The University of Central Arkansas Bears scored 28 points in fewer than 16 minutes Saturday night, but coach Clint Conque was most impressed with what happened in the final minute.
With the Bears comfortably ahead, 35-3, against outmanned Bacone College — but with their focus and attention waning — the UCA coaching staff called two timeouts in the final minutes to force the Warriors to punt out of their end zone.
UCA took over at midfield with 1:08 left and quarterback Wynrick Smothers led a quick drive, completing a 10-yard pass to Dezmin Lewis in the corner of the end zone with seven seconds left.
Leading 42-3 at the half, the Bears (2-1) continued their onslaught the second half on the way to a 70-3 victory at First Security Field at Estes Stadium, the most points they have scored in the 13-year Clint Conque era.
“I was disappointed in two drives before that — one that resulted in an interception,” said Conque. “It was encouraging to see how we ran the two-minute offense and got a touchdown right before the half. We mixed it up and it was important that we can out and have an effective night running the football.”
The Bears’ home opener at Estes Stadium against the NAIA opponent from Muskogee, Okla., was little more than a formality — a little football in a little rain for a few minutes, framed by a celebration of the officially opening of the $2.1 million skyboxes at Estes Stadium.
Those folks, enjoying food and drink in the plush setting, as well as Bear fans throughout, saw a lot of dynamics in slightly more than a quarter;
Wynrick Smothers scampering 44 yards for a touchdown.
Tight end Chase Dixon making his first collegiate touchdown catch for 3 yards, capping an 87-yard drive.
Terence Bobo scoring on a run of 6 yards and a pass reception of 45.
Lewis scoring on a 12-yard blocked punt return, an 18-yard fumble return and a 10-yard pass.
Jamie Moore, a place-kicker from England, provided the Warriors’ only points on a 37-yard field goal.
Smothers, making his first start on First Security Field, completed 16 of 19 passes for 179 yards and three touchdowns in the first half before retiring for the night. His only glitch was an interception in the end zone on a poorly thrown and ill-advised pass.
“There are a lot of plays that I’d like to have back that kept me from having a really great game that people didn’t notice,” Smothers said. “But when we got the ball on the two-minute drills, my teammates said it was all on me. I was able to get Bobo started with a couple of running plays and Dezmin made a big catch in the end zone.”
It was the most points score by a UCA team in since the Bears have been in NCAA FCS and the most since a 79-0 victory over Central Methodist in 1976. They scored 71 against College of the Ozarks in 1910 and 72 against Arkansas College in 1947.
After most of the fans had cleared out, UCA scored three times in the third quarter on a 4-yard pass from Ryan Howard to Dominque Croom, an 18-yard fumble return by Lewis and a 2-yard run by Jacoby Walker.
Running back Willie Matthews, who blocked the punt that Lewis returned for a touchdown, had an 83-yard touchdown run and rushed for 153 yards on 10 carries.
Seven different players (Smothers, Matthews, Bobo, Lewis, Croom, Walker and Dixon) scored for the Bears.
“Our players answered the call,” Conque said. “Outside of a couple of series the first half, we played pretty clean. We generally played cleanly the second half. I challenged the coaches that when we put in the reinforcements that I didn’t want things to get sloppy because we played a lot of people and some of those guys had just been down on the scout team. Our coaches had the guys ready and it showed maturity on our part.”
The Bears held Bacone to 109 total yards, 31 rushing and 78 passing. Eleven different players had tackles for loss for the Bears.
“Bacone came in and played hard; I have a lot of respect for NAIA teams because so much of our tradition before 1992 was NAIA football,” Conque said.
Things get much tougher Saturday as the Bears open Southland Conference play in a televised game at home against preseason favorite Sam Houston State, which led Baylor at the half Saturday night before losing, 48-23.
Comments (2)
Add commentBears Unfair
UCA seems to be finding small division schools like NAIA Bacone to run up the score on them so that their overall stats will look good. I know that they soundly beat Murray State but don't think they were a high quality team either. Smothers is twice the athlete Nathan Dick is, except for height, and should probably have been playing all along instead of Nathan Dick. The defense will surely be tested against Sam Houston State next week and maybe this will be a true test for the Bears to see what they are really made of. I guarantee that the Bearkats will not be out-manned and allow 70 pts. to be hung on them.
and
Sam Houston State played Incarnate Word, what's your point.
If UCA was just concerned with stats, they would not schedule an SEC road opponent.
EVERY football team schedules a cupcake. Even SEC teams. It's commonplace.
You Mean
Like UofA playing Jacksonville St
Or Ole Miss Playing UCA
OR Baylor Playing Sam Houston St.
Is that what you mean by unfair they do it every year in D-1 football why should it be different in 1AA?
so bigsamman
You were saying....?
UCA played 70 players against
UCA played 70 players against home and the first team basically played a half. The backup quarterbacks threw some in the second so future opponents could see that they will pass when they are in the game. The coaches intentionally wanted to get some things on tape. Otherwise, UCA was very basic and conservative in the second half and actually kept the score down against a clearly outmanned team.
UCA opened against Ole Miss, an SEC team. Murray State is an Ohio Valley Conference team on the FCS level and was in the preseason top 25 and was just outside the rankings when UCA played it. As a tri-champion of the conference last season, the Racers are one of the favorites this year.
Bacone? As was noted in the advance stories, that was the only team that UCA officials could find who would come to Conway with a one-year contract. UCA has future multi-year contracts with regional opponents on its own level, Missouri State and UT Marti plus with expansion of the Soutland Conference. The Bacone victory will not help the Bears (or count) as far as the postseason because a team has to have to six Division I victories to make the playoffs if it does not win its conference.
Nathan Dick is one of the most prolific passers in UCA history and was the Southland Conference's first-team quarterback last season. Smothers could have been a factor both years but he has yet to finish a season because of injuries, so Nathan was pretty much the man anyway after half of the last two seasons and had one of the best years last year of any quarterback in school history. Smothers did not play last year after the ASU game because of broken hand.