Casey Woods confirmed Skyler Locklear would remain the starting quarterback, saying he "is our starter and I have not seen any residual effects from his bang-up in the game [against SMU]. He has practiced all week and he is fine." Locklear left the SMU loss late with a shoulder injury after a sack, having gone 15-of-19 for 102 yards and a touchdown, and backup Henry Belin finished the night 7-of-15 with a touchdown and an interception over the last two drives. That answers the biggest question of the bye week, and it moves the worry up front to the five men blocking for him.
The reason Locklear got hit in the first place is the thing Missouri State has not fixed. The Bears allowed seven sacks at SMU, six of them on Locklear, after giving up only two total in the season's first three games, and Woods pointed at the talent across from his tackles. "The type of players, the type of edge players they have, you couldn't scheme for one side or the other." SMU's front is better than Western Kentucky's, and Missouri State still led 10-0 in that game on Joel Boamah's 60-yard interception return. But Mark Cala's up-tempo offense, the scheme Woods brought in from UTEP when he took his first head-coaching job after four seasons as SMU's offensive coordinator, runs on a quarterback having a clean second or two. Against Lindenwood it looked like the thing Woods described when he hired Cala. At SMU it looked like a quarterback running for his life.
Watch the interior. Center and captain Isaiah Villanueva left the Lindenwood game in a boot, and Woods listed him and receiver Makai Cope as questionable in mid-September rather than full-go. It is a line that has already been reshuffled once in the middle of learning a new protection scheme. If Locklear is throwing on rhythm Thursday night, the Bears can score with anyone in this league. If he is taking five-yard drops into collapsing pockets again, the 10-0 start at SMU was the ceiling, not the preview.
Thursday at Bowling Green
Missouri State at Western Kentucky, Thursday, Oct. 8, 6 p.m. Central, CBSSN. The model gives the Bears a slight edge on the road, 52 percent, and the swing is larger than the game's billing suggests. Win and Missouri State's Conference USA title-game chances sit around 9 percent, lose and they sit near 2 percent. Those are two alternative versions of Friday morning, not a number that moves twice. This is also the first season Missouri State is fully eligible for the Conference USA Championship Game, which is why a 1-3 nonconference stretch does not bury the year. None of it counted toward anything. This does.
The defense arrives in better shape than the offensive line. Jack Curtis' group held SMU's Kendrick Raphael to 98 yards on 23 carries and the team to 128 rushing yards, though the pass rush managed one sack and three tackles for loss. Jared Lloyd, who started all 13 games and led the Bears with 77 tackles in 2025, posted 13 tackles at SMU for his third double-digit game and 46 for the season. He is the reason the middle of that defense has held up through a new system.
One more thing the longtime fan will remember is that Western Kentucky won 27-22 at Missouri State's Plaster Stadium on Sept. 27, 2025, in Missouri State's Conference USA debut, a game in which starting quarterback Jacob Clark suffered a second-quarter lower-extremity injury on a third-and-goal scramble to the WKU 2-yard line and did not return. The Bears lost that one with their quarterback on the sideline. They get this one with theirs cleared and practicing.
Jacksonville State at Kennesaw State: root for Kennesaw State
The model gives Kennesaw State a 40% chance to win. This result carries a 2.0 percentage-point impact on Missouri State's conference-title-game probability.
Wednesday, Oct. 7, 6 p.m. Central, CBSSN. Jacksonville State is a direct competitor in the Conference USA standings and a Missouri State opponent in November, so a Kennesaw State home win does double duty. It is worth about two points of title-game odds for the Bears, and Kennesaw State is a 40 percent shot at home. A nice break if it lands, nothing to build the evening around.
Full matchup detail and odds live in the interactive guide, and the simulation behind the percentages is explained in the methodology.