GOVS-WILDCATS POSTGAME NOTES

Notes following No. 18 Austin Peay's 45-31 loss to No. 14 Abilene Christian in its 2025 United Athletic Conference opener at Wildcat Stadium in Abilene, Texas.

FROM THE TOP

• Jackson Head led Austin Peay with seven receptions for 132 yards and a touchdown; he is the first tight end in program history to record a 100-yard receiving game.
• Chris Parson went 24-for-38 for a career-high 330 yards; he is the first Gov to throw for 300-plus yards since Austin Smith passed for 308 yards against Abilene Christian (11/9/24).
• Parson's 330 passing yards are the most by a Gov since Austin Smith threw for 408 yards at North Alabama (11/2/24).
• Austin Peay's defense held Abilene Christian to 93 rushing yards on 29 attempts; the Governors have held back-to-back opponents to under 100 rushing yards and have only allowed 100 yards on the ground in one-of-four games this season.

CAPTAINS/COIN TOSS

• Captains Davion Blackwell, Jackson Head, Chandler Kirton, and Chris Parson took the coin toss for the Governors. Javious Bond and Myles Wiley also served as captains for Austin Peay.
• Abilene Christian won the coin toss and deferred its option until the second half. Austin Peay elected to receive the opening coin toss.
• Austin Peay is 1-3 at the coin toss this season and 8-8 under head coach Jeff Faris.
• Austin Peay is 1-2 this season and 4-4 under Faris when it loses the opening coin toss.
• Weather in Abilene at kickoff: 94 degrees, fair skies, winds southeast at 14 mph.

SERIES UPDATE            

• Austin Peay fell to 0-2 all-time and 0-1 on the road against Abilene Christian.
• The Govs dropped to 1-3 all-time against teams from Texas and 1-1 all-time in the State of Texas.

RANKED GOVS

• The Governors dropped to 19-16 all-time and 8-12 on the road when nationally ranked.
• Austin Peay dropped to 1-1 when nationally ranked under head coach Jeff Faris.

GOVS VS. RANKED OPPONENTS

• Austin Peay falls to 14-73 all-time and 4-39 on the road against nationally-ranked opponents.

THOSE ARE THE BREAKS

• Austin Peay falls to 0-2 this season and 0-6 under Faris when trailing at halftime.
• The Governors drop to 0-2 this season and 0-8 under Faris when trailing after three quarters.

OFFENSIVE SPARKS

• Chris Parson's 24 completions, 330 passing yards, and two touchdowns were all career highs.
• Jaden Robinson also had seven receptions for 114 yards and a touchdown – all career-highs.
• Head and Robinson are the first Governors with 100-plus receiving yards in the same game since Tre Shackelford (126) and Trey Goodman (101) against Garnder-Webb (10/14/23).
• Parson led the Govs with 17 carries for 38 yards and two touchdowns – his first-career game with two rushing scores.

DEFENSIVE STANDS      

• Austin Peay's defense held back-to-back opponents under 100 rushing yards for the first time since limiting Chattanooga to 81 yards in the 2024 season finale and Middle Tennessee to 44 yards in the 2025 season opener.
• Montreze Smith Jr. led the Governors with a career-high nine tackles, Raylyn Manley was second on the team with a career-best eight tackles.
• Trevor Hardy Jr. also recorded a career-high seven tackles.
• Stephen Ellison II intercepted a pass for the second-straight game and leads the Governors with two interceptions this season.
• Charles Crews III led the Governors with a career-best 2.0 tackles for loss; he has a TFL in all four games this season.
• Markell Redding recorded his first-career tackle for loss.
• Davion Hood also recorded a tackle for loss for the fourth-straight game.

SPECIAL TEAMS SYNOPSIS

• Javious Bond returned three kicks for 46 yards with a long return of 26 yards; he also returned one punt for 20 yards to finish the game with 66 combined kick return yards.
• Carson Smith went 1-for-2 on field goals and 4-for-4 on PATs, with his made field goal coming from 22 yards.
• Gaivn Myers punted five times for a 40.6-yard average with one kicked downed inside the 20-yard line and a long punt of 54 yards.

GOVS-WILDCATS POSTGAME QUOTES

Austin Peay head coach Jeff Faris

Opening Statement… "Give the credit to ACU, I think they're a well-coached football team. They are tremendously talented and played tremendously hard. We weren't the best version of ourselves tonight, with turnovers and penalties being the most important. You can't go on the road in this conference and not play great and win. Credit to them, but I love our football team, and I thought we battled tonight."

On tight end Jackson Head… "I think Chris [Parson] has tremendous confidence in Jackson [Head]. I think Jackson is a special player; he's a captain for us. He's really worked his tail off and grown as a leader. I think it's just a combination of both of their confidence in each other. We have tried to get him the ball, you saw it on the screens. He made some spectacular plays. It's a very disappointing outcome, you know, we expected to come in here and win, but Jackson Head did some really good things tonight, and he kept fighting from the first play to the last."

Moving forward… "Our message was really not that different than when we won in Murfreesboro. As we look at this team, we've got to grow and be the most improved team in the country this next week. It's not as fun to grow this way, but this is us. We have to own how we played, the lack of execution, the penalties, all of that stuff. That is who we are, and who we were tonight. So, we'll learn from it, and we'll attack it with an enthusiasm unknown to man. Everything is fixable, and we're going to do that as soon as we get back home."