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SPRINGFIELD, Mo. _ When the University of Central Arkansas Bears meet up with the Missouri State Bears on Saturday night, it will be the third matchup in less than a year.
UCA will attempt to make it three straight victories over their familiar foe in a non-conference game at Plaster Stadium in Springfield, Mo. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m.
UCA (0-1) swept a pair of games from MSU (0-1) last season in a rare home-and-home series, winning 27-20 at home on Sept. 26 on "The Stripes" of First Security Field at Estes Stadium, and taking the rematch as well 33-24 in Springfield three weeks later on Oct. 17.
Both teams are coming off road losses to FBS teams to open the season, with UCA losing 40-21 at Arkansas State last Saturday and MSU dropping a 23-16 decision at Oklahoma State.
"We have a tough one this week,' said UCA head coach Nathan Brown. "Seeing what Missouri State has done, not only in the spring FCS season, going 5-1 and getting to the NCAA FCS Playoffs, co-Missouri Valley champions, getting some momentum going into the summer... then opening with Oklahoma State and losing by one possession, is a pretty impressive performance. And a quick turnaround by Coach (Bobby) Petrino and his staff.
"If you know what kind of coach Coach Petrino is, he's a great offensive mind, but all he does is win. Wherever he's at, he usually wins. He does a great job as a head coach, not only on the offensive side of the ball, but with defense and special teams, getting the right coaches in there to execute the philosophy that he wants to have.'
Brown thinks the maroon Bears will prevent even more of a test than they did in the two games last season.
"It's going to be a challenge,' he said. "The Missouri Valley Conference plays a physical brand of football. This will be one of the best defenses we play all year. And offensively, I think you're starting to see them get better and better every week. I think they've settled on a transfer quarterback (Jason Shelley) from Utah State who is a dual threat guy who had a good night Saturday night against Oklahoma State. It's a tall challenge.'
Although the Bears won both meetings a year ago, neither came easy.
"We won twice last year, so not only is it a Top 25 matchup at the FCS level, they will also probably have revenge on their minds as well,' said Brown. "A lot of those players that are going to be running out there Saturday for Missouri State, played in those games last year.
"And those by no means were easy wins for us. They were hard-fought, comeback wins that could have very easily went the other way and we would have been 0-2 in those games. And the biggest difference in this team right now and the team we played last year is they've figured out how to win. You can see that they've got confidence and I don't know that they had that last fall. And that's a credit to that coaching staff.'
UCA hung around with Arkansas State for the better part of the game last weekend in Jonesboro before the Red Wolves pulled away. Brown saw enough bright spots in the season opener to feel good about his team one game into the 2021 season.
"We played a good three quarters, and going into the fourth quarter it was a one-possession game,' he said. "We were down 20-14, and had a lead at half. But we didn't have enough in the tank when it was all said and done. But give credit to Arkansas State and Coach (Butch) Jones. His offensive attack in the second half was obviously a little more efficient than it was in the first half. A lot of that was probably the experience of (quarterback) Layne Hatcher, just the element that he brought. But I also think we wore down a little bit on defense, had to play too many snaps over there.
"And then just missed opportunities on offense. Bottom line, if you look at the first half, we probably left points out there on two possessions if we just execute like we know we can.
"But looking at the film, we're encouraged, we're not going into this week discouraged at our performance. I think Arkansas State is a good football team, I think that's a bowl team, they'll win enough games to probably go to a bowl, and compete for a Sun Belt championship. I think they're that good. But I really like the makeup of our team. And when you saw us fresh and with a lot of energy, you could see how good we could be. We just didn't have the consistency for 60 minutes to come away with an FBS win on Saturday night. And that's unfortunate because that's the expectation we had going in.'
Brown was particularly happy with the defensive front and his special teams units.
"I think our defensive front played extremely well,' he said. "If you look at three quarters, we dominated the line of scrimmage. Bottom line, our defensive front dominated their offensive line for the most part through three quarters. Again, we wore down a little bit and that goes back to conditioning, that goes back to keeping our guys fresh. Just being on the field too much, offense not sustaining drives. So where we thought we were going to have a strength on defense, I think they were a strength for us on Saturday night.
"The other area was special teams, I think we really gave ourselves a chance on special teams. We averaged 42+ yards a punt, we had some great field position off kick returns by our kick return unit and Christian Richmond, we had three of four kicks were touchbacks by Seren Hughes-Ford, and the other one we stopped them inside the 15.'
Now the attention turns toward a talented FCS squad, one ranked 23rd in the country in this week's FCS polls.
"Personnel-wise, they're not going to be a whole lot different. A lot of the guys are back. I think 10 of 11 starters on defense are back, with 10 of those 11 being seniors and I think the 11th guy is a junior. They did have a corner transfer to Kansas that was a really, really good football player. But the big thing to me is confidence. They are playing with extreme confidence right now and that's a credit to, one, the spring season and them winning some games against some tough opponents, When you beat Northern Iowa and Southern Illinois and Western Illinois, teams like that, you're beating really quality opponents. So that had to get their confidence up.
"And Coach Petrino is to be credited for this, he's a great coach. He's changed the culture there very fast. I have a ton of respect for this team. I think this is going to be one of the tougher matchups we have all year. Schematically, they are very similar. They're running a lot of the same schemes, they're just better at it. Bottom like, they've got better personnel. When you get a couple of transfer O-linemen in, obviously the quarterback and a transfer wide receiver, you start getting your type players in there, you're going to see more success.
"Because the schemes aren't broke. Coach Petrino has always been able to run an offense and call plays and do a great job of that. You just see them executing better and that is the difference.'
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September 10, 2021 at 11:06PM
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FAMILIAR FOES MEET AGAIN ON SATURDAY - University of Central Arkansas Athletics - UCA Sports
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