Bears douse Wildcats' final playoff hopes with 16-7 win

ABILENE – Jack Short caught a 2-yard touchdown pass with 2:47 left and Matt Cummins kicked three field goals to help the University of Central Arkansas beat Abilene Christian University 16-7 Saturday afternoon in Wildcat Stadium.  
 
ACU's slim FCS playoff hopes were doused by the loss to the defending Southland Conference champions, who improved to 6-5 overall and 5-4 in the league. Abilene Christian, which had been tied for second in the Southland, fell to 6-5 and 5-4. For ACU, the 6-5 record is its first winning record at the FCS level since the program made the move to the NCAA Division I level in 2013.
 
The Wildcats entered the game averaging 176.4 yards rushing, but were held to a meager six yards by the Bears. The Wildcats, in fact, ran 26 straight passing plays (other than two sacks) over the final 37 minutes of the game. The game was expected to be a high-scoring affair but settled quickly into an offensive struggle and defensive marathon for both teams. UCA led in total yards, 292-231, and the game saw 16 punts.
 
ACU entered the game leading the Southland in both first downs and time of possession, but was dominated in both categories by the Bears. The Wildcats – in the top 10 in FCS football in first downs (251) and first downs per game (25.1) – were limited to just 10 first downs in the game. Almost one year ago to the day (Nov. 18, 2017), the Bears limited ACU to just six first downs in a 34-0 win in Conway, Ark., that finished out a perfect 9-0 conference championship season.
 
The lack of first downs led to a lack of time of possession. The Wildcats led the league in average time of possession, entering the game averaging 32 minutes, 47 seconds TOP on the season. But the Bears turned the tables on the Wildcats on Saturday, hanging onto the ball fort 37:36 to just 22:24 for the Wildcats, their lowest TOP in a game since last year at UCA (19:09).
 
The two teams played a sluggish and scoreless first quarter. A fumbled punt return by Josh Fink with less than a minute left gave UCA the ball on the Wildcat 10-yard line, but ACU's defense stiffened, forcing a 20-yard field goal by Cummins.
 
The home team answered quickly, however, with a tidy three-play 65-yard drive, capped by Anthony's 36-yard scoring pass over the middle to a wide-open D.J. Fuller.
 
UCA cut the Wildcat lead to 7-6 on the ensuing drive when Cummins kicked his second field goal of the half, a 37-yarder with 7:11 left.
 
ACU's special teams problems surfaced again halfway through the third quarter with another fumbled punt return, this time by Chase Cokley. The Bears converted the miscue into a 42-yard field goal by Cummins, his third of the game, putting them ahead 9-7; a lead they wouldn't relinquish.
 
Central Arkansas finally pieced together a touchdown drive late in the fourth quarter against the weary ACU defense, spanning 55 yards in eight plays while running the clock down to less than three minutes. Short's TD catch, made while falling out of the end zone, was disputed by the Wildcats but video review failed to overturn it.
 
ACU got the ball back for one last drive with 2:47 left, but a scrambling Anthony was intercepted for a second time by UCA defensive back Robert Rochelle, and the Bears ran out the clock.
 
Carlos Blackman rushed 13 times for 85 yards and Luke Hales completed 23 of 41 passed for 183 yards for the Bears. Tracy James led ACU in receiving with six catches for 60 yards.  
 
Anthony completed 23 of 29 passes for 225 yards, becoming only the seventh Wildcat quarterback to surpass the 3,000-yard mark in a season.
 
Linebacker Jeremiah Chambers, one of the nation's leading tacklers, totaled 11 to lead the Wildcats. Strong safety Bolo Onifade added eight and defensive end Kameron Hill added two sacks.
 
