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Big game this week! Many questions will be answered. I think if we would have won against Missouri State, I could see this game being more of a tune up game. With being 0-2, I would say UCA needs to prove some things with big numbers on Defense and Offense.

Biggest question I have though. Can anyone find out if the UAPB band is coming?!?!?!?!?! I would love to see them.

Also have to think that UAPB will travel well and that this is going to be a highly attended game. What do you guys think?

1st, for the Bears we need better play selection. If the defense stacks 8 in the box, don't run the football up the middle. I am not a coach but I do have common sense. 2nd ,we need to establish the running game period. If we don't then forget about the playoffs. 3rd, no 3 and outs. it wears the defense out early and the opponents score a lot of points. 4th, our defense is good, not perfect but they hold their own against other teams. Finally the fans. Oh yes the fans. I am bringing 6 people with me for the whole game. No leaving early no matter what the score is. We the fans should pack out the stadium every game. This also includes the students. There are some students who attends the games. Thank you for your support. For those who don't then shame on you. I am sorry for my rants but I had to vent. Go Bears Go, Papa

I do expect UAPB to travel well (not sure about their band). I just hope our fans turn out. Starting the season 0-2 will not help get butts in the stands. Also, the fact that the UofA plays in Fayetteville on the same day will not help either (like it or not, it's the truth).

Yes but it's against Georgia Southern. Much lesser of an opponent. I will say it's been Confirmed that the UAPB band is coming!!!!

Doubt the opponent in Fayetteville will affect attendance.....with the win over Texas the fanbase would probably turn out for a game vs Star City....

I would expect UAPB band to be there along with a sizable crowd....definitely a difference in band styles but BMB is top shelf....

UAPB has very loyal alums and few road games that are easy to drive to....

Coach Brown on his Monday radio show spoke pretty highly of UAPB, especially the defense and their dual threat QB, with transfers...it is a must game for Bears....we only play 10 D1 games this season and we have only 8 left to win 6...and one of those is FCS #1....another is JSU who beat FSU....Go Bears!!

Someone told me they went to get tickets but the game is sold out.

Anyone else experience that??? Ticket website says they are available.....

I have just talked with the ticket manager. He said " we are still selling tickets." So there it is. No propaganda just fact. Next rumor please.

So, game day is upon us......very hard to assess UAPB.....winning SWAC-West last year is an improvement for sure but the pandemic season was goofy everywhere.....their win over Lane does not tell much as Lane is not in D2 Top 25 nor getting votes.....Coach seems impressed with coaching and talent....assume Lions will be improved over last season...

Key to me is will our defense be ready to go hard from the start and keep going late in Q4...we have now lost two games with defense tiring late and game getting away...even if offense does not improve in clock management the defense has to step up to another level when tired...

Our offense was certainly more effective vs MSU...MSU defense likely better than UAPB....still glad we have Hayden Ray in spite of the FG miss last week that was part of the final difference.....on the other hand we usually play better on road than at home.....do we find Jack Short and Sam Camargo in the downfield passing game this week...they have 3 catches for 7 yards so far. Will Cameron Myers be ready? Nathan Grant and A'Javious Brown have only 6 tackles between them.....them having a big game would be very good....

I'll go with Bears by a hard fought 31-17.....Go Bears!!

out hustled. embarrassing

The tv guy said UAPB was throwing longer passes than UCA.
Stats showed they averaged 13 ypp while UCA averaged 10 ypp.
We outgained them in overall yards but how do you have two all Americans and every pass looks like it’s desperate and difficult?

Well at least we won. Next week is gonna be ugly.

I have been thinking back to the 2016 and 2017 seasons and what makes those teams better than what we have seen the last few years. I think the answer should be no surprise: We were better up front on both sides of the ball. I think a lot of that was Coach Campbell being an O-Line guy, but we won in the trenches.

We simply do not have that strength up front any more.

But, on to tonight’s game:

First, congrats to Breylin Smith for breaking another UCA record. I know last year was a weird year, but he is playing a lot better overall this year. Yes, still some hiccups here and there, but he is delivering the ball so much better.

This game was closer than it should have been, especially in the 3rd and early 4th quarters. But, penalties crept in. We started being undisciplined. We gave them an opening and they took advantage of it.

Their QB completed some long passes, but that is about the only thing they did. And our old teammate Crossley gashed us a few times. Again, we have to win up front more than we are.

Biggest gripe I have about this team, though, is our DB’s. We seem slower than every team we have faced. It forces us to have to interfere or give up 6 too often.

Finally, can I talk about the refs?

These guys seemed a bit flag happy. And when they needed to throw it, they didn’t. The no-call on the offsides and then the pass interference where the ball was no where catchable were the icing on the cake to a crew that just kept calling bad penalty after bad penalty. I was hoping Nathan would have taken the 15 yarder after the PI call. It was ridiculous.

