THIBODAUX, La. – Lorran Fonseca kicked a school-record five field goals Saturday afternoon and Nicholls withstood a fourth-quarter flurry by ACU to knock off the Wildcats, 29-20, at Manning Stadium.
The loss drops the Wildcats to 2-5 overall and 2-3 in the Southland Conference, while the 23
rd-ranked Colonels improve to 5-2 and 4-1.
ACU trailed 26-13 in the fourth quarter before the Wildcat offense – which ran off 81 plays for 393 yards on the day – got cranked up. First
Dallas Sealey (30 of 48 for 323 yards and two touchdowns) hit
Josh Fink for 30 yards and then
Justin Miller for 11 more to move the ball to the Nicholls 31.
Later in the drive he hit
Troy Grant for 15 yards to the Nicholls 2-yard line to set up first and goal with about 10 minutes to play. After three runs lost three yards, the Wildcats faced fourth-and-goal from the 5-yard line. On fourth down, Sealey swung the ball out to the right where
Tracy James caught the ball and bulled his way into the end zone to cut the Nicholls lead to 26-20 with 8:49 left to play.
But Nicholls answered with a clutch drive that covered 42 yards, saw the Colonels convert a huge third-and-six play on a 20-yard reception by Dai'jean Dixon and was aided by a roughing the passer penalty. After a holding penalty pushed the Colonels back to the ACU 27 and Chase Fourcade threw an incomplete pass on third down, Fonseca came on and drilled a 44-yard field goal – his fifth field goal of the day – with 6:08 left to push the Nicholls lead to 29-20.
On ACU's ensuing drive, Sealey hit
Trevor Crain for 21 yards on the first play before going back to Fink for 13,
Chase Cokley for 10, Groy Grant for 11 and James for eight more, moving the ball to the Nicholls 20-yard line with 2:11 left in the game. But ACU had to burn its final two timeouts of the game before a fourth-and-1 play, and when the Wildcats finally did run the play, Hezekiah White stormed through the offensive line and dropped James for a loss of four yards, turning the ball back over to his offense and essentially ending the game.
James carried the ball 13 times for 83 yards and caught four passes for 36 yards, while
De'Andre Brown had 32 yards on the ground and 73 more receiving as the two ACU running backs combined for 224 yards of total offense.
The ACU defense played well again as the Wildcats limited the Colonels to just 308 yards of total offense, including just 140 in the second half.
PLAYS THAT MATTERED
• 1Q – On ACU's opening drive of the game,
Tracy James ripped of a 48-yard run – ACU's longest of the season and only the second run of the season longer than 20 yards – to give the Wildcats a first down at the Nicholls 30-yard line.
• 1Q – On third-and-14 from the Nicholls,
Dallas Sealey hit
De'Andre Brown on a swing pass into the right flat and the senior running back from Lewisville did the rest on his finest play of the 2017 season. Brown made a couple of would-be tacklers miss and carried three Colonels into the end zone to give ACU a 7-0 lead just 1:35 into the game.
• 1Q – On ACU's second possession,
Simon Laryea suffered his third blocked punt of the season and it was recovered in the end zone by Adrian Richardson to tie the game at 7-7 with 10:03 left in the first quarter.
• 2Q – Early in the quarter, Nicholls had the ball third-and-7 at the ACU 10 when Nicholls QB Chase Fourcade tried to hit Devin Edinburgh inside the 5-yard line. But ACU LB
Royce Moore broke up the pass, forcing the Colonels to settle for a 27-yard field goal from Lorran Fonseca, giving the Colonels a 10-7 lead with 12:49 left in the first half.
• 2Q – Trailing 13-7 and facing third-and-15, Sealey hit
Troy Grant for 16 yards and a first down down to the Nicholls 24-yard line, keeping the Wildcats' drive alive.
• 2Q –
Nik Grau cut the Nicholls lead to 13-10 with 3:34 left in the first half with a 36-yard field goal.
• 2Q – After the teams exchanged punts late in the first half, Nicholls took over on its own 34 and saw Fourcade quickly complete three straight passes good for 15, 13 and 17 yards, respectively, to move the ball to the ACU 19-yard line. After an incompletion, he hit Dontrel Taylor for 15 yards to the ACU 4-yard line.
• 2Q – Two plays after the completion to Taylor, the Colonels' sophomore running back ended the drive with a 2-yard touchdown run with 26 seconds left in the first half to give the Colonels a 20-10 halftime advantage.
• 3Q – On fourth-and-2 late in the quarter,
Tracy James plunged up the middle and got the first down with a 2-yard run, keeping alive a drive that would end on a 22-yard field goal by
Nik Grau that pulled ACU to within 23-13 with 32 seconds left in the quarter.
• 4Q – On fourth-and-goal at the 3-yard line,
Dallas Sealey hit
Tracy James with a swing pass and he bulled his way into the end zone to cut the Nicholls lead to 26-20 with 8:49 to play.
• 4Q – On third-and-6 from his own 35, Nicholls QB Chase Fourcade hit Dia'Jean Dixon for 20 yards and a first down to the ACU 45. That led to the fifth field goal of the game from Lorran Fonseca – a 44-yarder – to push the lead to 29-20 with 6:01 left in the game.
• 4Q – With the game on the line, James was stopped on fourth-and-1 from the Nicholls 20 as Hezekiah White burst through the line to drop him for a four-yard loss, essentially ending the game.
THREE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW
• The Wildcats ran 81 plays Saturday night in the loss, the second time they've run as many as 80 plays in a game with the 82 plays against Houston Baptist on Sept. 16 being the high-water mark for the season.
•
Dallas Sealey threw for 323 yards, his second 300-yard passing game of the season and ninth of his career.
• With two field goals in the game,
Nik Grau now has 43 in his career, tying him with Eben Nelson (2001-04) for second in ACU history. He's now eight away from topping Morgan Lineberry's all-time record of 50 set from 2009-12.
STAT CORNER
• Since re-joining the Southland Conference in 2013-14 and beginning a conference slate in football in 2014, the Wildcats are 0-5 in Louisiana with losses at McNeese (2014, 2016), Northwestern State (2015), Southeastern Louisiana (2016) and Nicholls (2017).
QUOTABLE
ACU head coach Adam Dorrel
… general comments
"I'm disappointed for our players, and especially our seniors, because we all really believed this was a game we could win. We made some plays to give us a chance, but just didn't make enough of them. I want our guys to be disappointed but not dejected because when you get dejected you start getting down on yourself and your teammates. We haven't seen that and I expect we'll come back out next Saturday and play as hard as we did (Saturday)."
UP NEXT
The Wildcats return to Anthony Field at Wildcat Stadium next Saturday (Oct. 21) as they host Southeastern Louisiana at 2:30 p.m. in the annual Homecoming contest.
