Alright, one more stop should be good if the offense can keep doing what they've been doing this half.

2nd and 16 ... NO PROBLEM! TD AGGIES!

Thankfully came after the play was over so the 1st down counted. Better than being stuck with 2nd and 25.

That being said, we'd rather avoid the personal foul penalties altogether.

Alright, tie game. Great work on both sides of the ball. Now don't waste the comeback.

Looks like we're in FG range already. Lets at least tie this up here, but taking the lead would be better.

Well that was quick! Offense is cooking now.

Get another stop, defense.

Alright, got a stop and a good return so we're set up at midfield. Need to get at least 3 out of this.

Alright, back to a 10 point game. Now get a stop.

Seems like we could be set for a rebuilding year. Not the end of the world and hopefully it's just a one year thing.

Not the ideal start to the second half!

Well at least we get the ball to start the 2nd half. Hopefully we can do something with it.

It's likely a pure numbers thing. If you like your offense, going for it on 4th and short is likely to pay more dividends in the long run than kicking the FG will. There are definitely scenarios where you take the points (4th quarter where a field goal moves it from a 1 score to 2 score game or 2 score to 3 score).

While Mercer could obviously be overranked, I hesitate to draw conclusions from one game. If you just looked at our game against Portland St last year, you wouldn’t have thought we were a playoff team.

Seems like they’ve looked crappy on defense too, allowing 340 yards in 2 1/2 quarters.

Sounds like a team ready to transition to FBS.

In a vacuum, nothing wrong with getting handled by South Dakota St. But with all the talk about Sac St the past few months, they needed a better showing than this.

Makes a little more sense when I look at the map. You don't realize how far west the atlantic coast angles. So Alabama and Maine both being East Coach time would be kind of crazy.

Western Alabama is due south of Chicago, which is Central Time.

I would have bet a lot of money that Alabama was eastern time.

For sure. Didn't mean to make it seem like their football and basketball teams will fail. They certainly could be successful. It was more saying that they're better set up to make the transition than any other team is ridiculous.

James Madison made the playoffs 8 straight years from 14-21, won a national title and made two other title games (they were the only team from 2011-2019 to knock off NDST in the playoffs). Sam Houston St made the playoffs each year from 11-17, losing in the title game twice and making the semis three other times. They won the title in the 2021 spring season. Those two teams were set up to transition. Sac St is not those teams.

I forgot Mullin coached St. Johns. But as I was typing the Bibby thing, Ewing was definitely on my mind.

Man his statement is so stupid.

They're as prepared as any team in the country to move from FCS to FBS? What because of a little money and a good (FCS) recruiting class? That's crazy. You're not James Madison. You're not Sam Houston St.

They've performed extremely well in FCS in recent years? You had 3 good seasons with a coach who is no longer there. Prior to Taylor, the most wins Sac State had in an FCS football season was 7. If Taylor was still there you could make an argument that this success would continue. Maybe the new guy is legit. But he hasn't coached a game there yet. Oh, and they couldn't even make an FCS semifinal with Taylor. They went 1-3 in the playoffs, all at home, and made one QF.

Best recruiting class in the country? Sure in FCS. Not to mention that recruiting rankings are far from perfect and get more imprecise the further down you go.

Mike Bibby is their head coach. Cool. I know Deion Sanders is a success story but lets not act like a successful former player automatically makes a great coach and that it's anywhere close to a sure thing he's going to have success there. "We have an NBA star as our head basketball coach" is not a good justification for your football team to go to FBS. I can say the same thing about Shaq as the GM.