PENSACOLA, Fla. — It was an unorthodox week for West Florida following the aftermath of Hurricane Isaias, but the Argos weren't ready to make excuses on Saturday when they hosted long time DII Gulf South Conference rival West Alabama at PenAir Field. UWF dominated the visiting Tigers on both sides of the ball coming away with a 37-3 victory and giving the Pensacola and surrounding communities a breath of fresh air after what was a challenging week for many.
"I told these guys in the room that nobody's going to feel sorry for you," said Nobles on the team's unusual practice week with the campus closures. "We practiced hard this week. Probably a more intense week of practice than we've had in a long time to get ready for this one."
UWF controlled the game from start to finish scoring 30 unanswered points across five scoring drives. The Argos defense caused fits for the Tigers all afternoon with the visitors seeing almost no offensive production. UWA finished the game with just 29 yards of total offense from 45 passing yards and -16 rushing yards. That mark set a new program record for UWF Football with the least number of yards given up in a single game. The longest play of the day for the Tigers came from a fake punt pass that went for 26 yards. West Alabama had six drives of negative yards and nine drives that resulted in a three-and-out.
"I loved how we played," said head coach
Kaleb Nobles. "Didn't start off as hot as we needed to on a couple drives, but we kind of put our foot on the gas pedal and made some decisions in the game to get after these guys. Our defense was phenomenal."
Leading the defensive unit, like he has much of the season, was defensive end
Byron Puryear who lived in the backfield coming away with seven tackles (4 solo, 3 assisted) including five tackles for loss and 1.5 sacks. Seven different Argos recorded a TFL on a unit that only allowed six first downs and did not give up a single third down conversion.
The defense wasn't the only key factor in the contest. The Argos' offense led by their run game was a force that could not be stopped. West Florida finished with 528 total yards of offense with 329 yards coming from the ground game. The workload was spread out between three featured rushers. Quarterback Ty'Ray Davis rushed for 126 yards and two scores, starting running back
Markel Townsend had 104 yards on a dozen carries and Keishawn Smith had 72 yards on 10 rushes.
It took a few drives for the Argos offense to get going after a first drive interception by
Donovan Leary who started the game for UWF. On the third drive of the game West Florida capped off a five-play, 78-yard drive with an eight-yard touchdown run by Davis.
The second quarter was the highest scoring period for the Argos with 17 points.
Reid Grek started the quarter with a 30-yard field goal to give UWF a 9-0 lead. Later in the quarter the Argos turned a bad situation positive when offensive lineman
Dylan Lloyd chased down a fumble in the endzone to put UWF up 16 points. Davis scampered for 20 yards before fumbling it around the 5-yard line. The ball rolled into the endzone, and Lloyd was the first to find the ball amidst a pile of players.
Davis redeemed himself on the next drive with a 3-yard touchdown run giving UWF a 23-0 lead.
In the second half the Argos pushed the advantage to 30-0 when
Tyshon Mansell caught a 9-yard pass from Davis for his first receiving score of the season.
Late in the fourth quarter Leary tossed a short touchdown pass to tight end
Tyler Dostin for UWF's fifth touchdown of the game.
"I would give a big shout out to our administration of allowing us to get here and prepare for the game," said Nobles. "Our administration had our players and the whole student population's safety in mind first. And a big shout out to everybody outside of campus, the electric people, first responders, anybody dealing with anything. They've allowed us to have comfortability to play this game. So truly it's not just a team effort but a city effort to get out here to play. Hopefully we gave them a little escape from reality in what's going on outside this field today."
The win moved the Argos to 4-2 overall. Up next, the Argos travel to Richmond, Ky., to face Eastern Kentucky on Saturday, Oct. 24. Kickoff is set for 1 p.m. at Roy Kidd Stadium.
