CONWAY, Ark. – ACU head coach
Ken Collums' homecoming was ruined by his alma mater Saturday night as the Bears of Central Arkansas dominated the Wildcats, 42-14, in front of 9,427 fans at First Security Field at Estes Stadium.
The loss snaps ACU's two-game winning streak and drops the Wildcats to 2-2 overall and 2-1 in the Southland, while the Bears improve to 2-2 and 2-0. ACU will be in Beaumont next Saturday to take on Lamar in a game set for 7 p.m. at Provost Umphrey Stadium in a game that will be broadcast nationally on ESPN3.
Collums played at UCA from 1991-94 – leading the Bears to the NAIA Division I national championship as a freshman quarterback in 19991 – and coached there from 1995-97 and again from 2000-04 before joining the ACU staff as the offensive coordinator in 2005. But his first game as the head coach of the opposition at Estes Stadium couldn't have been less pleasant.
UCA jumped out to an 18-0 lead at the end of the first quarter on its way to a 32-0 lead at halftime and cruised home with its second straight blowout win after starting the season 0-2. The Bears didn't turn the ball over, converted 8 of 13 third-down plays into first downs, controlled the clock for almost 34 minutes and for 259 yards en route to the victory.
"It's never fun when you run into a team in a groove, and that's what happened (Saturday night)," Collums said. "Central Arkansas has a really good team, so the first thing you do after a game like that is tip your hat to them and congratulate them. We got outplayed and sometimes that happens in this game. We got exposed a little bit up front on the offensive line, and I was worried about that. I didn't expect our defense to be outplayed like it was, but we'll go back and look at the film and get it figured out. I still love our guys and this team, but we got what we deserved (Saturday night)."
The Bears – who are now 6-1-1 all-time against the Wildcats – never gave ACU a chance to breathe, taking the opening kickoff and moving 59 yards on five plays to a touchdown, polishing off the drive with a 2-point run by Hayden Hildebrand to make it 8-0. The Bears made their first big play of the game on the drive when a pass into the flat to Dominique Thomas from Hildebrand went for 49 yards on third-and-5 from the UCA 41.
The was the first of five straight scores that made it 32-0 in the first half before ACU got on the board. UCA had plays of 56 yards, 53 yards, 49 yards and 23 yards through the air as Hildebrand threw for 203 yards and two scores in the fist 30 minutes. The Bears scored first-half points on a 1-yard touchdown run by Thomas, a Jace Denker 27-yard field goal, a 53-yard touchdown pass from Hildebrand to Jaatavious Wilson ,a 23-yard pass from Hildebrand to Justin Dickey, and a 4-yard run by Blake Veasley.
ACU's only points of the first half came on a 10-yard touchdown pass from
Parker McKenzie to
Cody Ennis, cutting the UCA lead to 32-7 at halftime.
The Wildcats got the ball to start the third quarter and moved smartly from their own 22-yard line to the UCA 21-yard line before the drive ended when McKenzie's fourth-and-three pass for
Jonathan Epps fell incomplete. McKenzie completed a 36-yard pass to
Liam Flowers on the drive, but it couldn't help the Wildcats produce points.
After forcing a UCA punt, ACU took over on its own 2-yard line and on the first play saw
De'Andre Brown break out of the pack for a 32-yard run to the 34-yard line. But a personal foul penalty on the Wildcats pushed the ball back to the 19-yard line before McKenzie was sacked for a loss of nine yards on the next play. On the drive's third play, McKenzie rolled out right and threw an interception that Chris Chambers returned to the ACU 8-yard line.
The Wildcat defense limited the Bears to a 22-yard field goal by Denker as UCA upped its lead to 35-7. The Bears scored on the first play of the fourth quarter on a 13-yard touchdown run by Wilson, and ACU added the game's final points on a 3-yard touchdown pass from McKenzie to
Cedric Gilbert to make it 42-14 with 11:01 left in the game.
UCA finished with 469 yards of total offense to just 272 for the Wildcats, who went three-and-out on five of their 10 offensive possessions. McKenzie completed 16 of 26 passes for 157 yards and two touchdowns, while Brown carried the ball 13 times for 90 yards.
