Rodeo background keeps Wilson tough

CONWAY -- It came as a surprise, even though it was the sort of play Jatavious Wilson's coaches have come to expect.

Midway through the second quarter of the Central Arkansas' home game against Northwestern (La.) State on Sept. 17, UCA faced first and 10 at its 49. Junior quarterback Hayden Hildebrand dropped into the pocket, but pressure forced him to scramble to his right.

Hildebrand noticed senior receiver Desmond Smith work open near the sideline, 10 yards downfield, and fired a pass in his direction. But Hildebrand had not seen Wilson, who stopped a few yards in front of Smith.

Wilson, a senior from Bastrop, La., thought he was Hildebrand's target, leaped to make the catch, and thereafter took a zigzag path across the field to the end zone to give UCA a 7-0 lead early in the second quarter.

"Hayden was 100 percent throwing the ball to Desmond," UCA offensive coordinator Nathan Brown said. "But we practice the scramble drill every week, the receivers know the rules. If the ball comes by you, you're supposed to catch it, and Jatavious just happened to be in the throwing lane and really made a phenomenal catch, and then he crossed the field and scored the touchdown, and it was really a momentum-changer in the game."

"He's always been johnny on the spot," UCA Coach Steve Campbell said. "He was right there, and that was a big one for us."

Wilson said he saw Hildebrand begin to scramble as the play broke down.

"The first thing that came to my mind was to go to the most open spot on the field," he said. "At the time, I thought Hayden was looking directly at me, and when I saw the ball, I just attacked it."

Because of plays like that, combined with the more routine, Wilson currently leads the Southland Conference in receiving yards with 552 through six games. He is second in receptions with 35, one behind Sam Houston State's Yedidiah Louis. Wilson also leads the Southland in all-purpose yards with 805.

"His versatility is what's made him so great for us," Brown said.

Wilson is a diminutive 5-8, 175, but Campbell and Brown said he overcomes any size disadvantage with toughness, a quality perhaps derived from his lifelong hobby as a rodeo horseman. Wilson said he routinely performs as a goat roper in and around his hometown of Mer Rouge, La., during breaks away from football.

"You know those rodeo guys are tough guys," Campbell said. "That's one of the reasons he's so tough. He was raised outside around farm animals and used to having responsibilities and riding a horse and throwing a rope, and there's a certain part of that that has to develop mental and physical toughness."

"You see a lot of toughness on the football field, and probably a lot of it can be attributed to being a blue-collar rodeo-type kid who grew up in a family like that," Brown said. "You don't think of rodeo guys as sissies or maybe somebody who's soft."

UCA will host Lamar at Estes Stadium in Conway on Saturday, and catches won't come easily. Lamar leads the Southland Conference in pass defense, allowing an average of 147.7 yards a game.

"They're great against the pass," Campbell said. "They're definitely going to be a challenge against our receivers, because they are so good and so deep in the secondary."

"Since I've been here, they've always been a good pass-defense team," Wilson said. "They have good defensive backs, good safeties, and they really try to attack the ball when it's in the air."

Sports on 10/21/2016