Fire Nathan Brown

Mulerider

If he has multiple losing seasons in a row, I’m sure they would step in or put pressure. However, as long as they have a .500 record, he will be fine.

woosterbear

Charlie76 don’t be so sure

JoshUCA

Just adding to the fire tonight.

Gready

Nathan promised a better product this week. Unfortunately, more of the same. Nathan needs to pull a few all nighters to figure out what’s going on.

Mulerider

Gready That’s funny. Not sure if that’s practical though.

JoshUCA

We aren’t winning another game this season.

Charlie76

Doesn’t matter who the Coach is. The teams who have success year after year in the FCS have a dedicated and loyal fan base . They raise money at a level that we can’t get remotely close to. NIL has made it even more challenging…if you can’t afford to buy players you aren’t going to be competitive, much less win. The last two games prove that out. I’m not sure we have a good enough Roster to compete at the D2 level. Some hard decisions are looming for the AD and the administration.

Gready

Charlie76 NIL isn’t the problem. Lots of programs winning without having the biggest or large NIL financial treasure chest or having to have the largest athletic budget. “Buying” players isn’t the answer. It’s getting the most out of what you have. UCA has and gets top level talent for a FCS program. At last count, I think we had at least 11 players who are FBS transfers and probably the same or more that are FCS transfers. We have more 3 STAR players on this team than we have probably ever. We continue to to put players in the NFL or put them in a position to make a NFL roster spot (Lujuan Winningham, Tyler Hudson, Robert Rochell, ShunDerrick Powell, David Walker, etc…). It’s simply an untrue statement that UCA doesn’t bring in and retain really good players despite what people say about NIL. We have the players. The dip in winning the last couple years is more on the lack of quality coaching and not having enough of our good players step up to the plate in performing like they should be.

Xbear83

Charlie76

You are correct Charlie. As I said after Tarleton, “if you can’t pay them, you can’t beat them”.

Sac State manhandle us just as Tarleton did. While both of them had good coaching, they had better players. Nathan said last week Sac State had 68 FBS transfers on there team.

As far as another coach, who would want to coach this team given the lack of funds, NIL, apathetic alumni support and needed facility upgrades. Maybe only a young coach with desires to have “Division 1 head coach” on his business cards?

With the exception of NIL these are not new issues. UCA has been unsuccessfully fighting for recognition, money and alumni support for years.

UCA has been successful throughout the years because we’ve had good teams, good coaches, a strong winning tradition and a relatively competitive recruiting opportunity. Like it or not paying recruits and players has changed the game and, in my opinion, unfortunately placed UCA at a big disadvantage.

Mulerider

Regardless, time for a change at UCA similar to the University of Arkansas.

jdp1205

My opinion is that it’s more than just the coach. The issue is with the program as a whole. What I mean by that is the lack of funding starts with the athletic department not having a plan to reach potential donors. It’s way more about how poorly athletics as a department is ran than anything else. It’s the little things from social media to reaching out to the people who are willing to donate but never asked to do so. It’s really poorly ran and that carries over to all the teams under achieving. Coach Brown can do the job with the right support and leadership.

JoshUCA

jdp1205 100%

Gready

jdp1205 I can most definitely agree with your assessment on how the social media is ran as far as a factor that holds UCA back. However I can’t really say or agree that UCA athletics doesn’t have a plan to reach out to donors or alum. Reason being my wife and I get several calls throughout the year about donating from staff and from student-athletes. I really do think that it’s the defectors who support/donate to the Razorbacks from alum who are UCA grads and former players that’s the biggest problem. If we could keep some of that money and support inhouse, I think we could have a little but more of a competitive financial advantage. Or at least closer to on par with other top tier FCS programs.