PLAYS THAT MATTERED

• 1Q – Both teams stopped each other on fourth-and-short yardage situations after crossing mid-field on opening drives.
• 1Q – Luke Anthony's deep pass down the right sideline was intercepted by defensive back Robert Rochell at the UCA 19-yard line with 1:43 left in the quarter.
• 1Q – Josh Fink fumbled a Bears' punt with 39 seconds left, giving UCA the ball at the ACU 10-yard line.
• 2Q – Central Arkansas converted the turnover into a 3-0 lead on Matt Cummins' 20-yard field goal with 14:11 left.
• 2Q – ACU bounced right back on two consecutive pass plays: Luke Anthony's 29-yarder to Tracy James and a 36-yarder to D.J. Fuller, the latter for a TD with 13:06 left. Oscar Hernandez' PAT kick put the Wildcats on top, 7-3. The three-play drive consumed just 1:05 and covered 65 yards.
• 2Q – Pressured by Jonathan Piccone, Luke Hales' attempted pass to Lester Wells on fourth and 7 at the ACU 30-yard line fell incomplete with less than two minutes left. ACU got the ball back with a chance to do some damage with the SW breeze at its back, but couldn't manage a first down and had to punt.
• 3Q – Jalen Small recovered ACU's second fumbled punt, this time a drop by Chase Cokley at the Wildcat 16-yard line with 7:18 left. An offensive pass interference call on the ensuing play backed the Bears up to the ACU 41. The defense stiffened, forcing a 42-yard field goal by Cummins, his third of the game, giving UCA a 9-7 lead with 5:48 left.
• 4Q – Jack Short caught a 2-yard TD pass from Hales with 2:47 left. Cummins' PAT kick put the Bears ahead for good, 16-7.

THREE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

• A scoreless first quarter and 7-6 halftime score between these two teams was not what fans expected from traditionally high-powered offenses.
• ACU abandoned its running game after the first quarter, which netted just 11 yards. The Wildcats finished the game with just six yards on 16 carries. Sema'J Davis, who averaged 9.0 yards a carry in the win last week when he ran for 81 yards, carried the ball just once Saturday for seven yards. Tracy James, who ran for 111 against the Bearkats, had just 18 yards on four carries.
• The loss broke the Wildcats' four-game winning streak, but ACU ended up with a winning season for the 50^th time in its 97 years of the sport on the Hill.
• Sophomore quarterback Luke Anthony finished the day 23 for 39 for 225 yards as he became the first ACU quarterback to top 300 completions in a season (single-season record 319 completions). He also set the single-season record for attempts (484) and his 3,019 yards is the ninth-best single-season total in program history.

STAT CORNER

• ACU limited the Bears to seven first downs, 50 yards of rushing and 119 yards of offense in the opening half, while UCA held the Wildcats to six first downs, 11 yards on the ground and 158 yards overall.
• UCA led the Wildcats in first downs, 16-10.
• ACU converted just 3 of 14 third-down plays; the Bears weren't much better at 6 of 19, and the Wildcats turned them away three times on fourth-down attempts.

NOTABLE

• With 399 career completions, Anthony is 10^th on ACU's career list, and his 34 career touchdowns is 11^th on the all-time list.
• Wide receiver Josh Fink had four catches for 36 yards Saturday to give him 122 catches for 1,461 yartds and nine touchdowns in his three-year career. He will enter his senior season in 2019 10^th on the all-time receptions list and just outside the top 10 in yardage. He finished 2018 with career single-season bests in receptions (55), yards (644) and touchdowns (4).
• This game marked the return of UCA offensive coordinator Ken Collums to ACU, where he was head coach for five seasons (2012-16) and offensive coordinator for seven (2005-11).
• Today was Senior Day, with these 10 players saluted before their final home game: D.J. Fuller, Erik Huhn, Quincy Dunn, Kalin Sadler, Cody Ennis, Jamar Mack, Tryce Pince, Bill Weber, Dante Hibbert and Dakota Laws.

QUOTABLE

• "Disappointed for our seniors. Wanted to send them out with a win because I thought their body of work this season deserved that. Obviously it didn't happen. Thought we played lights out defensively, but when you don't execute on special teams and turn the ball over twice and then we were totally devoid of anythimng offensively and that made it tough. When you only win one of the three phases of the game, it's tough to win."
       --- ACU head coach Adam Dorrel
• "That's a good team over there (UCA). They were the conference champions last year and were in the national playoffs. Their defensive line really stood out today. We couldn't run the ball and we couldn't throw the ball. We just had a lot of issues up front. I know it wasn't for a lack of effort, but we'll have to go back and look at what the problems were. We just didn't handle their defensive line at all.   
       --- Dorrel on the Wildcats' offense
• "We've had a really good body of work this year. I told the team after the game that I really enjoyed coaching this year and I didn't enjoy, necessarily, coaching last year. That's a testament to guys working hard and coming to the complex ready to do their job. Six or seven weeks it didn't look good. But we had a lot of quality things over these last few week that we'll extract from this and build on. We beat top-10 program (Nicholls) and we went on the road and beat Sam Houston State. We had a winning overall record, a winning record in conference, and we won three road games in conference, which hadn't been done since ACU moved to the Division I level. So we've got a lot that we can take out on the recruiting trail and sell to recruits."
       --- Dorrel on the takeaway from the 2018 season