ABILENE – After last week's road loss at Southern Utah, the ACU Wildcats just needed to get back on the field, play well and win a game. To feel good about themselves again. To realize they still have something to play for in 2023. To put the memories of that defeat behind them.
The Wildcats did all that Saturday afternoon with a 24-7 United Athletic Conference win over Utah Tech at Anthony Field at Wildcat Stadium. The win pushes the Wildcats to 5-4 overall and 3-2 in the league and keeps their hopes of a co-conference championship alive with two weeks left in the regular season.
ACU (5-4 overall and 3-2 in the UAC) will need a win next Saturday over Tarleton State and a combination of wins and losses by Austin Peay, Eastern Kentucky, and Central Arkansas to make the dream of a co-conference title a reality, but hope is still alive. After next Saturday's game against Tarleton, the Wildcats will close the regular season on Nov. 18 at Texas A&M in College Station.
Saturday against the Trailblazers, the Wildcats were efficient on offense, stingy on defense, and saw "Mr. Reliable" – placekicker
Kyle Ramsey – hit a 47-yard field goal and hit all three PATs. The only real fireworks were provided by the low-level, high-speed B-1 flyover after the National Anthem and after each ACU score. But less fireworks and more substance was what head coach Keith Patterson was looking for against Utah Tech.
The ACU offense was a second-best 8 of 14 on third downs (a season-best 57 percent), keeping drives alive with big conversions on each scoring drive. Quarterback
Maverick McIvor was efficient, completing 19 of 32 passes for 167 yards and two scores, hitting eight different receivers on the day. And while the offense didn't turn the ball over, the defense had one actual turnover (a game-sealing interception by TJ Marshall with 1:46 left in the game) and turned away three fourth-down conversion attempts by the Trailblazers.
Utah Tech ran for just 83 yards on Saturday after Southern Utah ran for 308 yards last week against ACU's defense, and the Wildcats on Saturday limited Utah Tech to 4 of 13 on third-down conversion attempts (a season-low 30.8 percent by an ACU opponent).
"The crazy part about other sports, when compared to football, is that in some of those other sports, you might lose on a Tuesday night, but you've got a chance Thursday or Friday to come back and play again," ACU head coach Keith Patterson said. "In football, that loss sits on you all week, and you've got to listen to everybody say, 'Well, we should do this, or we should do that, or we should change this or that.' And you have to hear it for a week. And it's not as easy as it sounds just to roll out there and play with confidence. But as we went along (Saturday), the confidence continued to build."
ACU built a 14-7 lead at halftime and extended it in the third quarter on a 47-yard field goal by Ramsey before a 90-yard touchdown drive into the wind in the fourth quarter put the game away. On that drive, ACU used 15 plays and took 7 minutes, 50 seconds off the clock to cover 90 yards – one of its longest drives of the season. The drive ended with a game-clinching 5-yard touchdown pass from McIvor to
Taelyn Williams with 6:14 left in the contest.
After throwing three interceptions last week, McIvor – who has thrown just five interceptions on the season and has six games without a pick – took to heart the advice his head coach gave him earlier in the week.
"Maverick did a nice job of extending some plays out on the perimeter, and he had a huge play throwing the ball back across the field on Blayne (Taylor) on a huge third-down play (on ACU's last scoring drive)," Patterson said. "That's the type of thing we have to do to let him build some confidence. I told him all week to stop over-analyzing everything and just throw to the guys that are open, and don't throw to those who are covered."
GAME SUMMARY
How They Scored
1Q (1:57) – ACU got on the board first on a short touchdown run by quarterback
Maverick McIvor. After a three-and-out on their first possession, the Wildcats' offense put together a 13-play, 67-yard drive to give ACU a 7-0 lead in the opening 15 minutes. McIvor had a 13-yard run on third-and-9 early in the drive to keep the march alive, then had completions of 15 yards to
Jordon Vaughn and 12 yards to
Taelyn Williams to get ACU into scoring position. One play after the pass to Williams, McIvor scored on a short, 4-yard run to give ACU the lead.
Scoring Play: Maverick McIvor 4 run (Kyle Ramsey PAT)
Drive: 13 plays, 67 yards, 5:43 TOP
ACU 7, Utah Tech 0
2Q (11:28) – The Trailblaztied tied the game early in the second quarter, capping an 11-play, 75-yard drive that ended in a short touchdown pass to make it 7-7. Earlier in the drive, AU's defense forced a punt. But at the snap, ACU was flagged for illegal defensive formation after a defender lined up over the deep snapper. The five-yard penalty was enough to give Utah Tech a first down and keep the drive alive. Later in the march, UT quarterback Kobe Tracy scrambled for eight yards on third-and-four, and three plays later, he hit Rickie Johnson from four yards out for a touchdown.
Scoring Play: Rickie Johnson 4 pass from Kobe Tracy (Connor Brooksby PAT)
Drive: 11 plays, 75 yards, 5:29 TOP
ACU 7, Utah Tech 7
2Q (4:57) – ACU answered Utah Tech's scoring drive with its second touchdown drive, again chewing up more than six minutes off the clock to regain the lead. Early in the march, McIvor ran for eight yards and a first down on third-and-8, and a few plays later, he connected with
Blayne Taylor for nine yards on third-and-8.
Jay'Veon Sunday then took over, running for seven, eight, six, and three yards. On third-and-7 in the red zone, McIvor hit
Cooper McCasland for 10 yards, and two plays later, McIvor and Taylor hooked up for a 6-yard scoring pass.