Xbear83

Gready

Interesting quote from Chatty coach. Another respected FCS team struggling!

https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2025/sep/20/mocs-challenge-early-but-no-3-tarleton-state/

Gobeers

Anyone who thinks Nathan Brown just needs more financial resources to be competitve is nuts. Last Saturday was UCA’s first game in nearly a year where the Bears had fewer penalties than their opponent. That only happened 3 times each of the past 2 seasons. You have to go back to 2020 to find a year where we were the least penalized team majority of the games.

This isn’t a talent issue but focus / fundamental issue continuing in the wrong direction. UCA has talent but not enough to overcome the coaching. You have to go back to the late 60s-early 70s to find a 5 year span (will be 6) worse than this. Those coaches didn’t get a pass and Brown shouldn’t either.

BearlyWatchable

Gobeers The talent they had last year was unreal too.

Charlie76

BearlyWatchable

Shunderrik Powell had 6 - 50yard plus TD runs. Another 5 or so 20 yard plus TD runs..and a few long TD receptions out of the Backfield. After he got injured the offense went in the tank. We had one guy that was a gamechanger. QB was mediocre at best. The Bridges kid at WR was explosive but wasn’t used enough. Talent level is low.

Great kids no doubt but They are overmatched

Gready

Charlie76 All due respect but if you’re serious about saying our last year’s team had low talent, it’s going to be hard to take you seriously when talking about UCA football. Yes, ShunDerrick was the main attraction on offense but we had something like 5 or 6 guys get NFL looks when the season was over. And I think a couple guys moved on to FBS school as well. And I know it’s all opinions, but calling Will McElvain mediocre at best is a travesty. Compare his stats to others before he got hurt and he was up there with at least tier 2 QBs in the FCS.

Nothing wrong in saying you’re disappointed in what UCA did last year and doing this year. But to say it’s lack of talent just isn’t true. We even have the talent this year to perform better but just haven’t. But we all have opinions sir. And I respect your right to voice it despite any disagreement I have with it.

Here’s to hoping the Bears finally get to hitting in all cylinders and give us the product we want and deserve. Go Bears!!!

Charlie76

Gready

Forget Mizzou…so you’re saying that our talent level is equal to Tarelton State and Sacramento State ? After the TSU game Coach Brown stated that it was the first time he could remember a team that was so physically dominant. That they just whipped us on both sides of the line of scrimmage, even with their backups.

I’m not saying that there is no talent on our roster but it’s not near to the teams in the top tier of the FCS.

I’m certainly happy to have a back and forth with you. It means you care about the program and we need more fans like you.

Thanks for your support and insight…

Gready

Charlie76 First, I love having honest heartfelt conversations with other Bear fans. So as long as we can do that, we’ll continue to have conversations/discussions about UCA athletics (full disclosure: I’m more up on the football side of things versus other sports but trying to get more well versed). That said, nowhere did I say or suggest we have equal talent to Tarleton or Sac St in any of my replies to you. And…I didn’t say that you said we didn’t have talent but you did say we had low talent. That part I 1000% disagree with. You don’t have multiple preseason All-UAC picks if you have low talent.

Now if you’re saying that on the defensive side of the ball that we don’t have high level talent I could maybe agree with that. Nobody stands out on that side of the ball to me. But I reserve the right to say that maybe it’s because the talent level of what we’ve played excluding UAPB.

As for specifically comparing our talent level against other top tier teams in the FCS, we’ll have plenty of games to measure that and see how true or untrue our beliefs are. Because we got several ranked teams still on the schedule that I’m guessing you would consider top tier. Now if you are only stacking us up against top 5 in the country teams, that’s completely unfair as a measuring stick. I think the better question is can you and I agree with what constituents talent? Are we talking about stats? Are we talking about a players star rating? Are we talking about seen but not regularly tapped into potential from the eye ball test?

Overall I just can’t agree that we have LOW talent. As always, thanks for the back and forth. It too shows me that you care about the direction of the program. If more people showed half as much passion and concern then I think we’d have a few more bodies in the stands and a few more dollars added to the UCA athletic budget. Keep speaking up. GO BEARS!!!

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