UCA falls short at Tulsa
TULSA, Okla. — Central Arkansas had opportunities on Saturday night to record the program’s third victory over a team from the Football Bowl Subdivision, and second in the past three seasons, but could not quite pull it off in a 38-27 loss to the Tulsa Golden Hurricane at H.A. Chapman Stadium.
The Bears (0-1) took advantage of a strange turnover sequence to grab a 27-24 lead over the Golden Hurricane (1-0) early in the fourth quarter in head coach Nathan Brown’s debut. Senior linebacker Raphael Garner forced Tulsa quarterback Luke Skipper to fumble at his own 14-yard line. Senior defensive end Cardell Best scooped up the ball and returned it to the 5-yard line before fumbling it into the end zone.
Sophomore linebacker Justin Morris fell on the ball in the end zone to give Central Arkansas a 27-24 lead and the momentum with 11:08 to play. However, UCA returned the favor shortly after with a muffed kickoff return that Tulsa recovered inside the 10-yard line. The Golden Hurricane scored two plays later, their second touchdown in less than a minute, to hold off the Bears.
“We’re going to have a good football team,” said Brown. “There’s no doubt we played with a lot of heart and a lot of passion. We have a lot of championship players on this team. There’s a lot of long faces. I just told them there is nothing to celebrate, no moral victories in a game like this. We thought we could come in here and win, and we had our chances to win. We turned the ball over in the red zone, we got field goals instead of touchdowns early in the game, then we muffed a kick inside our own 10.
“The errors that kill you, firstweek stuff, got us. But I tell you, we’ve got a good football team and I’m excited to watch us improve this week and get ready for Murray State.”
The Bears won the turnover battle by forcing four fumbles and recovering three of them. Junior All-Southland Conference cornerback Juan Jackson had one of the forced fumbles and added a career-high 16 tackles.
With the Bears trailing 21-13 early in the third quarter, Jackson caused Tulsa receiver Keenen Johnson to lose the ball at the end of a 41yard reception at the UCA 38, with sophomore safety Jackie Harvell recovering at the 25. UCA then put together its longest sustained drive of the game, going 75 yards in 14 plays, capped by sophomore quarterback Breylin’s Smith first career touchdown run from two yards out to close the Tulsa lead to 21-20 with
5:52 left in the third quarter. “Juan is an all-conference player and he played like it,” said Brown. “We expect that out of Juan, he’s the last line of defense as a safety in our scheme of defense. He’s going to be freed up to make a lot of plays. So really pleased with the way Juan played tonight. And he played a lot of snaps tonight.”
The Bears, who had to settle for field goals on two early drives, took a 13-7 late in the first quarter after Kierre Crossley set up his own oneyard touchdown run with a 43-yard shovel pass from Smith. The Golden Hurricane scored twice in the second quarter on a pair of 1-yard runs and held the Bears off the board to take a 21-13 halftime lead.
Tulsa opened the scoring with
12:49 left in the first quarter on a
49-yard pass from Luke Skipper to Justin Hobbs when UCA’s defensive back fell down on the route. The Bears answered with consecutive field goals by senior Matt Cummins, from 19 and 40 yards, to close the gap to 7-6 with 6:23 left in the period.
Central Arkansas finished the first half with just 121 total yards of offense, including 49 on the ground. Tulsa had 205 yards, evenly distributed with 106 rushing and 99 passing.
Tulsa finished the game with 470 yards of total offense, including 274 on the ground.
“The defense played well tonight, they scored a touchdown,” said Brown. “And that Tulsa is explosive and you’re going to see them put up a lot of points this year. I thought our guys played hard. There was no doubt we left it on the field tonight. At times we were the more physical team.
“I thought our defensive front and defense played really well for the most part. On offense, we had our moments. We were able to assert ourselves at times, but we shot ourselves in the foot. Early in the game, we were getting field goals instead of touchdowns. I think we had three trips into the red zone and only got six points.”
Smith, a sophomore from Conway starting his first game at quarterback, completed 17 of 25 passes for 165 yards as the replacement for graduated All-SLC quarterback Hayden Hildebrand. Junior running back Carlos Blackman led all UCA rushers with 57 yards. Senior Jakari Dillard caught six passes for 61 yards.
“I thought Breylin did a great job,” said Brown. “He had poise and he found his checkdowns. He was very responsive on the sideline and knew what he was seeing. It was just a good performance from Breylin. I thought he handled himself well.”
The Bears play their home opener at 6 p.m. Saturday against Murray State.