Wildcat football got its first conference win and home win of the season with a dominant 35-7 win over West Florida on Saturday at Wildcat Stadium. The Wildcats are now 2-4 on the year and a perfect 1-0 in United Athletic Conference play.

One highlight for ACU was Tucker Parks, redshirt sophomore quarterback from Spring, who finished with an impressive stat line after throwing three interceptions against Mercer last week.

He completed 16-of-17 passes for 155 yards and three touchdowns, while also rushing for 97 yards on 15 carries. That included a 57-yard breakaway run, which is ACU’s longest play of the season, earning him UAC Player of the Week honors.

Parks said that this win helped build the team’s confidence down the stretch.

“Going into conference, we’re 0-0,” Parks said. “So it’s a whole new half of the season … to go out there and dominate those guys like that, especially a good team like West Florida, I think that’s confidence building, and it’ll definitely lead into next week.”

Parks also said the major focus this week was emphasizing the protection of the ball, which he and head coach Keith Patterson attributed to their keys to success, which the Wildcats did, having not one offensive turnover in the game.

This was all despite the injury bug the Wildcats continue to face. To mention a few big names, the Wildcats were still without Christian Driver, redshirt senior wide receiver from Flower Mound; Alex Broome, senior running back from Nashville, Tennessee; and redshirt sophomore wideout Raydrian Baltrip, who is out for the season, on offense, but were able to move the ball around pretty well despite that.

Parks found three different receivers on his three touchdowns in JC French Love, freshman wide receiver from Garland; Jayden York, redshirt senior tight end from Austin; and Itty Henry, redshirt senior tight end from Belton.

“If we can spread the ball like that, I think it makes us a pretty dangerous offense,” Parks said.

While on the injury note, Patterson said he is optimistic about where this team will be in the upcoming weeks, with Driver, Romello Boykin, freshman wide receiver from Pflugerville, and the defensive lineman Chris Herpin, senior defensive lineman from Flower Mound, optimistically to be back this week.

Outside of the injuries and strong offense, the other major highlight was ACU keeping West Florida off the scoreboard through the first three quarters and stopping the Argonauts on four fourth-down attempts, short downs being something Patterson said he wanted to emphasize during the rough start of the season.

“We added a short yardage, third down, so we go a fourth and one, a third and one, and then we do a two-point play,” in recent practices, Patterson said. “So, it’s really shown up.”

Patterson said the defensive staff also focused on a game plan approach to better fit its personnel on the field.

“We looked at what we were doing and said, you know what? I think we’re trying to ask our guys to do something that they’re really not built for,” Patterson said.

And the result was the Wildcats’ first conference win and their first win at Wildcat Stadium.

The Wildcats have North Alabama coming into town this week, coming in 2-3 after a loss to Florida State and a bye week. Kickoff is set for Saturday at 7 p.m.