End of the night, it was a win. SHSU is going to be tough, even at home. It will take a full team, 4 quarter, disciplined effort to pull off the upset.

P.S. Huge thanks to the UAPB fans for traveling, and for their band for coming. Outside of the win, their band was the best thing that happened tonight.

We have a penalty issue. Through 2 games we were averaging 84 yds per game which was 107 out of 114 FCS teams listed by the NCAA. We had 84 yards again last night. Blame it on discipline, coaching or referees, it has to be cleaned up because a team can’t win consistently with that amount of penalties. The biggest issue seems to be personal fouls. In the Missouri State game everyone remembers the interference on their last drive, but a bigger penalty may have been our “celebration” penalty after our last touchdown, thus making our kickoff from the 25 yd line and giving MSU field position for their game winning drive. “Celebrate after the game”

Last night I heard that one player on the kickoff team has had a personal foul in each of the last three games. If true, maybe he should not be given a chance to extend his streak?
On a positive note, many of our penalties seem to be discipline/mental mistakes and can and must be corrected. I’m sure the coaches understand the issue.

Next Saturday’s game would be a great place to show improvement.

I'm not going to focus on the negative.

We had a great crowd on hand! 11,000+ after an 0-2 start was a lot more than I was expecting.

We came out on FIRE! UAPB had no answer for us in the opening quarter.

Breylin was great overall. He even broke Nathan's record for number of consecutive completed passes at 15!

Having a sizeable number of visiting fans was fantastic!

How about UAPB to the A-SUN?

Got home very late and did not have internet service for most of Sunday due to ATT outage....will have to look at stats later....

First, kudos to Bears for the win.....not as pretty as it could have been but about what would be expected by a ranked FCS team over a lower tier conference FCS opponent....

Second, UAPB always has hard hitting LB and aggressive DBs....they had a couple DBs who were pretty solid and could jump well.....still LW and TH dropped several passes that for them are normally catches.....arguably two for TDs....Lions' QB was pretty good deep passer and could run well when we were not defending the edge....when we shifted to contain that pretty much shut him down....I thought their pass route selection was more creative than what we called with some good slants and use of RBs.....punter was very effective....

Third, Breylin had a very good albeit not perfect game ..the one underthrown ball for INT was on him but the other should have been called back on the off sides that was not called....still had it not been underthrown likely would have caught for completion....RBs ran hard and well.....good to see running off tackle...in Q4 the run game chewed up the clock and scored two TDs....that is how we need to play every game....just one of those vs MSU and we win....D-line seemed to not defend edges quite a bit and they burned us several times......Crossley was hard to get down and had some good inside runs.....LBs have to do better on those....when DEs played contain that seemed to work out better and cause UAPB to be out of sync....Lamont played extremely well....key fumble recovery, key
INT, blocked PAT and several blocks and break ups....did not seem to try much pressure but had some issues getting to the QB when we did until late....still QB was harassed a lot by D-line....I recall one play when Jessup could have tried to run the QB down from behind but changed his angle and forced the QB to throw early and off balance...no stat on that but very heads up play....punting and kickoffs was effective and Hayden Ray looked great on FGs and PATs...Richmond is fearless on kick returns....and we found that we have TEs on the field as receivers!!!!

Fourth, the crowd was into the game pretty much from the start...would love to have 11,000+ every game...or at least once every year....it was awesome on a couple of the KOs when BMB was playing the locomotive and the UAPB band was playing their kickoff music..it was LOUD...bet louder than any game ever at Estes....I understand one of the UCA fans had to move their vehicle from Lot 2 because the volume of the bands kept setting the alarm off!!! I thought both bands were terrific....different styles of music and marching BUT each were very entertaining and into the game....as I have said before, bands are integral to a football game atmosphere if they are into it from the start....I watch a lot as to how often they are NOT playing and are they in sync with the flow of the game.....had a child in a bigtime Big 12 MB and have seen several B12 and SEC bands in person....BMB and Golden Lions band compare very well in both marching and musicality......"we" need to talk to our fans about being loud every game just like Florida, OU, et al....they have more people but we can be just as loud and into it for our crowd size....crowd noise in H2 contributed to UAPB to take at least one TO and maybe 2....

Fifth, UAPB looks to be ready to do well in SWAC again and best of luck to them....we have to shore up backside of defense for sure...and not give up contain so much.....as an old DE that really irks me....pretty sure SHS will quickly notice how UAPB hit us a few times deep....

Sixth, we have to clean up the dumb penalties.....the late hits and unsportsmanlike penalties are killers in big games....... I thought the officiating was pretty much like what we have seen in the Southland for years.....not a big thing but how can you refuse a pre-snap delay of game...I do not recall ever seeing that....

For now we fans can savor the win....players are already on to Sam....

PS...the 15 straight completions broke the record held by both Coach Brown and Brian Stallworth....who was on the sideline....