Samford Stuns #7 Mercer, 55-35
Samford punches the seventh ranked team in the nation right in the mouth early on and uses a 42 point first half to beat Mercer. Oh then the Samford defense scored 14 points of their own in the second half. This is just a prime example of the complimentary football that this team was lacking and my goodness it showed up today.
Only half of the first quarter was played and Samford already had a 21-0 lead. Mercer’s first three drives resulted in a punt, a fumble, then an interception.
Last week against ETSU, Samford turned over the Bucs four times but scored zero points. Today the Samford offense capitalized on the Bears two early turnovers for touchdowns. Samford head coach Chris Hatcher was extremely pleased in that regard.
“We talked about that, there is not any magic formula to scoring. Today, I thought especially early in the game we were very efficient offensively. Then we ended up having a couple of long drives, the one at the end of the half was huge.”
Over the last few episodes of the State of the Bulldogs Podcast, we alluded to Samford’s inability to sustain long drives. Well in that drive Hatcher mentioned at the end of the first half, Samford went on a 15-play, 73 yard TD drive that took 5:53 off of the clock.
QB Quincy Crittendon finished 23-of-37 with 378 passing yards along with four touchdowns. Crittendon did have three interceptions on the day but was otherwise very efficient completing passes to nine different receivers. WR DJ Rias had his best game of the season finishing with 61 receiving yards and two touchdowns.
Crittendon was excited about the fast start on offense and his comfortability with the offense and his receivers.
“After the first touchdown, we felt pretty confident and the defense kept getting stops and turnovers. Everything just happened so fast. Starting fast is always good but starting that fast, we’ll take it.”
Well Samford definitely did start fast and the last time Samford scored six first half touchdowns was at Florida in 2021.
Crittendon talked about what work he and his guys have done in building rapport with so many pass catchers.
“That trust and confidence comes after practice when practice is over and I grab a few guys to the side then we run a few extra routes. We get some stuff that we might not have hit in practice so I think that is where the confidence comes from. I tell them all the time that I trust them so trust me.”
WRs Iaan Cousin and E. Jai Mason found the end zone once again. Cousin had 78 receiving yards and a TD. Meanwhile Mason had his third straight game with a TD while finishing with 41 yards.
RB Damonta Witherspoon found the end zone twice and finished with 99 total yards of his own. This was a well rounded effort, especially in the first half.
The Samford offense did their part and the Samford defense definitely did early on, especially in the first half. They forced five total turnovers and scored twice on their own. LB Gavin Morris returned a fumble for 55 yards after DE Xavier Nurse stripped Mercer QB DJ Smith.
Standout linebacker Noah Martin led the team in total tackles once again with 10 and had a pick-six of his own. LB Jaden Mosley had six total tackles and an interception also. Martin said postgame that the pick six was his first touchdown since his senior year of high school.
“Last time I scored a touchdown was high school. That was my third interception and that was my first ever pick six ever. I saw the route that was coming, I knew it was a new quarterback in. I was like okay they have been kind of hitting this route, so I saw a little whip route coming back and I was like alright oh here we go. I run, it was right there and I caught it. I had my head down and was thinking just score.”
The Samford defense finished with eight tackles for loss, three sacks and three interceptions. Chris Hatcher knew in the preseason that he thought this defense would be good and they took advantage of Mercer today.
“If you listened to me in the preseason camp, I said man, I think we’ve got a really good defense. Adam (Braithwaite) does a great job with those guys, they are bought into the scheme and they play with relentless effort. You know you are going to give some plays up as much as we blitz. We got tremendous pressure on the quarterback, forced him to make some bad plays, then we were there to recover a fumble and run it back. Then get a pick six there at the end then another big fumble at midfield.”
The postgame celebration was lively and this Samford team still has all of their goals in front of them. Auburn lost to Missouri, Alabama lost to Tennessee then UAB lost on the road to South Florida. Another weekend where Samford was one of the only to win their game in the state of Alabama.
Samford had a full effort on both sides of the ball. This is exactly what the doctor ordered for this team and the celebration from the players showed. Samford beat the number seven ranked team in the country and beat Hatcher’s hometown team as he is from Macon.
The boys from Homewood found their groove today and got their swagger back.
