Right from kickoff, the University of Arkansas at Monticello and Northwestern Oklahoma State University will battle for respect in Great American Conference football.
The two teams combined for three wins a season ago. One of those wins was UAM’s 49-24 win at Northwestern in the season opener. Another was Northwestern’s 41-0 blanking of Southwestern Oklahoma State — a team UAM beat in its home opener — to avoid a winless season.
“It was great to see us finally pull together and play a game we knew we could play,” second-year Northwestern Coach Ronnie Jones said during Great American Conference Media Day. “That has springboarded us into the spring and now the fall. We’re undefeated.”
So is UAM, which went from a 2-0 start to a 9-game slide to finish out 2023.
Week 2 of the NCAA season is Week 1 in the GAC, and the quest for redemption begins for both the Boll Weevils and the Rangers at 6 p.m. Thursday at Willis “Convoy” Leslie Cotton Boll Stadium in Monticello. KHBM-FM 93.7 will broadcast the game with live video at https://youtube.com/weevilnation.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
“They’re always going to be a physical team,” said Hud Jackson, kicking off his 14th season as UAM’s coach and looking for his first overall winning season (the 2018 Weevils were 6-6 following a bowl loss). “When they get here, they’re going to be some big dudes, and they’re talented. I assure you, we are not in any position to take anyone for granted. We’re up for the challenge. We feel like we’re going to be healthy.”
Jackson literally knocked on his wooden desk in hopes the Weevils can avoid injuries to key players, like the broken throwing hand that sidelined quarterback Demilon Brown, starting his sixth year in Kelly green tonight, after four games. UAM has beefed up its corps at all skill positions with new faces, and backup Buddy Taylor has gotten bigger on his own during the offseason.
UAM will see who takes on the role of featured running back after the Weevils carried the ball by committee a season ago. Sophomore Glen Cage of Baton Rouge has returned after limited action as a freshman, but redshirt freshman Slade LeBlanc of Belton, Texas, and sophomore Hayden Thomas of Kinder, La., have made pushes to start in the backfield during camp. Five of the nine running backs on the roster are true freshmen.
“I feel we’ve got the chemistry now, and everybody is working as one,” Thomas said. “Nobody is being selfish and we’re taking it step by step to become one as a team. I feel like if we get the job done and stay healthy, we’ll have a good impact this season.”
Northwestern turned heads in the offseason with the addition of defensive coordinator Jerry Glanville, going into his 58th year of coaching. Glanville is best known for coaching the Warren Moon-quarterbacked Houston Oilers (now Tennessee Titans) in the 1980s and Deion Sanders-led Atlanta Falcons in the 1990s.
“One thing I believe, and the attitude I bring to Northwestern, don’t tell me we can’t recruit great football players and don’t tell me we can’t get great coaches,” Jones said. “I’m ecstatic to have Jason Medrano back as our offensive coordinator, but I’m still wondering how I got Jerry Glanville to come here. That has been a spark we needed. He’s a blast to be around. He’s got the energy of a 30-year-old. He’s come in and taken a lot of young defensive coaches and shown them how to coach.”
What scheme Glanville will bring, Jackson isn’t quite sure — and Jones didn’t mention.
“He’s been in the game so long, there are so many different things. He’s coached some really good players in the back half and has been able to play man a lot,” Jackson said. “It’s going to be interesting to see because we really don’t know. We can go off of things he did at different places he’s been, which might be more of man-type stuff on the back half. Up front, I think there will be some twist games and different stunts where he’ll try to cause a little chaos, which is what a lot of teams are going to try to do to Demilon.”
Graduate student Coby Tillman, a defensive lineman who began his college career six years ago at the University of Oklahoma, said the difference in Glanville’s scheme from the previous is that all players are running to the ball.
“Our big word for our defense is ‘pursuit,'” Tillman said. “That’s what we exhibit toward other people. It’s just, pretty much, gang-tackling anything we see.”
Last season was a learning experience for Jones, who’s coached in the high school through NFL ranks following a three-sport career at Northwestern in the 1970s. He was hired at his alma mater in December 2022 after another 1-10 season for the Rangers, the lone win at UAM in the middle of the season.
“I didn’t know much about the GAC, which is an unbelievable conference, but I also didn’t know much about our own team,” Jones said. “I feel like we’re at a level where we can compete in the GAC.”
Jackson feels the same way after signing a large class of high school recruits.
“Our goal is to always compete for a conference championship and win as many games as we can,” he said. ” It’s one where these guys can look back on how we accomplished this year. I’m a believer that culture is built every year.”
Great American Conference football
Thursday’s games
Southern Arkansas at SE Oklahoma State, 6 p.m.
NW Oklahoma State at UAM, 6 p.m.
Henderson State at East Central, 6 p.m.
Southern Nazarene at Harding, 7 p.m.
SW Oklahoma State at Ouachita Baptist, 7 p.m.
Oklahoma Baptist at Arkansas Tech, 7 p.m.