Cowboys’ playoffs start this week
Published 10:15 am Thursday, November 13, 2014
What began with a celebration that led to great expectations is now down to sheer desperation.
Two games, two must wins.
No excuses, no second chances.
Win and the McNeese Cowboys are likely in. Lose just one and they are all but guaranteed being done.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way, not after how it started.
Saturday’s game at Southeastern was expected to be for the Southland championship. Players from both sides talked about it way back in the heat of summer when their camps opened.
The Cowboys have had the date circled in red since last year, when surprising Southeastern came to town and handed them their helmets in a runaway victory.
That cost McNeese last year’s title. A little payback might be nice, but we are way past that now.
This game isn’t about any redemption, it is about simple survival for the Cowboys.
McNeese needs to win not only at Southeastern, the best team in the league, but also against rival Lamar in the regular-season finale.
If the Cowboys can do that, then they are likely going to make the 24-team Football Championship Subdivision playoffs for the second consecutice season. But that is a big if, especially the first one.
One more loss and odds are overwhelming that that dream is over, and with it the much-talked-about national title.
It really has become that simple.
How we got to this point isn’t really important. You can blame injuries if you want, but that doesn’t matter.
Not so long ago all the talk was about how deep this team was. But at his first news conference of the season head coach Matt Viator warned not to count on that.
He proved to be a prophet in that area as his team has been hit hard with the injury bug.
But again, that doesn’t matter now. It is what it is, and what it is is really easy to figure out.
The Southland isn’t strong enough this year to get several teams in the playoffs. Three would be a stretch when the league’s bottom teams are nothing more than cannon fodder.
This is what happens when you bring lower-level schools into your conference, and when you have Nicholls State. It takes time for them to catch up, and until then the league’s power ranking falters.
That leaves the Cowboys in their predicament.
Those who are healthy must carry the load. It’s time to line up and show us what you got.
Remember, in chaos there is opportunity.
Pardon us for never seeing this coming.
After a great first-game effort at Big Ten Nebraska, when the Cowboys lost in the final minute, so much more was expected, even to some extent promised.
We were told this team learned from last year’s playoff debacle, that it was ready to end the playoff victory drought that dates to 2002 when it lost the national championship.
But then came the Texas two-step that tapped not once but twice on the Cowboys’ heads.
Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin both hit McNeese with speed and athleticism and the Cowboys were not able to recover.
Those two losses leave us with one chilling fact as the weather once again turns colder: the best three teams on McNeese’s schedule to date have beaten the Cowboys, leaving hope of a conference title all but gone and the playoffs fading.
Now comes the best non-Power Five Conference foe on the docket, a team that blitzed McNeese on the Cowboys’ turf a year ago.
Southeastern is a team built to win now, made up of more than a few transfers from bigger schools, college football’s version of mercenaries. It is the same way Sam Houston and SFA have been built.
While McNeese trickles in a few selected big-time transfers, Southeastern and the other two flood their rosters with such players.
However, just like with injuries, that doesn’t matter now. No matter what the difference between how teams were built the game Saturday is all that counts.
For McNeese’s critics, many of whom have already lined up to tell the world they knew this would happen because it always does this time of year, they only see the glass half empty and leaking.
True fans believe McNeese will win its next two games and make the postseason.
Maybe their glass is filled with Cowboy Kool-Aid.
Either way it comes down to how this team plays on the field the final two weeks of the regular season. That is what will decide its fate.
If the Cowboys want to change the conversation away from late-season failures of recent years and on to the topic of clutch wins, it is up to them and them alone.
The ball is still in their hands.
Just don’t fumble it away.
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Jim Gazzolo is managing sports editor. Email him at jgazzolo@americanpress.com