Video: UPike brings archer into team meeting as program enters uncharted territory as the hunted

Perhaps the introduction of the 12-team playoff is to blame, but the lead up to the 2025 college football season has been filled with conversations about eliminating preseason polls.

Coaches point to them being baseless, outdated, inaccurate, and meaningless beyond giving talking heads some talking fodder before the season actually kicks off.

Those coaches have also likely not been at a school who has never found themselves at the top of a preseason poll.

That's the situation Corey Fipps and his UPike team found themselves in recently. In the history of UPike football, the program had never been atop a preseason poll, but that all changed this week.

Fipps, who was named to the director of athletics post at the school back in March of 2024, and UPike started the season with an 0-4 stumble out of the gates, losing in heartbraking fashion in three of those games to Campbellsville (34-33), Georgetown (20-23), and Faulkner (28-35).

With the conference schedule starting in week five, Fipps and the Bears rebounded in a big way, winning five of their last six games to end the season, with their only loss coming to Point (NAIA - GA), 21-23. The winning streak earned them the crown as conference champions of the Appalachian Athletic Conference.

With a ton of momentum on their side, Fipps and UPike were recognized with the top spot in the Appalachian Athletic Conference preseason poll earlier this week.

In uncharted territory for the first time in school history, as the hunted team with a target on their backs with the season set to kick off, Fipps made a call to help deliver a point home to his guys that had just reported for camp.

On the other end of that call was Nate Harper, a UPike student who just had brought home a national championship in archery, and he stepped into the team meeting room, bow and arrow in hand, as an assistant coach took a covering off a small bear target on the opposite side of the room.

While you can see some players seated on the side of the bear target were clearly a bit scared, Harper took aim and placed an arrow right into the head of the bear target as Fipps explained that is figuratively what the rest of the teams in the AAC are hoping to do now that the Bears have a target on their backs.

Take a look at the shot from two different angles at that the team meeting in the clips.