ACU beat West Florida, 35-7, on Saturday, and I’ll say the obvious first. That’s the best this team has looked all year. Second win, first one in conference play, first home win of the season and for about 30 minutes the Wildcats looked like one of the premier teams in the FCS.

Then the second half happened, and it felt like some of the things they had fixed in that first half fell right back through the cracks.

The first half was the whole point

Patterson walked into Monday’s presser and led with it. “Two drives over 70 yards, one over 60, and another one over 50,” he said. He called the offense efficient and pointed at Tucker Parks going 16-of-17.

Sixteen of 17, wow. I don’t expect to see that number again this season, from this team or anyone else really. Parks threw for 155 yards and three touchdowns, didn’t throw a pick, and added 97 yards on 15 carries with a 57-yard run.

What Patterson liked wasn’t the completion rate. It was what Parks didn’t do. He “made good decisions as far as like not putting the ball in jeopardy and taking what the defense was going to give you,” Patterson said. A week after five turnovers against Mercer, that was probably the difference.

The run game was the other half of it. Rovaughn Banks Jr. took 19 carries for 80 yards and a score. That’s three straight games on the ground: 103 at Idaho, 95 against Mercer, 80 against West Florida. Banks has been the only consistent thing on this offense, and Patterson said so out loud after the game Saturday night.

Jayden York led the receivers with four catches for 56 yards and a touchdown. JC French-Love caught two for 42 and scored his first career touchdown, a week after putting the ball on the ground the first time he ever touched it. Patterson called him a young Ray. “He’s electric. He really is.”

The defense was the actual story

I’ve been hard on this unit, but I have to be fair about Saturday.

Patterson called it “probably our most complete effort throughout the course of the season.” I’d agree. ACU held West Florida to 3.5 yards a carry, and the Argonauts didn’t reach the end zone until the fourth quarter.

The short-yardage work stood out most. ACU stopped West Florida four out of five times on fourth-and-short. Patterson had rebuilt practice around exactly that, adding a fourth-and-1, a third-and-1, a two-point play, then another fourth-and-1. “Most coaches are worried about practicing short yardage situations because it’s just a scrum,” he said, “but at the end of the day, if you don’t practice it, then you don’t really have when someone gets into a fourth-and-one.”

Dillon Williams put it more simply. “More physical. We’ve been more physical,” he said after the game. “Like earlier on in the season, we missed a lot of tackles. Now we, you know, we (are) tackling more in practice. KP got us tackling more, and we finished in play.”

Patterson has been saying for a month that he was going to change how they practice. Saturday was the first week you could see it, and the players are describing the same thing he is.

Williams led ACU with 12 tackles and three pass breakups, including one on West Florida’s last real drive. Santana Miller recovered a fumble, and Darius Moore had nine tackles of his own.

Here’s where I’d pump the brakes just a little bit. Patterson said ACU “didn’t give up any cheap vertical shots for touchdowns.” True as stated. But Tyshon Mansell caught a 58-yarder and Markel Townsend broke a 51-yard run. The explosive plays were still there. Credit the Wildcats for not letting them finish off those drives.

Then the second half

Four straight three-and-outs offensively.

Patterson didn’t dress it up. “A little bit in the second half probably lost our edge, lost our intensity a little bit,” he said. Saturday night he was blunter. “We got them down 28 to nothing at halftime. You got to be able to come out and put someone away.”

That’s the pattern now: fast starts, flat finishes. He named it himself. “I don’t think we’ve really, from the beginning all the way to the end, maybe other than Idaho done that consistently.”

Then there’s the punt return game, which is a real problem. Grant Jones muffed one, the second straight week ACU put the ball on the ground on returns, and he finished with four returns for minus-2 yards. The Wildcats are down to their third returner.

Patterson’s answer was mostly about getting Christian Driver back. Fair enough, but it isn’t a fix for Saturday. “You can’t make those kind of mistakes in special teams, man,” he said. “Those are back breakers.”

He’s right, and he said something after Mercer that still applies. Most momentum swings come through special teams. ACU got away with it this time because the defense backed West Florida up and got a stop. That won’t hold every week.

Jace Gilbert punted four times for a 48-yard average with a long of 58. That’s been quite impressive all season.

Saturday: Central Arkansas, Wildcat Stadium

The best storyline of the week is on ACU’s own roster. Williams spent four years at Central Arkansas before transferring here in the offseason. He’s now the Wildcats’ leading tackler, and Saturday he plays the team he came from.

“This is a very personal game,” he said. “But you know, it’s just I just got to play like every other game. You know, I know they going to come in hot, but you know, we going to try to get the win.”

That’s about as even-keeled as a player can be about a game that shouldn’t be even-keeled for him.

Here’s what should temper anybody feeling great about 35-7. West Florida beat Central Arkansas 42-14 earlier this season. Patterson brought that up himself during Mercer week while explaining how good West Florida was. “You saw what they did to Central Arkansas.”

So the team ACU just beat by 28 beat the team coming to Abilene by 28. That math is easy, but it’s hard to trust in football, and Patterson isn’t buying it either. “We have great respect for their football program,” he said. “We’ve had some great battles against them here over the past three seasons.”

What I’d watch:

The red zone: ACU went three-for-three Saturday and has converted all but three or four of 14 trips this season, by Patterson’s count. That’s one of the best weapons you can have. It’s just a matter of getting down there for this team.

Third down: The defense is getting off the field 68% of the time. If that holds against a conference offense, ACU wins and can keep on winning.

Quarterback play: The swing from Mercer to West Florida is the biggest week-to-week jump this offense has had. Against Mercer, ACU went 16-of-28 for 195 yards with no touchdowns and three interceptions. Against West Florida, 16-of-17 for 155 yards and three scores with nothing given away. At Idaho, Parks was 14-of-21 for 148 and two touchdowns. The completions are nearly identical in all three. What changed is how many throws it took to get them, and what happened on the ones that missed. Central Arkansas will tell us which version is closer to real.

The part that I keep coming back to

Patterson said something Monday I can’t shake. “Every time we win, I think that’s just an opportunity to coach our players harder.” Lose, and you rebuild confidence. Win, and that’s permission to push.

He said nearly the same thing after Idaho. Learning to handle success is part of the process. Then ACU turned it over five times against Mercer.

So he’s been right twice now, and the team hasn’t answered him yet. ACU is 2-1 in his first three-game set and 1-0 in conference. He’s already framed the next three: two at home, one on the road, goal of 3-0. “We got to defend Wildcat Stadium for sure,” he said. “And if we do that now, you’re playing meaningful football in the month of November.”

That’s the season. Not whether ACU can play a great half, because we know it can. Whether it can play a second one.