HAMMOND — Give any team enough chances, even a winless one, and eventually you’ll pay.
And boy, was McNeese State in a generous mood Saturday.
Mistake upon mistake, upon injury upon mistake, compounded for the Cowboys, who were stunned 25-24 by Southeastern Louisiana
in the Southland Conference opener for both teams. It was SLU’s first win over McNeese since 2005.
An inability to stop SLU (1-3, 1-0 Southland) in key situations was the story of the game for a McNeese (3-1, 0-1) defense
that hardly had an opening-night starter on the field by the end. The Lions were an otherworldy 8 of 17 on third down and
3 of 5 on fourth down.
“Bottom line: we didn’t play good enough to win,” said McNeese coach Matt Viator. “Defensively we played good. We just couldn’t
get them off the field. And we couldn’t stay on the field on offense. That was the difference.”
SLU’s two biggest fourth-down conversions came on the go-ahead possession.
Punter Beau Mothe connected with long snapper Rogers Mueller on a fake punt pass that went for 27 yards and put the Lions
in McNeese territory, bringing a previously dormant crowd into hysterics.
“It’s something we’ve been working on,”
said SLU head coach Rob Roberts. “We were looking to see if it was
there. We were
going to burn a timeout if it wasn’t. But he saw it, and he took
it. It was great execution by Beau and a great catch by Rogers.”
The possession ended on fourth-and-goal when quarterback found tight end Taylor Jenkins standing in the end zone without a
defender within a 5-yard radius for a 3-yard touchdown with 2:39 remaining. The score capped a 17-play, 80-yard drive that
lasted 7:03.
As it turns out, the possession hadn’t actually ended.
McNeese managed to pick up a penalty for too many men on the field on the point-after attempt, giving SLU the ball at the
1-and-a half yard line. Smelling blood, Roberts went for the kill.
Michael Chaney rushed into the end zone for a 2-point conversion to give the Lions the 25-24 lead.
“As soon as the penalty popped up, I figured it was a chance for us to seal this game,” Roberts said. “I believed we could
get a yard-and-a half, especially with what was at stake.”
It was another piece of special teams negligence that allowed the Lions to take the lead in the first place.
McNeese appeared to take a 10-point
lead on a 31-yard field goal by Josh Lewis, but the play was waved off
by a false-start
penalty on freshman Logan Gladney. Lewis did not make the second
attempt, pushing it wide left. He is 4-for-7 on field-goal
attempts this year.
“The false start, I don’t know how to
explain it,” Viator said. “And too many men on the field, there’s no
excuse. But I attribute
it to playing a bunch of guys. We were shuffling guys in and out
of there.”
Any chance for Lewis to atone for his
miss was wiped out one play into McNeese’s final drive when Robert
Alford made a one-handed
interception on a Cody Stroud pass at the McNeese 30.
Early on, it didn’t look like late-game
heroics would be a factor for either team. McNeese jumped on SLU in the
first quarter,
going up 14-0 less than nine minutes into the game. The Cowboys
forced the Lions to go three-and-out on their first possession,
then recovered a fumble on the first play of SLU’s second
possession. Both were turned into touchdowns.
The Cowboys were left kicking themselves after a squandered opportunity at the end of the first half.
Freshman punter Jean Breaux seemingly
shocked everyone on SLU’s side of the field with a 24-yard run to the
SLU 12 on a fourth-and-22
in the final minute of the second quarter.
The Lions helped the Cowboys get even
closer to the goal line with a penalty on the ensuing set of downs, but
three incompletions
in the back of the end zone and a quarterback sack forced McNeese
to settle for a field goal and take a 24-10 lead into the
break.
“Obviously we’d have liked to score the touchdown, but going up 14 points, I still felt good about that,” Viator said. “In
the second half, we just didn’t make enough plays on offense and we had a few plays to get them off the field on defense.
Give them credit. They made play after play on third down.”
The McNeese offense, which had rushed for at least 290 yards in each of its first three games, was limited to 147 by a SLU
defense that had been allowing an average of 244.7 per game.
McNeese’s defense, without starting
free safety Malcolm Bronson and linebacker Joe Narcisse, lost cornerback
Guy Morgan, linebacker
Orrin Fontenot and safeties Ford Smesny and Wallace Scott over the
course of the game.
“We have a lot of guys who have had a
lot of time throughout the season. That’s no excuse,” said safety
Terrence Cahee. “That’s
no excuse. We had a chance to make some plays, and also they made
some really good plays. Yeah, it hurts us to lose some starters.
But that happens every season. You’re gonna have to overcome it.”