After the departure of key offensive players on the ACU football team, the department of athletics has decided to move the “Touchdown Jesus” statue from the Lunsford trail to the football field. 

The team went 9-5 last season and won the United Athletic Conference and a first-round playoff game. But the team will be without key players, Maverick Mcivor, Jerry Lawson and David Oke who entered the transfer portal and Sam Hicks, Nehemiah Martinez and Blayne Taylor declaring for the NFL draft. The Wildcats will have to find a way to replace the scoring and defense these players bring.

To help the team Athletics decided to move “Touchdown Jesus” to the endzone to help the team on offense and defense. 

“It’s going to help us a lot this upcoming season on both sides of the ball,” Head Coach Keith Patterson said. “We had some key guys leave our team this offseason but with the ‘Touchdown Jesus’ addition we should be even better.” 

“Touchdown Jesus” will also travel with the team during away games to ensure the team performs well on the road. 

Zack Lassiter, vice president of athletics, was one of the main voices in the decision-making process.  Lassiter was a big advocate for making the move happen. One of the main reasons he advocated for the move was his not wanting to see the team struggle to win games like in the past seasons.

“In the past, this team has struggled to get wins so the addition of ‘Touchdown Jesus’ to the field I hope to see next season’s team do even better than this year,” Lassiter said. “After seeing our key players from last season leave I knew we had to do something.” 

He said the players on the team have been all on board with the decision and that there has been no negative feedback from them. 

“Whatever we can do to win games is all that matters to me,” Will Shaffer, redshirt senior linebacker from Tempe, Arizona said.