Five things to see in Mercer at NDSU football game – InForum

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There’s a certain investigative reporter mentality of your favorite Five Things columnist whenever North Dakota State gets a new opponent into the Fargodome. Who are these guys? What makes them tick?

In true reporter fashion, Five Things has been looking for a connection to this year’s freshman, Mercer University from Macon, Georgia. Five Things has a college friend who was once the city manager of Macon, Missouri, and one of the first things he did back in the 1980s was institute a city slogan: Macon Progress. Get it? As in progress?

The top five things that could be done this week are Jay January.

Sounds like a perfect name for North Dakota. Through a local media source, it came to my attention that Jay January was a guard at Minot High School until he moved to Texas to finish his prep career.

Januar played her college prom at Mercer from 2001-04 and graduated with a degree in Mass Communication/Media Studies. He is one of our scribes in the college curriculum. So therein lies any kind of connection, a great reach if there ever was one.

At least during the regular season, a communications professor at Colorado is an NDSU graduate and had Deion Sanders speak to his class, East Tennessee State’s radio play-by-play voice worked for a Fargo station and Murray State’s quarterbacks coach played at NDSU. Solid connections to Fargo.

Abilene Christian? Five things ran into nothing. Mercer? Not much. At least there’s a Division I FCS quarterfinal football game to be played, and things will be decided on the field.

Here are five things to watch in the Mercer at NDSU game:

Mercer has a long history, with the school being named after a Baptist leader named Jesse Mercer. He was one of the founders of the school in 1833 and was subsequently known, and still is, for his fine academics.

It’s just not long in football history.

The program started in 1892 but was dropped in 1917 due to World War I. It was later reinstated but fell again in 1941 due to World War II. In 2013 it was brought back to life.

NDSU football, meanwhile, wasn’t very good through the World Wars until the 1960s, when it established football prominence, giving the Bison a 60-year head start in tradition. It can make a difference this time of year.

Bison likes to run the ball. Mercer likes to stop the other team from running the ball. The Bears are very good at it, too, leading Division I FCS in rushing defense, giving up just 66.0 yards per game.

Not only does it lead the FCS, but it does so by a pretty good margin. Tennessee Tech is next with 82.9 yards per game.

The Bears’ stingy total includes giving up 189 yards at Alabama. It will make for an interesting first quarter for the Bison: will they even try to establish the run? Samford said to hell with it, passing for 378 and running for 68 in a 55-35 win over Mercer. Alabama passed for 319 yards.

NDSU has one of the most accurate passers in the FCS in quarterback Cam Miller.

There are a few more interesting twists in Mercer’s run defense: Most of the teams the Bears played weren’t exactly rushing the running backs during the season. Four opponents ranked 100th or worse out of 123 teams in rushing offense. Four others were 59th or worse.

Then again, the best rushing offense the Bears played — East Tennessee State, which finished 20th in the FCS stat — had just 13 yards rushing. Then again, the Buccaneers threw for 459 yards in a 37-31 Mercer win.

Five Things has some advice for those trying to dissect all those rushing defense stats: Wait until after the first quarter to make any kind of decision with NDSU. The Bison are 14th in the nation in rushing offense with 200.6 yards per carry. match.

The Southern Conference post-season awards voters didn’t need much convincing. Mercer defensive end Brayden Manley was named the league’s Defensive Player of the Year. Defensive end Andrew Zock was named Rookie of the Year.

Cornerback TJ Moore was one of 35 finalists for the Buck Buchanan Award along with Manley. Moore and free safety Myles Redding each lead FCS with seven interceptions. Mercer leads the FCS with 42 quarterback sacks.

“They have two guys with seven interceptions,” Bison head coach Tim Polasek said. “I respect their ability to pass, if you give them an inch, they’ll take it. Most impressively, they’re shooting 75 percent from the field on third down. We’re going to have to be on top offensively. I think ​​that this team will be ready to go and we will have to play our best football of the season.”

NDSU is 9-0 against the Southern Conference, though the gap narrowed this year. The Bison narrowly defeated East Tennessee 38-35 thanks to a rare onside kick recovery late in the game.

There were a few other close calls as well. The Bison needed a school-record 29 tackles for linebacker (and current NDSU defensive coordinator) Grant Olson to beat Wofford 14-7 in the quarterfinals in 2012. A week later, they got a touchdown run from quarterback Brock Jensen on fourth down for to beat Georgia Southern 23-20 in the semifinals.

A 27-9 win over Samford in the 2022 quarterfinals wasn’t exactly a thorough victory. In general, however, the difference in leagues between the Missouri Valley and the SoCon has been noticeable in December.

Jeff would like to dispel the notion that he was around when Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, but he’s in his third decade of reporting with Forum Communications. The son of a reporter and an English teacher and the brother of a reporter, Jeff has worked at the Jamestown Sun, the Bismarck Tribune and, since 1990, The Forum, covering North Dakota State athletics since 1995.
Jeff has covered all nine of NDSU’s Division I FCS national football titles and has written three books: “Horns Up,” “North Dakota Tough” and “Covid Kids.” He is a radio host on “The Golf Show with Jeff Kolpack” April through August.