ACU (3-3, 1-1) ended its three-game losing streak in Saturday afternoon’s Homecoming matchup where the Wildcats took down North Alabama (2-5, 0-3) in a final score of 30-13.
The Wildcats got off to a slow start, but the ACU defense came up big on Saturday forcing five turnovers and allowing only six points in the second half, with two of those turnovers coming from interceptions by junior linebacker Cirby Coheley.
“We needed to win a game like that,” said head coach Keith Patterson. “We needed to grind it out. It wasn’t pretty in the first half and obviously, you don’t get points for style points or anything like that. Our football team is still searching for its identity and I think a little bit of it was shown [Saturday].”
Coming into the Saturday afternoon game, the Wildcats had been struggling, having dropped three straight games and allowed 97 combined points in the last two. ACU was coming off of the bye week after falling to North Texas 31-45 and was eager to get back onto the field and make the adjustments needed to win its first conference game of the year.
“In the North Texas game, we never put our heads down,” said Coheley. “The bye week helped kinda build our team together in the middle of the season.
Unlike their past few games, The Wildcat offense came out dragging, punting the ball on their first two offensive drives. However, they got some momentum late into the first quarter after Coheley grabbed his first interception of the game, setting the ACU offense up deep in Lions territory.
Junior quarterback Maverick McIvor would find junior wide receiver Blayne Taylor on the crossing route and get the ball within the five. The Wildcat offense would ultimately have to settle for three, as sophomore kicker Kyle Ramsey sent a 21-yard field goal through the uprights to give ACU the 3-0 lead.
During the second quarter, as the Lions were beginning to drive down the field, UNA quarterback Noah Walters threw his second pick of the day, this time to senior defensive back Patrick Jolly who leads the Wildcats this year in interceptions with three.
Once again however, the Wildcat offense would stall and would have to settle for three, but this time off of a 54-yarder from Ramsey, making him the only ACU kicker with four field goals from 50+ yards in a single season.
“The confidence [Kyle Ramsey] has is crazy,” Patterson said. “I don’t know if I have ever seen a more even-keel human being in life. He’s a very impressive guy and he just exudes confidence and is calm and just an incredible player.”
The next UNA possession, ACU would force a three-and-out and after a bad punt the Wildcats would take over with just under three minutes and the ball at the UNA 38-yard line. One play is all it would take for McIvor to find sophomore tight end Jed castles for the touchdown to extend the Wildcat lead to 13-0.
The Lions finally broke the shutout late in the second quarter as it took them only 10 plays to go 75 yards and cut into the ACU lead at 13-7.
The Lions received the ball to start the second half and took all the time they needed to find the end zone. An 18-play, 75-yard drive, which lasted nearly nine minutes, resulted in a Lion touchdown. A successful PAT, in which ACU was offsides, led to a questionable call from the North Alabama head coach to retry the PAT, this time missing and keeping the score even at 13.
Another 20-yard pass to Taylor from McIvor got the Wildcats moving on offense and after a roughing the passer penalty, Ramsey was set up to knock down his third field goal of the day, this one from 37.
The fourth quarter was a big one for the Wildcats and Patterson said the late game play is something the team had emphasized going into Saturday.
“It’s nothing more than just a mindset,” Patterson said. ‘It’s something we emphasized all week long. We really just talked about finishing. Playing 60 minutes and then some has just been a really big emphasis in practice.”
Coheley got his hands on the ball again on the next drive, getting his second interception of the day setting the Wildcats up near midfield to begin the fourth quarter. However, the offense would get nothing going and punt the ball right back to UNA.
A seven-minute drive by the Lions resulted in a failed fourth down conversion, giving the Wildcat offense another shot to add some more points. They would do just that starting with a 36-yard pass to sophomore wide receiver Cooper McCasland, setting up senior wide receiver Tristan Golightly for the 30-yard reception that upon review was ruled a touchdown.
The fourth forced turnover of the game by the defense came off of a fumble that led the offense back out onto the field where sophomore running back Rovaughn Banks Jr. ran up the sideline for a 52-yard TD. Banks Jr. finished the afternoon with 78 yards on 10 carries.
The Wildcat defense would grab one more turnover to seal the game, this time from freshman defensive back Jameer Dudley, and close out the game 30-13.
“I think defensively we kinda know who we are,” Patterson said. “We’re staying out of certain coverages, making people earn everything and making them try to throw the ball in front of us.”
McIvor finished the game 12-for-24 passing with 206 yards and two touchdowns with 120 of those yards coming between Golightly and Taylor.
The biggest impact of the game however, came on the defensive side. Junior safety Elijah Moffett finished the game with 13 total tackles and a fumble recovery while Coheley and junior linebacker Darius Moore each had ten tackles.
“Our chemistry is getting to that point to where it’s at that maximum potential,” Coheley said. “I think just as a defense as a whole we are playing a lot better and I just love all my guys on defense.”
ACU returns to action on Saturday when they head to Nacogdoches to take on Stephen F. Austin at 4 p.m. at Homer Bryce Stadium with the game streaming live on ESPN+
