2018 Southland Offseason Thread

[Outsider1]

Hope everyone had a good holiday time. Things are fairly quiet now, but will begin picking up soon and wanted to get your feel for your teams going into the spring and summer. ACU came off of early signing with 13-14 good JUCO transfers on both offense and defense. None of the players were highly ranked recruits, but some had been given interest by FBS and FCS schools. From what I see of our recruit's size and speed, they should be ready to play and offer some help for us. I am happy with our signing class so far, but want to see more long term emphasis included. Most of the Juco players will have 2+ years to play. Dorrel was really focused on making us more competitive for the 2018 season. From the beginning I think he wanted to bring in and redshirt more HS players, but saw more immediate needs for us. Still, I am hoping our coaches get some good HS signed LOIs that stick around. We have saved some schollies for that. We are expecting there to be a couple of FBS dropdowns as well. We have one so far. All in all- it should be interesting to see the old and new mix it up come spring.

Old players gone for sure is our QB, Sealey. He is moving on to other places and should get better and more play time there. Whether Luke Anthony ends up with the #1 or another beats him out will become known later. Either way, I know Anthony can do the job fine. We lost a CB to PSU earlier on in the season but we remain soundly deep for our defensive backfield. I know there are others, but can't remember off the top of my head.So, we didn't have a huge graduating class and we are bringing in decent help. How much that translates into wins for us next year... we'll see. I think we are on track to be improved over this past season for sure. How much I don't know. I still know beating each of you will still take a lot week in and week out.

[BEAR]

UCA football went through a tough transition In the coaching ranks as a bigger school bought our head coach and most of his staff.

Our New Staff:

Head Coach: Nathan Brown was promoted from OC. Former UCA QB.
Assistant Head Coach/ TE coach: Brooks Hollingsworth from Conway High School. Previous UCA coach.
QB Coach/ OC- Ken Collums. Former UCA QB and former ACU head coach.
DC/Linebackers coach: Max Thurmond
RB Coach- Taylor Reed Former UCA QB and coached H.S. level
Safeties/ Nickel backs coach- Chad Williams
WR coach/ Special teams coordinator- Ryan Howard. Former UCA QB and TE. Kept on in transition.
OL coach/ recruiting coord.- Gunnar Boykin
D Line coach- Tony Davis



This off- season we learned UCA’s future OOC schedules:

2018- Murray State
2018- @Tulsa

2019- @Western Kentucky (FBS)
2019- @Hawaii (FBS)
2019- Austin Peay

2020- @ Austin Peay
2020- @ Missouri (SEC)

2021- @Arkansas State (FBS)
2021- Missouri State

2022- @Ole Miss (SEC)
2022- @Missouri State

UCA also signed 12 players in the Dec. 20 – 22^nd signing period:

The newcomers include:

offensive linemen
Alex Bridges, 6-5, 310 pounds Cisco C.C. Texas
Will Burgess, 6-4, 330 Hot Springs H.S.
Dylan Desper 6-4, 290 Jones County C.C.
Jacob Ingram; 6-3, 305 West Monroe H.S.

TE Austin Eldridge; 6-3, 240 Plant City Fl. H.S.

RB Cameron Myers; 6-1, 200 Durant H.S. Plant City Fl.

WR Bennie Smith; 5-8, 170 Klein Oak H.S. Spring, TX

DT Alejandro Ramirez; 6-2, 300 Springdale Har-ber H.S. Ark.

CB Duke Upshaw; 6-0, 180 East Miss. C. C.

punter Taylor Wallace, 6-1, 200 Jones C. C.

long snapper Raleigh Wood. 6-2, 205 East Miss. C. C.

DL Jon Campbell- 6-1, 285 Klein Oak H.S. Spring, TX.

[Outsider1]

I was happy to see Ken go back to UCA. I think he is good at the OC position. Our OOC schedule was completed by getting DII Angelo State to play us, but hey, we open with Baylor

[Outsider1]

2018 ACU Commits-
WR Floyd Connell, 6'2 165, Copperas Cove: Stats- 46 catches for 517 yards and 3 tds with 18 tackles on defense
WR Dequavas Sneed, 5'9 160, Lancaster: Stats- 1 catch for 49 yards and 1 td

QB Cole Klayman, 6'0 210 El Camino JUCO:Stats- 65.7% completion percentage, 2309 yards passing with 21 tds

TE Jordan Bruner, 6'4 235, Pasadena JUCO:Stats- 15-249 with 4 tds

TE Kevin Ventura-Cortes, 6'6 220, Cerritos JUCO: Stats- 20-180 with 3 tds

CB Jeremiah Baltrip, 6'2 190, Coffeyville JUCO: Stats- 23 tackles and 2 ints

WR Torin Justice, 6'3 200, Trinity Valley JUCO: Stats- 46-579 and 3 tds

RB Robert McKnight, 5'11 195 Independence JUCO: Stats- was red-shirted this year

CB Byron Robinson, 5'11 190, Kilgore JUCO: Stats- 22 tackles, 1 int and 15 pass break-ups

DT Douglas Nyandika. 6'5 270, Navarro JUCO: Stats-

CB Alexander Lofton, 6'2 190, Butler JUCO: Stats- 16 tackles, 1 int and 4 pass break-ups

LB Jack Lechman, 6'1 220, Trinity Valley JUCO: Stats- 65 tackles

DE Brian Miller Jr, 6'4 260, Coffeyville JUCO: Stats- 31 tackles and 4.5 sacks

OL Tylor Lovett, 6'2 290, Butler JUCO:

OL- Dakota Napierkowski, 6'4 259, Snow College

[katss07]

The biggest question of the offseason for SHSU is who win the quarterback position. We have two pretty good quarterbacks in Griffen and Brock, but they have yet to show much on the field. I think that if the right person is at that position, we should make the playoffs. Nicholls will be good again.

[Katfan]

The biggest question of the offseason for SHSU is who win the quarterback position. We have two pretty good quarterbacks in Griffen and Brock, but they have yet to show much on the field. I think that if the right person is at that position, we should make the playoffs. Nicholls will be good again.

Our new qb will likely be Michael Dare an early signee. If not then Ty Brock. Either way both can throw and run.

[Daytripper]

Our new qb will likely be Michael Dare an early signee. If not then Ty Brock. Either way both can throw and run.

Dare is a big kid with mediocre community college stats.... we'll see how it goes.

[katss07]

Dare is a big kid with mediocre community college stats.... we'll see how it goes.

I want to see Brock start. I really think the dude could be good. Haven’t seen Dare, but Ill have to check him out. Whoever wins it deserves to be the starter. As long as we are winning.

[Serpentor]

I want to see Brock start. I really think the dude could be good. Haven’t seen Dare, but Ill have to check him out. Whoever wins it deserves to be the starter. As long as we are winning.

Well at the very least I hope Caleb enjoyed his free education.

[BEAR]

After UCA and SHSU have a combined 34-2 record the past two years, I predict a pendulum swing back toward McNeese, SLU, and SFA side of the field. Reason: Both lost 2 very good QBs. But this conference does this every few years. No biggie. That's why we play....