ACU faces its last road test on Saturday as it heads to Alabama to take on the Jacksonville State Gamecocks.
The Wildcats are currently coming off a 47-21 loss against conference rival Stephen F. Austin, and according to head coach Adam Dorrel, there are a lot of things the team can learn after that game.
“Our preparation was really good heading into last week, but we got off to a really slow start, especially defensive,” Dorrel said. “Peyton has another game under his belt, and over his career, he hasn’t had a lot of starts, so he will hopefully learn and grow. But there are things that we can take away that are good, but there are also things we can do better.”
Now, the team shifts its focus to the upcoming matchup against the Gamecocks, who have had an interesting season of their own.
The Atlantic Sun Conference team is currently 3-5 overall this season, with some of their wins coming against Stephen F. Austin and FBS team Florida State. The team, coming off of a loss against Central Arkansas, is led offensively by Zerrick Cooper, who has 126 completions, seven passing touchdowns and three rushing touchdowns.
In Dorrel’s eyes, the team needs to be ready to take on the Gamecock quarterback, as well as be ready to combat the team’s strong defense.
“They have a quarterback, depending who you talk to, is said to be a draft day guy,” Dorrel said. “They’ve had some injuries with receivers, but the thing that stands out to me is that they have a very athletic defense, similar to central Arkansas. They’re a storied program and disappointed in some of their losses, so they’ll be ready to go.”
Leading the Wildcat offense for his second start of the season is redshirt sophomore quarterback Peyton Mansell. In his game against her Lumberjacks last week, he threw for 234 yards and three touchdowns, but also threw two interceptions and was sacked two times as well.
Dorrel spoke on how the coaching staff has been working with Mansell, as well as how he has been growing as a player.
“One thing that we need to work on with him is staying inside himself and in the scheme,” Dorrel said. “One thing he is good at is when we are game planning, he will tell us when he is uncomfortable with something, and there is nothing better for a head coach than to have a guy who knows he can’t do everything. So we are going to continue to pick his brain and grow that relationship.”
Over the past couple of weeks, Dorrel has been pleased with his special teams in terms of ball placement on kick-off and the ability of his punt blockers.
One final thing that Dorrel really wants his team to work on is the turnover margin. In their loss to SFA, the team had a negative-two marign, meaning they had more turnovers versus the number of turnovers they caused. So, to Dorrel, it is essential for the team to cause turnovers on defense and prevent turnovers on offense.
“The games we won this year we had a good turnover margin, and the games we lost, we did not,” Dorrel said. “So, we cannot afford to have a high turnover margin. Defensively, we really need to be aggressive, we didn’t do that last Saturday, we need our guys to trust what we teaching them, leverage the football and collision it.”
The Wildcats and the Gamecocks will kick off in Jacksonville, Ala. on Saturday at 1 p.m., with the game streaming live on ESPN+.
