SAN ANTONIO – The University of the Incarnate Word football team fell, 52-35, to No. 11 Central Arkansas on Friday night at Benson Stadium in its season finale. The Cardinals concluded the season with a 5-7 overall record and a 4-5 mark in Southland Conference play.
 
Sophomore quarterback Jon Copeland completed 32 of his 55 pass attempts and had zero interceptions. He threw for 338 passing yards and two touchdowns. Kevin Brown had 14 carries for 85 yards.
 
11th-ranked Central Arkansas took the first lead of the game, concluding a nine-play, 45-yard drive with a 42-yard field goal by Hayden Ray for a 3-0 advantage with 5:50 left in the first. The Bears added a touchdown to open the second quarter when Breylin Smith hit Jarrod Barnes for a four-yard score and a 10-0 lead with 14:03 remaining in the half.
 
The Cardinals responded, using an efficient drive with only four plays that went 81 yards and took 1:36 off the clock. Copeland completed passes to Ameer King (20) and CJ Hardy (41) before connecting with Jaelin Campbell for a 21-yard touchdown pass. With 12:27 left in the half, UIW cut the Bears' lead to 10-7.
 
The Bears extended their advantage again with 5:18 remaining in the half when Smith found Joe Hampton in the end zone for a nine-yard touchdown and a 17-7 advantage
 
With 57 seconds left before the break, Smith found Tyler Hudson for a 14-yard touchdown, but UIW answered. Ce'Cori Tolds stepped up on the ensuing kickoff, returning the ball 94 yards for a touchdown. This marks the second consecutive game Tolds has scored a touchdown on a kickoff return (100 yards at NM State). With the score, the Cardinals cut UCA's lead to 24-14 heading into the locker room.
 
Central Arkansas opened the second half with another score, this time a 44-yarder from Smith to Hudson for a 31-14 lead. The Cardinals responded again, scoring with 8:16 left in the third. The drive included an 18-yard pass from Copeland to Brady Rogers and two 14-yard completions, first to Campbell and then to Marquez Perez. Copeland then found Colby Anthony in the end zone for a three-yard touchdown, cutting the UCA advantage to 31-21.
 
UIW continued its offensive push, scoring again with 3:52 left in the third quarter. Copeland capped the eight-play, 82-yard drive with an eight-yard quarterback keeper to leave UCA with a 31-28 lead.
 
The Bears scored again with 12:21 left in the game when Carlos Blackman rushed for an 18-yard score, extending UCA's lead to 38-28.
 
UCA added another score with 5:30 left, but the Cardinals refused to quit, mounting a 12-play, 75-yard drive. Brown then scored a four-yard rushing touchdown with 2:25 left in the game, cutting the UCA lead back to 10 (45-35).
 
The Bears used a kickoff returned for a touchdown of their own to push the lead out to 52-35 with 2:18 left. UIW made one final push down the field, but time ran out as UCA secured the victory.
 
HEAD COACH ERIC MORRIS
On the end of the season…
"Honestly, I just think that they're further along in their progress of a complete program than us right now and we continue to find ways to shoot ourselves in the foot and do some things that are not very disciplined. I just told the kids in there. We have a bunch of people coming back. I appreciate the seniors and everything they've done for us up to this point, but we're going to crank down on the little things in this program and make sure we get things done the right way around here. Too many times this year, we put ourselves in key situations, in good situations, and we end up hurting ourselves because we're not disciplined. That's something that's going to change, and if that takes getting rid of some people and changing the personnel around here, we're going to do that."
 
On the team's performance…
"We have a bunch of good players out there, a bunch of young players. We didn't execute at a high level all the time tonight, but we did some good things, we fought back tonight. I loved the resiliency. I love the fight in our young kids right now. I thought our quarterback played better tonight. In the stat book, it's another one of those games where everything is pretty even. We have more first downs, we have more yards, we have more this, we have more that. That just shows that those magnified times in the game that are critical, we're not doing a good job at helping ourselves out."
 
On moving forward…
"Excited about the direction of the program and the kids that we're going to have back for this offseason. I will do a better job as the leader of this program going forward at tightening some stuff down and making sure that we're not getting away with stuff throughout the course of the week that's showing up throughout the course of a football game. I'm proud of our seniors. They've done a lot for this program. When I took this job, I knew it was going to be a slow process. We actually won more than everybody thought last year but we've got to find a way to win some of these football games."