UWF spent the first month of its FCS season turning heads.
Now we get to see how the Argos respond to a bad Saturday.
UWF dropped out of the Stats Perform FCS Top 25 after a 35-7 loss at Abilene Christian, one week after sitting at No. 17. The Argos are still 3-2, and there’s a lot of football left.
So forget the ranking for a minute.
ACU exposed some things UWF has to clean up. The Argos fell behind 28-0 at halftime, struggled on third down and piled up 10 penalties for 91 yards.
Kaleb Nobles didn’t make excuses afterward.
“I hope we can learn some stuff from this,” Nobles said. “I’m frustrated myself. I take this on me. We just didn’t show up and play well and I take personal responsibility for that.”
Now it’s about fixing it.
Ty’Ray Davis is back, but the offense still needs to find its rhythm. Markel Townsend gave UWF something to build on with 98 yards on just 12 carries against ACU. Getting him more involved feels like an easy place to start.
Defensively, the Argos need to tackle better, win early downs and find a way off the field on third down.
None of this changes what UWF did during its first month. The Argos beat Southern Illinois, Central Arkansas and Southeast Missouri State. They’ve already shown they belong at this level.
Now comes another part of that process.
Anybody can look good when things are rolling.
How UWF responds when they aren’t will tell us a lot more.