Scoring Play: Blayne Taylor 6 pass from Maverick McIvor (Ramsey PAT)
Drive: 15 plays, 65 yards, 6:31 TOP
ACU 14, Utah Tech 7
3Q (4:35) – ACU pushed its lead to 10 points late in the quarter after a short six-play drive. After each team punted on their first two possessions of the second half, the Wildcats managed to get the ball into field goal position after a short Utah Tech punt and a 14-yard pass from McIvor to McCasland moved the ball to the Trailblazers' 30-yard line. On fourth down, ACU placekicker
Kyle Ramsey booted a 47-yard field goal to push ACU's lead to 17-7.
Scoring Play: Ramsey 47 FG
Drive: 6 plays, 16 yards, 1:53 TOP
ACU 17, Utah Tech 7
4Q (6:14) – The Wildcats put the game away with another long drive, capped by McIvor's second touchdown pass. The Wildcat signal-caller was 7 for 8 for 63 yards and the score on the drive, and
Jermiah Dobbins carried six times for 25 yards on the drive. On third-and-6 from the Utah Tech 20, McIvor hooked up with
Taelyn Williams for a 15-yard gain, and on the next play, the same duo hooked up on the five-yard scoring pass that sealed the win.
Scoring Play: Taelyn Williams 5 pass from McIvor (Ramsey PAT)
Drive: 15 plays, 90 yards, 7:50 TOP
ACU 24, Utah Tech 7
KEY STAT
• Entering Saturday's game against Utah Tech, ACU had just nine drives of 10 plays or more in their first eight games of the 2023 season. But the Wildcats responded Saturday with three long touchdown drives, one going 67 yards on 13 plays over 5 minutes, 43 seconds, another covering 65 yards on 15 plays and taking 6:31 off the clock, and the final one a 15-play, 90-yard march that took 7:50 off the fourth-quarter clock.
POST-GAME NOTES
•
Kyle Ramsey's 47-yard field goal late in the third quarter moved him to 12 for 12 on field goal attempts this season. He leads NCAA Division I FCS football in field goal percentage, and he's now tied for eighth in ACU history in field goals in a season. He's tied with Nik Grau (14 for 17 in 2014) and Dennis Brown (14 for 23 in 1987) on the list. Morgan Lineberry set the program record for field goals in a season by hitting 21 of 30 attempts in 2010. The program's FCS record for field goals in a season was set by
Blair Zepeda in 2021 when he hit 13 of 17 attempts.
• The Wildcats improved to 3-0 on the season in games where they didn't turn the ball over, and their average margin of victory in those three games is 18.0 ppg. ACU beat Northern Colorado, 31-11, in the season-opener, beat North Alabama on Oct. 14, 30-13, and beat Utah Tech, 24-7, on Saturday.
QUOTING HEAD COACH KEITH PATTERSON
… on how his team played in Saturday's win: "When you lose a game the way we lost last week, you lose a lot of confidence. I thought we played a complete game (Saturday) in all three phases. We didn't do anything spectacular. But we were 3 for 3 in the red zone and 57 percent (8 for 14) percent converting third downs, and we didn't put the ball in jeopardy. Defensively, we held them to less than 100 yards rushing, which was big because we knew they would come out and try to run the ball on us after last week (ACU gave up 308 rushing yards last week but only 83 against Utah Tech). We had three fourth-down stops and a big interception at the end of the game. We count those as takeaways. Kyle Ramsey continues to do what he does, and that's make field goals and extra points and put points on the board. He's a tremendous asset, and I'm so proud of him. We set a goal five weeks ago that we wanted to go 5-0 in our last five conference games. We stubbed our toe last week, but we've still won three of our last four games. We've got one more opportunity to win one more conference game next week. We still haven't seen the best football from this group of young men. We can continue to get a lot better."
… on not turning the ball over in the win: "We've tried to simplify the game, and the main thing is that it's about protecting the ball. If you look at that two-game winning streak a couple of weeks ago, we took the ball away eight times and had four fourth-down stops, and those were big in creating momentum and allowing us to play complementary football. When we don't do that, we're like an engine that's out of kilter. In the two losses that got out of hand, you could feel it – you couldn't just see it on the field – you could feel it on the field and the sidelines that we just kind of lost confidence. I want to build a program that produces strong-hearted men who have confidence in themselves, and we want to be a program that wins games when things get hard. We're moving in that direction … maybe not as fast as I'd like, but we're winning games."
on what's left to play for in the final two weeks: "I told our team last Sunday: in one season, we've already raised expectations because everyone's disappointed after last week's game. And they should be. And we should be disappointed. But I'm still proud of them. In the minds of a lot of people on the outside, we don't have anything to play for over the last two weeks. But if we win next week, mathematically, we still have a chance to be co-conference champions. And that's something worth playing for."
UP NEXT
The Wildcats will return to Anthony Field at Wildcat Stadium next Saturday when they host Tarleton State in the final home game of the 2023 season. The Wildcats and Texans will kick off at 2 p.m. The Wildcats lead the all-time series, 20-12-4, over the Texans in a matchup first played on Oct. 25, 1920, to a 0-0 tie. The Wildcats have won the last two games, 29-3 in Abilene in 2021 and 28-23 in Stephenville in 2022. The Wildcats have won 9 of the previous 12 games between the teams since 2004.
