Sports

UAPB BEGINS PIVOTAL STRETCH

By Troy Schulte/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Saturday, October 31, 2009 1:47 AM CDT

Arkansas-Pine Bluff heads into its 2:30 p.m. meeting with Southern today having won three more games than it had at this point last season. It is also one of just two teams in the Southwestern Athletic Conference Western Division to solely control its own championship hopes.

But the team the Golden Lions will see today just might be the best team they have played all season. And the fact that it’s coming so late in the season leaves UAPB with a feeling of having to prove it deserves to be mentioned along with the top teams in the conference.

UAPB is 4-2 overall and 2-1 in the SWAC, but the teams it has beaten have accumulated 11 wins, seven of which come from NAIA Langston (Okla.) University.

If others in the conference are still in a wait-and-see mode regarding coach Monte Coleman’s second UAPB team, four games over the next five weeks against Western Division teams will certainly provide an accurate assessment.

That starts with today’s home finale against the Jaguars (4-3, 1-2).

“That’s probably what most teams are thinking,” Coleman said. “We haven’t played Southern, we haven’t played Grambling, we haven’t played Prairie View.

“The next three games are the three big ones right now.”

Coleman’s challenge today will be trying to slow down the conference’s top offense. Southern leads the SWAC in scoring offense (34.1 points per game), total offense (384.9 yards) and pass offense (247.7).

Senior quarterback Bryant Lee, the SWAC Offensive Player of the Year in 2008, leads the league in passing (237.3 yards) and his 140.9 pass efficiency rating ranks second. His favorite target, Southern Miss transfer Juamorris Stewart, leads the league in receptions (60), yards (781), touchdowns (9) and receiving yards per game (111.6).

“They’ve got athletes all over the place,” Coleman said.

Last Thursday, though, Prairie View A&M found a solution to the potent offense in a 16-14 win in Baton Rouge, La., and the Jaguars were also contained by Jackson State in a 22-14 loss earlier this month.

So it can be done. The Golden Lions, though, won’t be trying to mimic what Prairie View or Jackson State did. They’ve risen to the top of the conference in total defense (255 yards per game), and they didn’t get there by copying strategies of other teams.

“We do what we do,” defensive end Jared Dorn said. “(Southern doesn’t) do anything special we don’t feel. Nothing we haven’t seen before and nothing we feel like we can’t stop.

“We’re up to the challenge.”

The Golden Lions also lead the league in rush defense (85.5 yards per game) and are second in pass defense (169.5) and interceptions (14).

Offensively, UAPB quarterback Josh Boudreaux expects a more comfortable afternoon than in a 38-12 win over Edward Waters College last week. In his first start for the Golden Lions, Boudreaux completed 6 of 15 passes for 149 yards and two touchdowns and he also ran for a score.

He was pleased with his performance, but expects even more from himself on Saturday, while playing a school located about 30 minutes from his hometown of New Iberia, La. Boudreaux said he went to a few Southern games growing up, went to a Bayou Classic in New Orleans one year, and heard from the Jaguars when he left high school and Sacramento (Calif.) City College last season.

A win over the Jaguars, he said, would be “very special.”

“I know some guys on the team,” he said. “This is ... it’s just a good feeling. I get those football chills everytime I think about this game.”

Boudreaux is also excited for today because of what it means for the Golden Lions’ season. If they win, they still control their own fate. If they lose, they need to win the remaining three and get help from other teams.

The junior quarterback said two straight wins have helped with confidence, and the fact that they haven’t lost since a 28-7 setback at Alabama A&M on Sept. 26 helps even more.

The team, he said, believes it can win and, more importantly, doesn’t consider losing as an option.

“We’ve got an attitude around the locker room where we expect to win,” Boudreaux said. “There’s no more losing.

“With the personality of the football team, we’re just expecting to win games right now.”

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