Cameron Goggins returned an interception 38 yards for a score and the No. 21 Bears made a late goal-line stand with 35 seconds remaining to turn back the Lions’ second-half rally.<\/p>\n
Aug 29, 2026<\/p>\n
at<\/p>\n
11:33 pm ET<\/p>\n
\u2022<\/p>\n
1 min read<\/p>\n
MACON, Ga. (AP) Jaylen King threw for a touchdown and Cameron Goggins had an interception return for a touchdown and Mercer<\/a> held off East Texas A&M<\/a> 23-15 in a season opener on Saturday night.<\/p>\n The Bears enter the season ranked 21st in the Stats Perform FCS Top 25 poll.<\/p>\n Simon Zeidan opened the scoring with a 55-yard field goal to put Mercer up 3-0.<\/p>\n Before the end of the first, King threw a 12-yard touchdown to Jackson Kostmayer for a 10-0 lead. Zeidan added field goals of 21 and 33 yards to extend the lead to 16-0 with 30 seconds before halftime.<\/p>\n Fifteen seconds later, Eric Rodriguez threw a 38-yard pick-6 to Goggins for a 23-point lead.<\/p>\n The Lions got on the scoreboard when Rodriguez threw a 48-yard touchdown to Micah Simpson with 2:01 left in the third. They closed to within 23-15 when Quay Middlebrooks ended an 80-yard drive running into the end zone from the 9. Rodriguez ran it in for the two-point conversion.<\/p>\n East Texas A&M turned it over on downs with 35 seconds, when on 4th-and-goal at the Mercer 9, Rodriguez threw high over the head of wide open Jake Whitehead and the Bears killed the clock.<\/p>\n Simpson caught nine passes for 165 yards and a touchdown for the Lions.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n Sign up for Top 25 poll alerts here, visit the Top 25 here and see AP\u2019s full college football coverage here<\/p>\n \n Copyright 2026 STATS LLC and Associated Press. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Associated Press is strictly prohibited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cameron Goggins returned an interception 38 yards for a score and the No. 21 Bears made a late…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[261,21418,29169,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-420863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-college-football","tag-east-texas-am-lions","tag-mercer-bears","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}