Congratulations, Mercer... Now Everyone Wants to Beat You

The team picked to win the 2026 SoCon crown is a program that has claimed each of the previous two SoCon gridiron titles, as Mercer is the preseason coaches pick to win the 2026 Southern Conference football crown it was announced by the league office at the league’s annual football media day Tuesday at Hotel Hartness. The Bears picked up a total of 76 points and six first-place votes in the poll. Mercer also enters the 2026 season under the direction of a new head coach, as the Joel Taylor era is set to commence this fall in Macon.

The poll was conducted by the nine-coach panel, with no coach able to vote for his own team.

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Over the past five seasons, the Bears have won 49 games, including a 37-11 mark in league play since the start of the 2020-21 season. The Bears have a 21-3 mark over the past three seasons in league play, and have made three-straight FCS Playoff appearances, and will enter the campaign with a string of 12-straight league wins, posting a perfect 8-0 league record a year ago.

Mercer wideout Brayden Smith is tabbed as the SoCon’s preseason Offensive Player of the Year, as he completed the 2025 campaign with a team-leading 60 catches for 712 yards and seven scores, averaging 11.9 yards-per-catch.

Fresh off an 11-win season and OVC title in its final season of its 75-year membership, Tennessee Tech was picked to finish second in its new conference. The Golden Eagles received three first-place votes and acquired 70 points, respectively. Like Mercer, Tennessee Tech was a playoff qualifier last season. As a result of the addition of Tennessee Tech, it will mean that the 10-team league will continue with an eight-game league slate, with each team avoiding one of its normal conference foes this fall, preventing a true round-robin schedule.

East Tennessee State, which won its last four games and was one of the hottest teams in the SoCon to end the season, was picked third, receiving one first-place vote. The Bucs totaled 61 points in the poll. ETSU welcomes 11 starters back off that team that went 7-5 last season, getting a signature late-season, 52-35, win at No. 25 Western Carolina in the Blue Ridge Border Battle.

Western Carolina, which came within a 33-yard missed field goal of winning its first-ever league title since joining the SoCon in 1976, was picked fourth, amassing 58 points. The Catamounts will be under the direction of sixth-year head coach Kerwin Bell, who will look to lead the Catamounts to their first playoff appearance since making it all the way to the national title game in 1983, will have to do so without star quarterback Taron Dickens, who has moved up to the FBS level through the transfer portal to Northern Illinois. Lamont Thomas, a transfer from N.C. State, is the odds-on favorite to replace Dickens under center this fall in Cullowhee. The Catamounts have put together back-to-back seven-win seasons under head coach Kerwin Bell, knocking at the door of the postseason each of the past couple of campaigns.

Chattanooga enters year eight under head coach Rusty Wright, as the Mocs look to turn around what was a 5-7 campaign a year ago after being the No. 2 preseason pick by the league’s head coaches at the 2025 SoCon Football Media outing. The Mocs will be looking to get back to the FCS postseason for a second time under Wright, which broke through to make the FCS postseason three years ago, winning eight games along the way. Chattanooga is picked to finish fifth in the 2026 preseason coaches poll, totaling 48 points.

Fifteen-time SoCon champion Furman was picked sixth, as the Paladins picked up 46 points and one first-place vote in the 2026 preseason SoCon coaches' poll. The Paladins are coming off a 6-6, 4-4 season under Clay Hendrix, who heads into his 10^th season at the helm of the Furman football program, and he will have the league’s top defensive player, defensive end Joshua Stoneking, who was voted preseason SoCon Defensive Player of the Year coming off a season in which he led the country in both sacks (14.5) and tackles-for-loss (23.0). Wofford, which returns the most collective starters (13) on both sides of the football entering the 2026 season, was picked seventh. The Terriers finished 6-6 a year ago, including a 5-3 mark in SoCon play and in a tie for third, marking Wofford's best finish since winning the SoCon title back in 2019. The Terriers finished with a total of 36 points.

John Grass is one of the three new head coaches in the SoCon this fall, as he takes over a Samford program picked to finish eighth this fall following what was a dismal 1-11 campaign, including a 1-7 league mark to place eighth in the nine-team SoCon last season. The Bulldogs finished with 23 points in the preseason poll.

The 1-11 mark for Samford in 2025 marked the worst record to end a season since the first season the program was brought back after a nine-year hiatus (1974-83), as the Bulldogs finished with just one win (1-7) under Kim Alsop. In Chris Hatcher's final three seasons as the head coach, he systematically tore down everything he'd worked so hard to build by completely selling out to the portal because he hit all the right buttons by doing that very thing in the offseason following the 2021 campaign.

Despite hitting it exactly right in 2022, that same philosophy would fail in three-straight seasons, as Hatcher's final three seasons as the Bulldogs would produce as many wins (11) as the Bulldogs' breakthrough season as a SoCon member in 2022. Samford went 11-23 in Hatcher's final three seasons as the head coach.

The Citadel is one of two teams in the league returning a starting quarterback, as first-team All-SoCon preseason pick Quentin Hayes will now have complete control of the Bulldogs’ high-octane ground attack in his second year in the program. The Citadel head coach Maurice Drayton heads into his fourth season at the helm, having posted a 9-26 overall mark in three previous campaigns. The Bulldogs have their most talented roster-to-date under Drayton, and he will have the opportunity to enjoy his best year yet at the helm of his alma mater. Despite having the best quarterback in the preseason, according to the league’s head coaches, the Bulldogs were picked to finish ninth in the 10-team league, finishing with a total of 22 points. Hayes led the Bulldogs with 682 rushing yards and seven TDs on 153 attempts (4.5 YPC) last fall.

VMI rounds out the 2026 preseason poll, selected to finish last with 10 points in the coaches’ poll. The Keydets will be under the direction of head coach Ashley Ingram, who comes over after having posted a successful 16-6 record in two seasons as the head coach at Carson-Newman. He will look to help VMI improve on a 1-11 mark of a year ago, which included an 0-11 record against NCAA Division I foes.

Southern Conference football will kick off its 2026 season on Thursday, August 27, with a pair of games, as Chattanooga will be on the road to face West Georgia, while Furman will be at home to host NCAA Division II Anderson. Both games are slated to kickoff at 7 p.m. EST. The complete preseason coaches’ poll is listed below.