The first three years of UT Permian Basin football were filled with positive moments as the Falcons won two games in each of their first three seasons as a program.

However, expectations around the program were higher heading into this season as the Falcons had their first-ever senior class.

UTPB took a huge step forward Saturday night as they exploded for 41 points in the second half to earn a 48-38 victory over Eastern New Mexico.

The win was huge for the Falcons program as their third victory of the season is the most in school history and is the best Lone Star Conference win in program history. The win also earned UTPB Dave Campbell’s Small College Team of the Week honors.

“It gets us over a hump where we’ve been stale the past couple of years of being a two-win team,” UTPB head coach Justin Carrigan said. “It gets us past that stigma and provides some confidence beating somebody else in conference.”

While the expectations of those around and outside the program were much higher this year, building a program from the ground up is a huge challenge.

The task becomes even bigger when you are building without the full allotment of 36 scholarships allowed for NCAA Division II football.

“To date, we are still an underfunded program so we’re not operating with a full allotment of scholarships,” Carrigan said. “When we started, we only started with 12 full scholarships.”

One player part of the first-ever football team for the Falcons is senior linebacker Chris Hoad, who has been a consistent force on defense for UTPB and surpassed 500 career tackles against ENMU.

“He is everything and he’s a great leader. Every year he’s been a peer-voted team captain and I think that says a lot about him from day one,” Carrigan said. “The thing about Chris that stands out the most and you really hope the younger guys take notice of is his preparation and how he prepares himself mentally and physically.

“He’ll spend countless hours in the office studying film, charting plays and picking up on every tendency he can find of our opponent's offense. He operates like a professional.

“Beyond that, on a day off he’s in the weight room doing yoga and doing some of the little things that a lot of guys take for granted and won’t do but he’s constantly preparing himself mentally and physically to play four quarters on Saturday.”

With the Falcons only having 12 scholarships in their first season, Hoad began his career as a walk-on.

“Once we kind of filled up it was trying to find as many quality walk-ons as we could and Chris fell into that group where we had to tell him that we didn’t have any money for him right now but we think you’re good enough,” Carrigan said. “Asked that group to come in and earn a scholarship later and he bought into that and earned a scholarship.”

Hoad recalls how tough it was for him as a freshman walk-on trying to earn his spot on the football team.

“My first year I called my dad a lot because that was a tough year,” Hoad said. “Starting as a walk-on I always felt like I was overlooked but my dad just kept telling me to keep putting in the work and it’ll pay off and eventually it did.”

The hard work has certainly paid off for Hoad as he was named the 2018 LSC Linebacker of the Year after finishing third in D-II with 133 tackles. He also earned Don Hansen Third Team All-American honors after his junior season.

Hoad has great advice for the young players on the Falcons trying to follow in his footsteps.

“It takes a lot of hard work and also trusting what the coaches say,” said Hoad. “You have to believe what the coaches put in front of you and you need to buy into it. You can do what’s being asked of you and when you start doing that, things start falling into place.”

Hoad was named the LSC preseason Defensive Player of the Year and he has more than lived up to the high standards as he currently has 131 tackles which are the most of any NCAA player thus far regardless of division with two more games remaining in the regular season.

While Hoad is an exceptional player and the leader of the team, he will rarely take credit for his success.

“He is a very humble individual who understands that for him to have the success he has that he counts on the 10 guys surrounding him,” said Carrigan.

“Whenever you take (hard work) along with a team mentality, things start going your way and it’s more fun,” said Hoad. “Whenever you have a group of guys that you want to play for, it makes the game easier for you.”

As UTPB continues to provide more funding for the football program, Carrigan will soon be able to show recruits the new D. Kirk Edwards Family Human Performance Center.

The $37 million, 63,000 square foot state-of-the-art-facility will house the Kinesiology Department along with a weight room, athletic training space, locker rooms and coaching offices for football and women’s soccer.

There will be a 150-seat lecture hall that will also be used by the sports teams to watch film and the football locker room will have 380 inches of television screens along with a charging dock in each locker.

“This past year it just broke ground so kids were able to see construction and pictures and I think it helped tremendously in last year’s recruiting class and I think it’ll help each year,” said Carrigan. “I think this coming recruiting class will be able to see the new athletics facility almost at completion and I think that’ll help.”

With the football program nearly fully funded along with the new facility and Carrigan’s ability to bring in top recruiting classes, the Falcons will soon be challenging for the LSC title.

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