Interview With Coach Collums |
Interview With Safety LB Suggs
ABILENE -- The ninth-ranked ACU Wildcats host No. 24 Texas A&M-Kingsville on Saturday in what will be the final time these longtime rivals play as Lone Star Conference opponents.
One of the marquee matchups in all of NCAA Division II football is set for a 6 p.m. kickoff at Shotwell Stadium. The game can be heard locally on Mix 92.5 FM and can be seen locally on KRBC-TV. The game is the fourth game in the Action Sports Champions Classic, a three-day event that will feature one high school game Thursday night, one high school game Friday and one high school game Saturday morning before ACU's game on Saturday night.
Junior running back
Charcandrick West is questionable for Saturday's game with a groin strain suffered last Saturday against McMurry. Redshirt freshman Travis Tarver is likely to start the game at running back with
Marcel Threat in the backup role. Look for
Darrell Cantu-Harkless -- who played running back in 2010 -- to get some carries out of the backfield.
The Javelinas and Wildcats are 1-0 after convincing season-opening home wins last Saturday. ACU hammered McMurry, 51-0, while the Javelinas topped Central Washington, 35-7.
Kingsville enters the game with a commanding 31-14- lead in the all-time series, although the Wildcats have won eight straight games dating back to 2004 (four straight when discounting the win in 2007 vacated by ACU because of NCAA violations).
The Wildcats have won 12 straight regular-season games at Shotwell Stadium, extending back to a Homecoming loss Oct. 17, 2009, to West Texas A&M. ACU also has won its last six season-opening games.
ACU opened the 2012 season last week with a shutout win over McMurry, which is playing its first season in NCAA Division II. The Wildcats' 51 points were the most they've scored in a season-opener since they scored 53 in the 1971 opener against McMurry. The win also was the first career victory for ACU's first-year head coach,
Ken Collums.
The victory was sparked by sophomore defensive end
Nick Richardson, who recorded an ACU record-tying six sacks of McMurry quarterback Jake Mullin. Richardson had three sacks in the first quarter and then one in each of the next three quarters. His performance tied the school record set Nov. 1, 1997, when ACU beat Texas A&M-Commerce, 19-9.
The Wildcats finished with 10 sacks as a team, which is tied for the second-most in a game in school history behind the 13 the Wildcats totaled in a 1994 win over Adams State.
Offensively, the Wildcats were led by senior quarterback Mitchell Gale, who was an efficient 19 of 28 for 290 yards and one touchdown, a 9-yard pass to
Taylor Gabriel late in the second quarter that gave the Wildcats a 21-0 halftime lead. Gale has now thrown a touchdown pass in 24 straight games and in 29 of his 32 career starts. The Wildcats are 24-8 with Gale as their starting quarterback.
The Javelinas raced past Central Washington last Saturday on their way to a 35-7 win at Javelina Stadium. Running back Jonathan Woodson ran for two scores and quarterback Nate Poppell threw for two more to spark the Javelinas.
Last year in a 42-34 loss to the Wildcats in Kingsville, Woodson carried the ball 15 times for 228 yards and three scores, and caught two passes for 23 yards.
The Kingsville defense gave up 352 yards of offense against Central Washington, but forced four turnovers and came up with four sacks in the victory. Jeremy Aguilar – the LSC's Pre-Season Defensive Player of the Year – had four tackles and returned an interception leading to the Javelinas' final touchdown of the night.
OTHER ACU NOTES
• ACU starting outside linebacker
Chris Summers suffered a right knee injury in the first half of last Saturday's win over McMurry and didn't return to the game. Summers' MRI on Thursday confirmed the severity of the injury, and he is out for the season. Sophomore
Cy Wilson is the likely starter in Summers' place.
• ACU wide receiver
Andrew Richards injured his left knee during summer two-a-days and will undergo season-ending ACL reconstruction surgery on Friday.
• The Wildcats were originally credited with nine sacks in last Saturday's game, but a scoring change on Monday on a
Justin Stephens tackle for loss resulted in another sack for the Wildcats giving them 10 for the game.
• Richardson was selected on Thursday as the
d2football.com National Defensive Player of the Week after his performance against the War Hawks. The Offensive Player of the Week was Kutztown (Pa.) quarterback Kevin Morton, who set the school's career record for touchdown passes with 91 in the Golden Bears' 58-6 win over Saint Anselm. Morton completed 31 of 45 passes for 409 yards and six touchdowns in the game. The Web site also ranks ACU No. 9 and Texas A&M-Kingsville No. 23 in this week's poll. National columnist Bob Eblen picks Kingsville to upset the Wildcats, 35-34, on Saturday.
• A familiar face to Wildcat fans returned to uniform last Saturday. Linebacker
Blake Rudd re-joined the team a week before the season-opener and played on special teams in the win over McMurry. Rudd -- a 2009 graduate of Dallas Christian High School -- sat out the entire 2011 season after finishing with 10 tackles and one fumble recovery in nine games.
• Lost in the fallout of ACU's 2011 season-ending loss at Washburn and the beginning of the 2012 season was this nugget: In the final two games of the 2011 season (win vs. Incarnate Word on Nov. 12 and the first-round playoff loss at Washburn on Nov. 19), Gale threw for more yards in back-to-back games than any quarterback in ACU history. In those two games he threw for 833 yards and six touchdowns, including the 506-yard effort against Washburn. That topped the 790 yards that Jim Reese threw for in back-to-back games in 1976. In an Oct. 23 win over then-East Texas State, Reese threw for 226 yards, and then the next week set the ACU school record for passing yards in a game with 564 in a 26-0 win over Angelo State.
• A couple of depth chart changes for the Wildcats as of Thursday afternoon: Rudd is the backup behind
Justin Stephens at weakside linebacker, while redshirt freshman
Torren Davis is the backup behind Wilson at strongside linebacker. Also, freshman defensive tackle
Josh Bloom will suit up for the first time.
