Bears’ season of firsts
At least a few say they saw it coming.
With their 34-0 victory over the Abilene Christian Wildcats on Saturday at Estes Stadium in Conway, the University of Central Arkansas Bears completed their first undefeated Southland Conference football season and their first outright Southland championship.
UCA senior left tackle Cade Camp said when Coach Steve Campbell talked to the team shortly after it was eliminated in the second round of the NCAA FCS playoffs at Eastern Washington last season, he said players who returned for 2017 would have an opportunity to play for a conference and national championship.
With the conference victory Saturday, UCA earned a first-round bye through the playoffs and will open at Estes Stadium on Dec. 2 against the winner of the first-round New Hampshire-Central Connecticut State game, scheduled for Saturday at New Hampshire.
“He met with us and said that this would be the year to do it, so this is what we expected,” Camp said. “It’s obviously worked out really well, and we should have four more games left, hopefully.”
A fourth game would be for the national championship, scheduled for Jan. 6 at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas.
Offensive coordinator Nathan Brown said UCA’s run through the regular season was ideal preparation.
“Coach Campbell has established a mentality and a culture, and it’s almost gotten to the point that people kind of make a joke of it, but it’s one game at a time for us,” Brown said. “I think we’ve been playing toward a tournament-style process throughout the whole year, and that started with Game 1 of the conference season.”
“Our expectations are high,” Campbell said. “Now, in order to do that, we have to win the first one, but we do have expectations of definitely making a run at a national championship, and we’ve had that as a goal since we started workouts after the Eastern Washington game last year.”