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Demons were impressive in win over Sam Houston on Saturday. Hope the
Bears can shake off the loss at SELA and refocus on the task at hand.
It's Homecoming and time to get back on the winning track.

They beat LaTech as well. This is going to be a big challenge.

The La Tech win was really a nice win..watched most of La Tech vs UTSA last weekend and Bulldogs look pretty good...Dogs have only lost to OU, Auburn and Northwestern State with wins over UTEP, UTSA, North Texas and La-Lafayette.....Sagarin has them at #69 and Northwestern State at 129..... La Tech's four wins have average SOS of 121.....they would be picked to win now by 12-14 over either Demons or Bears....

NWS three wins excluding La Tech has SOS of 188.....lost by 7 at home to Mo State.....Bears four wins over teams with combined 202 SOS.....NWS has shown they can beat a much higher rated team and we have yet to do that .....time for Bears to notch a good win....

With Taylor Reed obviously out for Saturdays game vs. NSU,
what are the chances of Hayden Hildebrand getting in the mix?
I know Ryan Howard is fully capable of playing lights out, but would
Like to see Hayden get some playing time.

Some stats data on the Demons. There are several good games to study. The early home loss over Missouri State would be useful since we know the Maroon Bears. The big road win over La Tech would be good to look at as it is on the road but that is a huge rivalry game dating back a very long time before the Coach Aillet years at Tech and the Bobby Hebert years at NWS. Last week's home win over Sam Houston might be instructive but the road loss at SELA is as close a comparison as we can get. Both of us played recently at Hammond in what was a big game for both teams. Demons lost to Lions by 30-22 while Bears fell 41-24.

Note that Demons have scored about a third of their points in Q2 and pretty even in the other three. Opponents have scored best in Q4 but pretty well in Q1. Bears need to get out fast and finish strong.

SELA led only 6-0 at half and and 16-0 at one point early in Q3 then led 30-8 in early Q4. Impressive that Demons held Lions to only 6 in H1 (2 FGs..one a 51 yd kick). Attendance only 4100+..what is going on at Hammond with the team Lions have?

Stats below are NWS then SELA:

Net Rushing: 43-128-3.0/40-132-3.3
Passing: 25-43-4-217-8.7/10-21-0-103-10.3
3rd downs: 6-19/7-14
4th downs: 4-5/0-1
Red Zone: 3-5/3-4

SELA had a 79 yard KO return, 4 INTs with 100 return yards...Lions only had the ball 26 minutes and only 9 minutes in H2...Lions lost to fumbles....

Demons held Bennett to only 59 yards running, Roberson only 29 and Sutton only 12...wow...

Demons had 8 receivers with catches and 6 had 2 or more....

Lions had 4 sacks of NWS which may be something Bears can get done also...

In all games Demons have given up 193 yards per game rushing for 4.0 avg....plus 220+ passing...they are 80% red zone scores but opponents are 95%....

Rushing Offense: Advantage NWS.....Bears getting better

Rushing Defense: Advantage NWS....very impressive game vs SELA plus held La Tech to only 133 in another road game.....

Pass Offense: Advantage UCA.....big play WRs but Demons are pretty solid...

Pass Defense: Even..Demons gave up 280 to La Tech, 318 to Mo State and even 190 to Southern...we need a big night passing....Bears have really had trouble stopping crossing routes....

Kicking: Advantage UCA.....Demons good but UCA punting has been lights out, KO have been deep with good coverage and having Camara back adds FG consistency...

Kick Returns: Slight advantage UCA....NWS has solid KO returns as does UCA.....Bears punt returns a little better and Murphy has been getting better the past 2-3 games on more than catching the ball...

Intangibles: This is a huge game for both teams...Demons are 4-3 with 4 D1 wins (2-1 in SLC) ....losses to #10 Baylor, #11 SELA and a very good (almost Top 25) Mo State....remaining games are McNeese at home, at ACU , home vs Nicholls and at SFA.....should win Nicholls and ACU but SFA will be tough as will McNeese....lose to UCA and have a hard road to get to 8 D1 wins..beat Bears and a loss to McNeese probably not fatal.... ....7 wins probably will not make plays offs this year....UCA at 4-4 with 4 D1 wins.....we have ACU on road, then LU at home then at Sam...... all winnable..none easy....need to win out to get to 8.....cannot stumble here...Homecoming for UCA should be a lift..... a big crowd would help....

Sagarin ratings indicate UCA by 6.....that is one play difference....

It's Game Day! Go Bears!!

SFA just beat SE Louisiana 27 to 17.

Great game for the Bears!

Announced attendance was 11,163!

Great game tonight, and a great crowd! Student section really showed up to support the team.

The team looked like they were wanting to show that last week will not affect them for the rest of the season. The first score for Northwestern was very concerning. They moved down the field fast. I told my wife that this game may come down to the first team that makes a mistake. The next possession we get the interception and push it in for a score. I felt at that point we took control of the game and never really looked back.

O-line was able to create holes. Howard looked sharp. Defense made the stops when they had to. And special teams, especially kick-off return, was very sharp.

Overall, one of the better performances for the Bears minus a handful of plays.

With the SELA loss, we need to win out, hope SELA drops another one, and control our own fate. Go Bears!

http://www.ucasports.com/news/2014/10/25/FB_1025143450.aspx

Now that was fun to watch. It has been a while since we saw an old fashion beat down by the Bears just running over defenders. Q1 was pretty good ball by both offenses but kudos to defense for making adjustments and basically shutting Demons down...they had 160 yards offesne of which 130 came in Q4 after the game was way out of reach and about 151 in Q1..that leaves 79 for Q2/Q3. It will not show in stats but Woodard turned lots of runs inside to be whacked and kept the QB from much rolling out...lots of good defense played last night...

Kudos to o-line for really pushing Demons around...we basically ran between tackles with a couple desgned QB runs and a few speed sweeps with Wilson and Smith to the short side of field. All the RBs looked good.

Did we throw even one down field route? Did we even run a downfield route? Watts did not come in at WR until mid Q4 and the CB immediately backed up 10+ yards.....Howard was very sharp and had good time to throw......hats off to Offense for great execution and game planning

Great special teams...Eagan on NWS is a dangerous kick returner and we kept him pretty well fenced in.....Spencer's punts were 40+ and high..... Camara was sharp ...the one PAT flub needs to get fixed....Wilson was awesome on the two KOs Demons let him return....

BMB and Cheer in great form and thanks to the students for filling nearly four sections and the lower west was maybe 85%+ filled thru Q3....

SELA also has McNeese to go.....Bears win out and tie for SLC with one of these two probably.....note that McNeese also has SFA yet to play..... we need McNeese to beat SELA and SFA to beat McNeese then we can tie with SFA where we have the tiebreaker....

However, one at a time and ACU will be a challenge on the road...no let down the rest of the way....Saturday night was pretty much a complete game.....

Best half of offensive football this year and the defense made good adjustments after a couple of drives and continue to get better each game. The key to this game IMO was the OL play. They controlled game and line of scrimmage. We consistently ran the ball when everyone in the stadium knew what was coming, a first since I have been watching the bears. Not sure how good the NW defense was but we all expected a close game and they beat Sam last weekend. If Campbell can keep em playing like that, we will be hard to beat. Lets hope he can get the team ready for ACU and take them one at a time. With the SELA loss, we can control our destiny. Thank you CC.

Very dominating performance by the o-line...1 back over 100 yards
and two more over 80 yards. That's a running game we haven't seen
For a while.

And I like it!!