Springing forth
After 2 potential openers fell through, Cardinals finally kicking off season
Incarnate Word coach Eric Morris figured he’d be spending last week building a game plan for the Cardinals’ season opener. Instead, he built a snowman.
Morris was without power for three straight days as winter weather rolled through San Antonio, wiping out six potential practice days and forcing the postponement of UIW’S home debut.
The upside was Morris had time to embrace his 5-year-old son Jack’s first glimpse of snow, complete with sledding, a snowball fight and authentic snow cones.
Missing the start of a football season due to snow in San Antonio would’ve been unimaginable a year ago, but nothing about this 2020-21 cycle has been normal. The Southland Conference altered competition to a six-game spring season in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Cardinals’ opener finally arrives when UIW travels to face Mcneese State at noon Saturday in Lake Charles, La.
The Cardinals already have had two potential openers scratched. UIW was supposed to face Arkansas State on Dec. 12 before pulling out because of COVID-19 protocols, and last week’s weather conditions forced UIW to push a matchup with Sam Houston State from Feb. 20 to April 17.
“The kids are fired up and ready to play, again,” Morris said. “I hope I can continue to get them ready to play, but it’s been a nightmare. … We’re on round three right now, so the kids have been resilient. I’m super proud of the way they handled it.”
Junior linebacker Gerald Bowie called the latest cancellation a “gut
punch.” Senior running back Kevin Brown said his water was shut off for three or four days, forcing him to shower at a friend’s place, and junior linebacker Kelechi Anyalebechi said he settled for cold showers with minimal water pressure.
Morris heard stories of water and power outages from most of the roster, saying the team switched into “survival mode as opposed to football mode.”
As the Cardinals returned to the field and eyed a new opener this week, senior tight end Roger Mcculler said the players were “ready to break those chains loose and get after it.”
“Our season got pushed back a whole semester, so we’re used to it,” Mcculler said. “We’re used to the adversity, and we built a strong foundation.”
Brown said last week’s postponement was an opportunity to rest and recharge at the tail end of an unprecedented six-month preseason, and the Cardinals expect to be sharper because of the extra time they had to prepare.
“We work on technique so much throughout the year, we should be technically sound as much as we can,” Bowie said. “This has also
been a great time for us to grow as a team, as a brotherhood. I’ve never felt closer to any of these guys out here than I have the last year and a half.”
The Southland’s preseason poll slotted UIW fifth of seven participating teams, but Anyalebechi said the Cardinals are accustomed to being overlooked. When UIW bucked a trend of back-to-back losing seasons with a conference title in 2018, the rest of the league “thought it was a fluke,” Anyalebechi said.
UIW looked primed to make another
run in 2019 after starting 4-1 in the league, but the team dropped its final five games to finish 5-7 overall and 4-5 in the Southland.
“We’ve always been a team that guys never really thought they were good enough,” Anyalebechi said. “Everybody is just counting us out once again, but most of these guys on the team didn’t lose faith, and I didn’t lose faith. … We have the best team in this conference, and I know this team is going to back it up.”
The Cardinals will enter the season with a new starter at quarterback,
as Jon Copeland announced at the end of December that he intends to transfer.
Copeland, who would’ve been a junior this year, needed just two seasons to become the secondleading passer in program history with 6,325 yards. The Southland’s Freshman of the Year in 2018, Copeland also holds UIW’S records for career touchdown passes (44), single-season passing yards (3,341), and single-season passing touchdowns (22).
Despite the gaudy statistics, Morris stressed through the offseason that Copeland would face competition for his starting job. Morris declined to say whether freshman Cameron Ward or sophomore Kevin Yeager will earn the nod behind center on Saturday.
After UIW’S final game of 2019, Morris chastised the Cardinals for being undisciplined and said “our ego got too big.” He vowed to use the offseason to shape up the roster, minimizing trash talk and complaints to officials.
“We’ll see on Saturday,” Morris said. “We have some older guys in here who have helped mold these guys and grow everybody up a little bit. The young puppies have grown up, so I think we’re in a better place with overall culture.”