Always hard to lose a game you play hard to win..........never got the idea from radio this was an effort issue..........lots of good..........200+ rushing on a B12 defense known to stop the run...........420+ total offense...........obviously moved the ball well quite a bit.........hats off to o-line for Game 1 having only 3 penalties and one of those was on a WR.........lots of 3rd downs but pretty decent conversion rate vs B12 team.......good 4th down conversion rate........
The game really turned on 4-5 plays...the KOR, the punt return, the late Q2 TD pass and the Bears failure to score in Q4 after the nice drive........This game could very easily have been something like 34-26...........just not quite ready to get that done vs a Top 20 team...........
Now get ready to take on a high powered Murray offense at their place.........
Game Stats
UCA KS
First Downs 28 16
Total Offensive Yards 421 519
Passing Yards 198 333
Rushing Yards 223 186
Penalty Yards 3-15 6-58
3rd Downs 10-19 5-9
4th Downs 2-3 0-1
Time Of Possession 37:13 22:47
http://www.ucasports.com/news/2017/9/2/football-big-plays-doom-bears-in-loss-to-no-20-wildcats.aspxBIG PLAYS DOOM BEARS IN LOSS TO NO. 20 WILDCATS
MANHATTAN, Kan. _ Big plays on offense and special teams carried the No. 20 Kansas State Wildcats past the University of Central Arkansas Bears 55-19 on Saturday night at the Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
The Bears, No. 15 in the FCS polls, played the FBS Wildcats close until midway through the second quarter in front of a crowd of 51,043. But two big special teams plays, both from KSU junior D.J. Reed, helped the Wildcats to a 38-16 halftime lead. Reed returned the opening kickoff 96 yards, setting up KSU's first touchdown, a 1-yard run by Alex Barnes. Reed's second big play, a 62-yard punt return for a touchdown late in the second quarter allowed the Wildcats to pull away from a 17-16 lead to the 22-point margin at the half. Reed also intercepted a pass at the KSU 25 in the final two minutes of the half.
From the 8:53 mark of the second quarter, the Wildcats outscored the Bears 38-3 to win going away. KSU quarterback Jesse Ertz completed 10 of 16 passes for 333 yards and four touchdowns. UCA did hold KSU to just 186 yards on the ground but lost three turnovers and forced none.
"We just gave them too many big plays, starting with the first play from scrimmage,' said UCA head coach Steve Campbell. "We knew they had a good return guy but we had been good at coverage. But every year is a new year. And it showed up on the first play from scrimmage. Then they had a punt return for a touchdown. Special teams really hurt us. We went in there at the half and I think it was 38-16, and it should have been 17-17. It should have been a tie ballgame.
"Then they outplayed us in the second half. And that's the thing when you play a team like Kansas State, that's good on offense, that's good on defense, and their special teams... if you have a flaw, they're going to shine a bright, luminescent light on it, and it's going to stick out like a sore thumb. And they did that.'
The Bears used a couple of early, sustained offensive drives to keep it close for most of the first half. Junior Matt Cummins made a 47-yard field goal to make it 7-3 on UCA's first offensive possession, capping a 10-play, 45-yard drive. After a 53-yard field goal by the Wildcats' Matthew McCraine, UCA senior Brandon Cox finished off an eight-play, 75-yard drive with a 37-yard touchdown burst to tie it at 10-10 with 1:27 left in the opening quarter.
Ertz, a senior from Burlington, Iowa, found Isaiah Zuber with an eight-yard touchdown pass early in the second period and the Wildcats never trailed again. UCA got within one at 17-16 on Hayden Hildebrand's 7-yard touchdown pass to senior Roman Gordon, but Matt Cummins missed the PAT with 8:53 left in the half. Ertz then connected with Byron Pringle from 55-yards out to push KSU's lead to 24-16 with 5:38 left.
Reed struck again with his punt return that gave the Wildcats a 31-16 cushion with 3:39 left. One final big play, a 70-yard pass from Ertz to Dalton Schoen in the final seconds of the half, good for the three-score halftime advantage. The final three KSU scores all occurred in the final 5:38 of the half.
"When you play a group like this, you know they can run the football. That's very, very obvious,' said Campbell. "I mean, they run the football against people like Oklahoma and Texas and Texas A&M. They line down and big boy with those guys. So what are you going to do, stop the pass? You kinda have to half-way pick your poison. We had to hope that he was a little bit off and we could get some pressure on him. And we weren't able to get a whole lot of pressure on him and he really threw the ball well tonight.
"They make you pick your poison on what your going to do. Late third or early fourth, after they burned us a little bit, we said, all right, we have to play some coverage. And then they started gashing us on the ground. You can't have it both ways.'
Campbell said there were some positives in the game.
"I liked the way we were able to run the football against a defense that only gave up 118 (yards a game) with a lot of guys back,' he said. "So there are some things to build off of. We'll take this film and learn from it and we'll correct the mistakes. There were some positive things to build off of, and there are some definite things we've got to get fixed.'
The brightest spot for the Bears was sophomore running back Carlos Blackman, who rushed for a game-high 114 yards on 24 carries (4.8 per carry). The Bears amassed 223 of their 421 yards of offense on the ground. Hildebrand completed 27 of 35 passes for 198 yards, with a touchdown and an interception. Junior transfer Lester Wells, in his first action for UCA, caught six passes for 41 yards as Hildebrand completed passes to 11 different receivers.
"Carlos is a big, physical back,' Campbell said. "We need to keep feeding him the ball. And (redshirt freshman) Kierre (Crossley) had some good runs as well.'
Senior cornerback Tre Smith led the Bears with six tackles, while senior rover George Odum added five. Juan Jackson, Chris Terrell, Chris Chambers and Nathan Grant all had tackles for loss, with Terrell registering the Bears' only sack.
UCA returns to the road next Saturday, facing Murray State in Murray, Ky. Game time is 6 p.m.