College Football Hall of Famer Lou Holtz use to say something along the lines of ‘teams learn who they are in September, separate themselves in October and play for championships in November’. If Coach Holtz sentiments are true, here is what we learned about our beloved Bethune-Cookman Wildcats through the first month of the season.
Quarterback Arkevious Williams is back and he is pretty dang on good
If you were one of those wondering about the health and bounce back of quarterback Arkevious Williams after last year’s devastating injury… R-E-L-A-X. Williams seems fully healed and currently leads the team in rushing with 262 yards through 4 contests. He scored three rushing touchdowns in last Saturday’s 37-29 win over Howard University and would have had a 4th rushing TD from 74 yards out but a penalty nullified William’s spectacular run. The 2nd team All-MEAC performer also had his best game passing the ball this season against HU connecting on 69% of his passes for 199 yards. Williams has earned two MEAC Offensive Player of the Week honors and has led the Wildcats to a 3-1 record to start the season so yeah…we think Arkevious “Fat” Williams is just fine.
Stats lie (or at least they don’t tell the whole story)
BCU’s defense ranks in the middle of the MEAC in most significant defensive categories but the eye test suggests the Wildcat D is significantly better than the statistics show. You don’t have to do much excavating to determine the Miami contest is greatly skewing the defensive numbers. The defense is giving up an average of 28 points per contest which is nothing to share with grandma over biscuits. However, if you remove the Miami outlier, BCU’s defense is only yielding 16 points per contest. That’s a huge difference and a lot more indicative of what we expect from the defense since the remaining contests are against FCS opponents.
More consistency is needed in the passing game and offense as a whole
The Wildcat offense on the other hand have been a bit of a roller coaster ride. They labored through the first half against Jackson State, were blanked by “The U” and did enough to win against Mississippi Valley. We saw a significantly better performance in last week’s visit to the Nation’s Capital in which the offense amassed its highest point total (37), passing yards (199) and total yards (400) of the season. Is the offense heading in the right direction or did they enjoy one good week? Let’s pray to our lucky stars it is the latter. If not, the slow starts, the sputtering passing game and overall inconsistency could prove disastrous in upcoming games against the likes of North Carolina A&T, South Carolina State and North Carolina Central.
Before we get ahead of ourselves, the Wildcats host their first home game of the season when the Bears of Morgan State roll into Daytona Beach. Kickoff is slated for 4:00pm. As always, HailWildcats will be there bringing you the sights and sounds.
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