1 | #1- Indiv. Punt Returns - #1 | #1- Indiv. Punting - #9 | #13- Scoring Offense #18 | #21- Total Offense #28 | #30
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Post by wcugrad95 on Oct 21, 2024 12:55:19 GMT -5
Impressive list still, no doubt about it.
Maybe it is a total outlier, but just looking around at some stats that surprise me, WCU leads the league in TFL per the SOCON stats. Western has 56 and Mercer has 55. I then have to assume that WCU must be #2 in the entire country for that stat which is pretty incredible given what people outside of Cullowhee think about our defense.
And as previously mentioned, Mercer's schedule to-date:
Presbyterian (2-6 non-scholarship) Bethune Cookman (1-6) Chattanooga (4-3) Citadel (3-5) Wofford (3-4) Princeton (2-3) Samford (3-3)
Big win against Chattanooga - who is the only team they have played with a winning record.
Mercer has given up 250+ passing yards to 3 of the 4 SOCON teams they have played (including 336 to Citadel and 378 Saturday to Samford).
While still being very stout, the last 2 weeks have been the most rushing yards they have allowed (87 to Princeton and 73 to Samford). That is still scary-good, but shows they aren't quite totally shutting teams down like they were at the start. Samford actually had a better YPC average than Mercer did (2.3 for the Bulldogs and 1.2 for the Bears).
The big things WCU will need to avoid is turning the ball over (Mercer is very opportunistic on D), and we have to be at least competent on special teams (I don't care if we make big plays on our side, but we HAVE to keep Mercer from making big ones with returns or TOs or blocks).
But still being totally honest, we'll have to play really good, smart, limited mistake football to be in this game.
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Post by FLCATAMOUNT on Oct 21, 2024 13:36:44 GMT -5
It will be a tough game and nothing can be taken for granted. All those statistics do not matter. Mercer has not played a tough schedule and Western has played a somewhat tough schedule. The only stat that counts is the stat that is on the scoreboard on Saturday. I kind of wish that Samford had not cleaned their clock so thoroughly last Saturday. This will give Mercer more to play for so that they can say that the Samford game was a fluke. They will be confident that they will beat us. We need to play with a chip on our shoulder and with an attitude. Mercer is a tough place to play and they will give us everything we want and more. We can beat them, but we have to want it more than they do. I hope we do win and we have a good chance, but nothing is given.
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Post by The Cats on Oct 21, 2024 15:13:36 GMT -5
Presbyterian (2-6 non-scholarship) Bethune Cookman (1-6) Chattanooga (4-3) Citadel (3-5) Wofford (3-4) Princeton (2-3) Samford (3-3) That's a vicious schedule up to the point. Well-deserved of their defensive rankings, even with the blowout by Samford...
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Post by wcugrad95 on Oct 21, 2024 16:32:22 GMT -5
And FWIW in making a post over on AGS I looked at Mercer's 4 SOCON games. They easily beat 2 of the same teams we beat, and they slugged it out with the Mocs for a huge win. But in those 4 games, the Bears have given up 1103 passing yards and 5 TDs. That is over 275 yards and more than 1 TD per game (although 4 of the 5 came on Saturday). Wofford also only threw for 130, so if you take that out against UTC, Citadel, and Samford the Bears are giving up more than 300 yards through the air on average.
Flip side is they also have 9 INTs and I think 3 defensive TDs in those 4 games. They also get lots of sacks and TFLs, so we will need a gameplan to protect Cole. It will no doubt be tough sledding running the football, but we need to still run some and use some RPOs to take advantage of Mercer's over-pursuit. We'll need to test them deep at least 1 time per quarter. But most importantly we will need to do well with our short and mid-range passing game to stay on schedule and out of a bunch of 3rd and 10 (or worse) situations.
