Ryan Beard was as mad as we've seen him after MSU's loss at UTM. Here's what we learned.

MARTIN, Tenn. — Sometimes after a thrilling comeback in which a team comes up short, a young head coach will want to pat his guys on the back for the heart they played with in order to make it a competitive game.

After Missouri State's 38-31 loss at UT Martin on Saturday night, we learned that a typically positive Ryan Beard is not one of those coaches.

Beard was the angriest we've ever seen him after the Bears trailed by 17 at halftime and came back to tie the game early in the fourth. It turned out to be a back-and-forth thriller throughout a fourth quarter in which the Bears couldn't get the stop they needed.

"We have to mature and understand what it takes to show up when the ball's kicked and be ready to go," Beard said. "We have to figure out why that is in our preparation and how to get our team ready to go and finish football games."

More: Missouri State football storms back after poor first half but comes up short at UT Martin

Ryan Beard was (understandably) not happy

The first half from hell dug the Bears into a hole that was too big to overcome. After allowing an 81-yard touchdown run on the first offensive play of the game, the Bears responded with a score of their own.

The rest of the first half, however, looked a lot like what you would have expected out of Missouri State back when Dave Steckel was the head coach and going 1-10.

"It was awful," Beard said. "We didn't tackle well, we didn't fit in our proper gaps... It was a simple stretch play on the first play of the game that goes for however many yards for a touchdown. That's inexcusable.

"That starts with me, as the playcaller and as a defensive-minded head coach. That was poor on every single facet."

Missouri State allowed 354 yards in the first half with 256 coming on the ground. The run defense appeared to be similar to the one that struggled to bring down the ball-carrier throughout the Bears' opening-week loss at Kansas.

The Bears had chances to get off the field but UT Martin was 7 for 11 on third downs in the first 30 minutes. Long, sustained drives had the Skyhawks scoring touchdowns on drives of 10 and 13 plays.

"They played harder than we did," Beard said. "I was not happy with our effort, energy or passion — even on the sideline. We have to fix our mannerisms when things start to go bad in order to recover quicker so it doesn't turn into 24-7 at the half."

Beard's frustration carried over to halftime where he was forced to challenge his team. It's never a good sign when a coach questions effort two games into a season and for it to get to that point.

"We basically said 'if you're not going to show effort, you're not going to play hard or you're not going to go finish this game, then you won't play in a Bears uniform," Beard said. "It was pretty point blank."

The Bears responded to Beard's challenge by holding the Skyhawks to just 14 yards in the entire third quarter with all of them coming on the ground. It allowed the Bears to climb back in and tie the game early in the fourth.

But it didn't hold. UTM star tailback Sam Franklin couldn't be slowed down as he scored two of his three touchdowns en route to 259 yards and three scores on the night. The fourth quarter saw 135 of UT Martin's 144 yards come on the ground with Franklin scoring the game-winning touchdown on a 20-yarder with 1:45 left.

"On the touchdown he had to go ahead, he was bottled up for a three-yard gain and he gets out of the tackles and runs for a touchdown," Beard said. "That can't happen if you want to win football games. You know how good our conference is. We got to get that fixed and get it fixed quickly."

What's going on at quarterback for Missouri State?

There were a pair of moments where Missouri State opted to remove starting quarterback Jacob Clark from the game and replace him with Jordan Pachot. The moves came a few days after Beard named Clark as his starting quarterback moving forward.

Clark had a nice drive on the Bears' first possession that ended with him breaking out of a sack to throw the ball 33 yards down the field to Raylen Sharpe for a touchdown. After that, he had a lost fumble and four straight three-and-outs for a combined nine yards.

Pachot entered the game for the Bears on their final drive of the first half. He drove the Bears 61 yards to the Skyhawks' 23 before throwing a bad interception to end the half.

It didn't sound like Beard and Clark were on the same page about why the quarterback was relieved. Clark said Pachot entered to maybe provide a spark while Beard pointed to a shoulder issue that the former Minnesota transfer had been dealing with since the Week 1 loss to Kansas.

"It had been wearing on him a little bit from the Kansas game but we didn't think it would be an issue," Beard said. "He took a shot, I think mid-first quarter, that really dinged him up again for the rest of the game. He did the best he could staying in there and he took one more shot right before our last drive."

Clark returned to the huddle for the second half and turned in a nice game. He led the Bears during their comeback while completing 23 of 42 passes for 332 yards and three touchdowns. He had critical throws late including a fourth-down jump-ball to Hunter Wood that set up one of the Bears' tying touchdowns.

Clark stayed in through the final drive of the game... except for the final two plays.

Clark drove the Bears to the 50 where MSU was facing 3rd-and-9 and Pachot re-entered the game with 32 seconds left. He hit Terique Owens for a gain of 20 before the final play in which he rushed for five yards, stayed in bounds and the clock ran out before the Bears could take one final shot at the endzone.

Both Beard and Clark said the quarterback was removed because of the lingering shoulder injury.

"He took a shot and couldn't finish for us," Beard said. "That's how it goes. Jordan has to be able to perform when the heat's on and get the job done."

"It was a little bit of a stinger towards the end," Clark said.

Clark said he should be good to go when the Bears play after their bye week.

The rushing offense continues to struggle

As was the case against Kansas, the Bears struggled to get much going on the ground. They finished with 111 rushing yards with Jacardia Wright leading the team with 46 and Jacob Clark rushing for 38. More was expected coming into the year based on the way the Bears' coaching staff hyped up their offensive line.

Missouri State rolled out a different offensive line than it did the week prior — notably with Ole Miss transfer Erick Cade making his first start at right tackle.

The Bears continued to try and run the ball but an average of 3.1 yards per carry hasn't cut it.

"We'd love to establish the run and we haven't been able to do so at all," Beard said. "It's hurting our offense because it's forcing us into some more passing situations. They can play different schematically on defense when you can't run the football effectively at all. We have to figure that out during the bye week and see what we can do to correct that and get it fixed moving forward."

How the Bears will spend the next two weeks

The Bears will have their bye week in Week 3 before their home opener against Utah Tech on Sept. 23. A thrilling come-from-behind win could have made it feel like a much shorter 14 days but instead, the Bears had a long bus ride home.

"We need to work on the technical parts of the game," Beard said. "When you talk about our issues, you talk about missed tackling, you talk about run fits that are day one install things that shouldn't be happening at this point. When you have a young football team and some guys that haven't played together as much, some of those things are more apparent."

Wyatt D. Wheeler is a reporter and columnist with the Springfield News-Leader. You can contact him at 417-371-6987, by email at wwheeler@news-leader.com or X at @WyattWheeler_NL. He's also the host of the weekly "Wyatt's World Podcast" on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other podcasting platforms.

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Missouri State football takeaways from loss to UT Martin