Central Arkansas opens season tonight against ranked UT Martin

Central Arkansas kicks off its 2026 football season tonight against UT Martin at 6:30 p.m., and it’s a matchup fans haven’t seen since 2014.

Josh Goff, who was working at UCA in communications and branding from 2008-2020, had a great story on X about the game and a lot of that information is used as information for this story.

You can read his full post on X.

The Bears are going on the road for the opener, and this game brings a lot of storylines with it.

Between the two rosters there are more than 100 newcomers, so nobody really knows what either team looks like yet.

UCA and UT Martin have squared off four times since 2005, and three of those meetings came as FCS opponents in 2007, 2013 and 2014. Most of those games were nail biters.

Three of the four games were decided by a combined four points, and every one of them came down to the final minutes.

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— Josh Goff (@Josh_Goff) August 27, 2026

A history full of close finishes

The most recent meeting in 2014 went the Bears’ way 26-24.

UCA needed one last push, and got it — the winning score crossed the goal line with roughly a minute showing on the clock, and a turnover a couple plays later locked up the win.

The Skyhawks flipped the result a year later, escaping Martin with a 24-23 win after getting a hand on the Bears’ potential game-winner right at the final horn.

Go back to 2005 and the finish was just as tight. That was UCA’s final season at the Division II level, and the Bears fell just short of a Division I win, losing 35-34 on a touchdown with 54 seconds left.

A freshman backup quarterback threw just one completion that day out of three attempts, but it went for his first career touchdown. Read on to find out who that backup was because he’ll be there tonight.

That pass found a receiver who caught two scores in the game. One Bears receiver put together a performance nobody in program history had matched, hauling in 13 balls for 174 yards.

The only lopsided result between these two came in 2007, when the Bears won 48-34 in Conway.

Even that one wasn’t as easy as the final score suggests.

UCA jumped out to a 27-0 lead in the first half before UT Martin clawed back to trail just 34-27 in the fourth quarter. UCA answered right back, finding the end zone twice in a stretch that lasted less than four minutes to put the game away for good.

New rosters make history a little irrelevant

Here’s the thing about all that history. It doesn’t mean much tonight.

These aren’t the same teams that played in 2014, and they aren’t even last year’s teams.

Both programs have turned over more than 50 players each, so tonight is really about finding out who these new-look Bears and Skyhawks actually are.

UCA has a brand new group at quarterback and running back this fall, along with a rebuilt offensive line.

The defense has fresh faces too, though three returning preseason All-UAC players give the unit some experience to lean on.

The Bears also have new specialists handling kicking duties.

Coach Nathan Brown talked through the roster changes on Bear Backers, and it’s worth noting Brown was actually UCA’s backup quarterback back in that 2005 game against these same Skyhawks.

As Brown pointed out, this is the first time since 2022 that the Bears have opened a season against an FCS team instead of taking a paycheck game against an FBS opponent. And UT Martin isn’t just any FCS team.

The Skyhawks bring a strong résumé

UT Martin comes in ranked 22nd or 23rd depending on the poll. League coaches see UT Martin on top again this fall, handing the Skyhawks six first-place votes out of a possible eight.

That’s not a surprise given their recent track record.

UT Martin won or shared four straight conference championships from 2021 through 2024 and finished second last season with a 6-2 mark in OVC play.

The only blemish was a three-point setback to Tennessee Tech, a game deadlocked with only 12 seconds remaining before the Golden Eagles pulled it out.

Over the past five seasons UT Martin has gone 27-6 against conference opponents and 40-13 against all FCS competition, with playoff wins in both 2021 and 2024.

Simpson’s teams have also made a habit of winning on opening night, taking 17 of their past 20 home openers.

Two returning running backs shared more than 1,000 rushing yards between them a season ago, averaging close to 4.8 yards every time they touched the ball. Twelve UT Martin players landed on the OVC Preseason Players to Watch list.

What tonight actually means

A win over a ranked opponent would be a strong start for a UCA playoff résumé, but a loss wouldn’t be a disaster either.

This early in the season the score matters less than watching how all these new pieces fit together.

If those new pieces happen to end up celebrating in the end zone a handful of times tonight, that’s a bonus.