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Post by The Cats on Oct 21, 2024 18:11:49 GMT -5
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Post by The Cats on Oct 21, 2024 19:31:51 GMT -5
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FUBeAR
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Post by FUBeAR on Oct 21, 2024 19:56:52 GMT -5
Impressive list still, no doubt about it. Maybe it is a total outlier, but just looking around at some stats that surprise me, WCU leads the league in TFL per the SOCON stats. Western has 56 and Mercer has 55. I then have to assume that WCU must be #2 in the entire country for that stat which is pretty incredible given what people outside of Cullowhee think about our defense. And as previously mentioned, Mercer's schedule to-date: Presbyterian (2-6 non-scholarship) Bethune Cookman (1-6) Chattanooga (4-3) Citadel (3-5) Wofford (3-4) Princeton (2-3) Samford (3-3) Big win against Chattanooga - who is the only team they have played with a winning record. Mercer has given up 250+ passing yards to 3 of the 4 SOCON teams they have played (including 336 to Citadel and 378 Saturday to Samford). While still being very stout, the last 2 weeks have been the most rushing yards they have allowed (87 to Princeton and 73 to Samford). That is still scary-good, but shows they aren't quite totally shutting teams down like they were at the start. Samford actually had a better YPC average than Mercer did (2.3 for the Bulldogs and 1.2 for the Bears). The big things WCU will need to avoid is turning the ball over (Mercer is very opportunistic on D), and we have to be at least competent on special teams (I don't care if we make big plays on our side, but we HAVE to keep Mercer from making big ones with returns or TOs or blocks). But still being totally honest, we'll have to play really good, smart, limited mistake football to be in this game. Seemed like y’all wanted to do some schedule / results analysis… WCU |
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| FCS Opponent
| FCS Opponent Record
| Massey Rank | Sagarin Rank | Game Result
| Points For | Points Against | Common Opponent Difference
| Total Common Opponent Difference
| Best W / Worst L
| Campbell
| 2-5 | 68 | 70 | L
| 16
| 24
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| Elon
| 2-5 | 44 | 41 | W | 24 | 17 |
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| W | Montana
| 5-2 | 7 | 6 | L | 35 | 46 |
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| Wofford
| 3-4 | 50 | 69 | W | 21 | 17 | +4 |
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| Citadel
| 3-5 | 81 | 94 | W | 30 | 16 | +14 | +18 |
| Furman
| 2-5 | 63 | 73 | W | 52 | 20 |
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| Total / Average
| 17-26 (0.395) | 52 | 59 | 4-2 | 178 | 140 | +38 |
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| Avg/Avg
| 56 | McNeese-ish
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| MERCER |
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| | | | | | | | FCS Opponent | FCS Opponent Record | Massey Rank | Sagarin Rank | Game Result | Points For | Points Against | Common Opponent Difference | Total Common Opponent Difference | Best W / Worst L
| Presbyterian
| 2-6 | 125 | 116 | W | 63 | 10 |
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| Bethune-Cookman
| 1-6 | 123 | 117 | W | 31 | 2 |
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| Chattanooga
| 4-3 | 16 | 9 | W | 10 | 3 |
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| W | Citadel
| 3-5 | 81 | 94 | W | 38 | 21 | +17 |
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| Wofford
| 3-4 | 50 | 69 | W | 22 | 3 | +19 | +36 |
| Princeton
| 2-3 | 67 | 62 | W | 34 | 7 |
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| Samford
| 3-3 | 37 | 32 | L | 35 | 55 |
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| L | Total / Average
| 18-30 (0.375) | 71 | 71 | 6-1 | 233 | 101 | +132 |
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| Avg/Avg
| 71 | TN Tech-ish
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Post by wcu72 on Oct 21, 2024 20:13:39 GMT -5
It's too bad that Mercer doesn't have a message board where FUBeAR can post his garbage about Mercer. Oh yeah, they do have a board, just no one, and I mean NO ONE posts there.
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Post by wcugrad95 on Oct 21, 2024 20:57:46 GMT -5
First, it doesn't bother me that FUBeAR comes on the other boards to talk about his teams or the games. I go on other team's sites to talk about the games and/or sometimes to provide info about the Cats (or sometimes to try and defend us). My look at Mercer's schedule and breakdown of some of the stats wasn't trying to suggest WCU has run through some kind of crazy gauntlet. Our toughest stretch is coming up in 4 of the 5 SOCON games we have left. That being said,no doubt our games against NC State and Montana on the road trump Mercer's toughest 2 opponents in Samford and Chattanooga to date. And even this analysis shows that in relative terms (not counting State) our FCS-level games have been on average tougher than Mercer's.
The point of calling out the schedule is to show that could be at least part of why Mercer had such incredible defensive stats through the first 6 games. Had we not crapped the bed against Campbell and simply pulled that game out, if we were 5-2 this very well might have been a showdown of 2 top-15 teams. As it is, at least according to STATS it is a showdown of 2 top-25 ones. So should be a good one.
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