— One way to look at tonight for Bacone College’s football team is that it’s playing a non-game game.

The Warriors travel to Conway, Ark., to face University of Central Arkansas in what coach Trevor Rubly said is an exhibition contest. It will be played at 6 p.m. like a game, but it doesn’t count on Bacone’s record.

“This isn’t a scrimmage,” he said. “A score will be kept and statistics will be taken. They’re not included in team or individual statistics. They’re counting it as a game, but we’re not.”

Under the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics rules, a school can count one game as an exhibition. This game is against a Football Championship Series, or formerly known as Division I-AA, team.

“We feel this is a great opportunity for our guys,” the Bacone coach said. “It gives our guys an experience they want to be in and it doesn’t go against our record. What’s not to like about it? I didn’t know about the rule until this year.”

The UCA Bears are 1-1 for the season, losing to Mississippi in the opener and beating Murray State last week. They play in the Southland Conference and coming off a 9-4 season in 2011 in which the Bears beat Tennessee Tech and lost to Montana in the FCS playoffs.

Alan Foster, Bacone’s athletic director, said his school receives a “substantial financial guarantee” from UCA for playing the game. He refused to give the amount.

“It may affect what we get in the future,” he said.

The Warriors are 1-2 for the season with a two-game losing streak that includes a 19-0 loss at Langston University last Saturday.

“We didn’t score or stop them,” Rubly said. “We didn’t play as well as we did in our first two games. We didn’t take the fight to them at all.”

The Bacone coach hopes for a better effort tonight against the Bears.

“We’re going to go and try to win,” he said. “We’re going to evaluate after each series. The number one thing is we want to come out of this game is injury-free.”

After tonight, the Warriors get back to playing regular games. Their next will be a week from today when they travel to Lawrence, Kan., to play Haskell Indian Nations University. The next home game for Bacone will be Sept. 29 against Cole College.

“We’ve got a lot of games left,” Rubly said. “We’ve got seven games that will count for us.”