UWF Beats McKendree, 35-3

September 10, 2023

The season has started with UWF’s football team getting a pair of wins by identical scores.

But the latest one on Saturday was viewed differently.

The sixth-ranked Argos again received a dominating performance by their defense, along with more superlatives from quarterback Peewee Jarrett, but an alarming number of penalties (15) in UWF’s 35-3 road win against McKendree University created an urgency to correct.

“We’re not content with how this game went, so we have to keep getting better,” said Argos’ coach Kaleb Nobles, whose team opened its season Sept. 1 with a 35-3 home win against Kentucky Wesleyan. “Obviously, we’ll take wins any way we can get them. And we have a lot to improve on and these guys know that.

“We just have to clean up little things, clean up things between the whistles and be better about smart play. But overall, I am proud of the team and we have to keep improving up.”

His biggest salute was with UWF’s defense, which has been two field goals away from producing two shutouts. An astonishing 22 different Argos’ defenders recorded at least one tackle. UWF held McKendree to minus-32 yards rushing, recorded seven sacks, and limited the home team to just 2.4 yards per play.

McKendree only crossed inside the red zone when the Bearcats were stalled at the 9 on their final possession and missed a field goal. Their only points came on a 47-yard field goal in the second quarter.

Senior linebacker Gael Laurent shined again with five solo stops. Newcomer John McMullen, a graduate student transfer, had four stops, including three sacks. Onelio Rios also had four stops.

“I am really excited about those guys,” Nobles said. “That (defensive) line is awesome and just doing a great job getting after the quarterback.”

The team’s big performance blemish was UWF being whistled for 15 penalties for 160 yards. One of the penalties – a holding call — nullified Caden Leggett scoring on a 62 yard direct snap on a fake punt early in the fourth quarter.

It did result in a first down, however, and UWF scored five plays later on Jarrett’s fourth touchdown pass of the game to complete the scoring. Jarrett finished by completing 21 of 28 passes for 329 yards, including a 77-yard catch-and-run by transfer John Jiles, who played a year ago at Virginia Union.

Nine different UWF players caught a pass, which reinforced this team’s potential.

“We have to worry about us, not worry about the other team or the officials, just do our job as a team overall,” said Nobles in a message he will likely keep repeating to his team this week.

The win continued UWF’s well-earned moniker as “Kings of the Road.” They are now 32-6 in road games since 2017, among the best road records of any NCAA Division II team. They had a 16-game road win streak ended last December in the D-2 national semifinal game and that was their first road playoff loss at a campus site.

This game was the fourth-longest, regular-season road trip – a distance of 724 miles – to a school located 28 miles east of St. Louis. The team was set to travel all night Saturday back to Pensacola.

Their next road trip will be the shortest one in UWF history – less than 220 miles to Tallahassee – for a marquee game Sept. 16 against Florida A&M, which played the South Florida Bulls in a night game Saturday in Tampa.

After that game, which will be the highest-profile Division I team UWF has played, the Argos will start Gulf South Conference play.

“Obviously, there is a lot of stuff we have to clean up because the road will be tougher moving forward,” Nobles said.

Saturday’s game at McKendree began the way UWF wanted. The Argos scored touchdowns on three of their first four possessions.

They capped their first offensive series with Jamontez Woods taking a pitch from Jarrett and sweeping seven yards into the left corner of the end zone.

On the second play of the second quarter, Jarrett connected with Leggett on a 47-yard touchdown pass to make it 14-0. The Argos then answered McKendree’s lone points with a six-play, 75-yard drive that ended with Jiles catching his first TD of the game on a 16-yard throw with 5:10 left before halftime.

Jiles’ second TD was more spectacular. He caught a pass from Jarrett at midfield, broke right through a charging defender, and raced the final 50 yards untouched for a 28-3 lead late in the third quarter.

The fake punt in the fourth quarter followed a timeout. With the ball at the UWF 38, Leggett took the direct snap, stunned the McKendree defense and raced past defenders into the end zone, but the ball was placed at the McKendree 30 following the holding call on the run.

“I told our guys, I’m not afraid to use (fake punt) no matter what,” Nobles said. “I don’t try to hold anything for anybody. I wanted to make sure we’re giving our guys a chance to score points.

“(Special teams) Coach (Jordan) Remsza said (before play), ‘Are you good with this?’ I said, you are dadgum right I am. I told our guys on offense I’m not afraid to be aggressive and go for it on fourth down, too, and we did after that (fake punt to finish TD drive).”

After the game, UWF players and coaches had a picture taken with the scoreboard in the background. It’s a new tradition Nobles wants to continue for all wins – home and away.

The Argos are now 5-0 against the teams from the Great Lakes Valley Conference with its Midwest locations.

The Argos game against Florida A&M is set for a 5 p.m. (CDT) kickoff at Bragg Memorial Stadium.

by Bill Vilona / photo Tim Vizer / UWF for NorthEscambia.com

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Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News, Sports, TOP sports