Golden Lions report

No time to sulk for UAPB

University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff Coach Cedric Thomer said he was generally pleased with his team’s effort and “no quit” attitude in last week’s 31-7 home loss to Southern. Once the conversation shifted to his team’s inability to take care of the football, though, complimenting his team was the last thing on his mind.

The Golden Lions threw four interceptions inside Southern territory — including one in the end zone and another at the Jaguars’ 3 — and turned the ball over on downs on another drive after having a first-andgoal. All five of those failed series crippled any chance UAPB had of knocking off the defending Southwestern Athletic Conference Western Division champions.

“Offensively, we shot ourselves in the foot,” said Thomas, whose team lost for the first time since their season opener against TCU. “You can’t take nothing from [Southern] Coach [Dawson] Odums and his staff. They did a great job of taking some things away from us and showing some looks we hadn’t seen from them.

“Defensively, we started out well, created two turnovers. Yet and still, you can’t turn it over. It was championship mode versus championship team, but we turned it over too many times, and you can’t do that when you’re dealing with championship teams.”

Southern was able to score 17 points off those mistakes and beat UAPB for the seventh time in a row. Although Thomas said he was excited about the strides his team has made, he admitted the Golden Lions missed out on a golden opportunity to make another SWAC statement.

“All week, for us, it was, ‘To be the man, you’ve got to beat the man,’ ” he said. “We weren’t able to do it. We had too many costly turnovers, excessive celebration [penalties], just things we don’t coach and condone.

“It starts with me, and I’ll get that fixed. We’ll continue to get better.”

Even more disappointing for Thomas was that the miscues were uncommon for his team before that game. The Golden Lions are one of the least penalized team in the SWAC and had just four penalties in the game, but each seemingly occurred at critical moments. Also, the interceptions took away additional scoring opportunities from an offense that came in averaging nearly 38 points per game.

“Those were uncharacteristic of those guys,” Thomas said, referring to the interceptions thrown by quarterbacks Shannon Patrick and Skyler Perry. “A couple of those they were just trying to get rid of it and a couple were unforced. [Southern] was able to change up some looks, and we didn’t do a good job early of making those adjustments.

“But at the end of the day, we’ve got to take care of the football. You can’t turn it over when you’re playing upper echelon talent in coaching staffs and players. That was the deciding factor in all of it.”

For Thomas, the challenge now lies in keeping that one loss from turning into a series of setbacks. UAPB (3-2) will play its final nonconference game of the season Saturday when it battles Division II Lane College (2-2) for homecoming. The Golden Lions have won 21 of the 28 meetings with Lane, with a majority of those resulting in blowouts.

Still, Thomas noted that none of that will matter come kickoff. In fact, if UAPB isn’t able to rebound and put last week’s game out of its memory bank, the Golden Lions could be staring at a second consecutive loss.

“It’s still got to be a championship mindset for us,” Thomas said. “The good part about it is that we’ve lost a lot of games before. So the losing part is not anything new. … in the past. But just to see them lose, and then be able to come back and have a great week of preparation.

“We’ll make sure that we give them all the tools they need to play a good Lane football team. … 4-2 beats 3-3 any day of the week.”

JOYOUS OCCASION?

UAPB’s annual homecoming game has been anything but a cheerful occasion over the past six seasons for the Golden Lions.

The Golden Lions’ last homecoming victory occurred in 2012 when they beat Mississippi Valley State 10-0 in front of nearly 15,000 fans. Since then, UAPB has lost six homecoming games in a row by an average score of 42-21, including a 45-14 clubbing by Alabama A&M a year ago.

A huge crowd is again expected, and UAPB Coach Cedric Thomas said he is anticipating an even better atmosphere at Simmons Bank Field than what he saw last week against Southern.