Some babies are cute. Some look like aliens. But when someone shows you a picture of their baby, we are obligated to say “How cute” or some such thing rather than “They have adoptions on Pluto?”

Which brings us to McNeese State’s 31-20 win over Abilene Christian on Saturday night. It was a homely sight, all right, complete with eyeballs pointing to opposite poles. But there was just enough indication — broad shoulders and a strong jawline, if you will — that the Cowboys may develop into something a little easier on the eyes.

We’ll get the ugly out of the way first.

The face of six turnovers is supposed to be the face of Will Muschamp, whose Gators gave it away the same number of times McNeese did this weekend and lost 42-13.

Somehow the only thing six turnovers did to the Cowboys was prevent them from winning by 30 points or more. (For those wondering, the Division I record for most turnovers in a win is 11, set by Purdue against Illinois in 1943. Considering a war was on and most college-aged men were in it, I’ll venture a guess there was a certain beer-league quality to the athletes on the field).

The first turnover was an unavoidable Tyler Bolfing interception. Bolfing was hit as he threw, sending the wayward ball directly into the hands of an ACU defender. 

The second was a combination of faulty playcall and execution. The Cowboys had 6 seconds left and no timeouts and drew up a play assuming ACU would blitz as it had most of the half. The Wildcats switched out of that look and the end result was a Daniel Sams interception at the 1.

“If I had to do it over again I’d probably kick a field goal,” said coach Matt Viator. “I thought they would blitz and we’d have a chance to hit a back out of the backfield. They played zone, and he should have hit somebody up on the hill instead of trying to force it.”

The third turnover was a Sams fumble at the edge of the red zone with McNeese driving for a score that would have put the Cowboys up by five touchdowns.

The fourth saw Bolfing once again get blown up by a defender, this one resulting in a fumble rather than an interception. Viator said both Bolfing turnovers were the result of blown blocking assignments — one by a tight end and one by a running back.

The final two turnovers occured in the fourth quarter, by which point the game had reached a certain level of dream-like bizarreness.

Ryan Ross’ fumble was very much a true freshman mistake. 

He was gashing through the ACU defense for big chunks of yardage, including the run on which he lost the ball. Ross is developing into McNeese’s game-closing running back, but to fulfill that role he has to remember that extra couple yards will still be there on the next carry. Teams aren’t going to stop his fresh legs late; they’re just going to try taking the ball away from him.

Jereon McGilvery’s fumble was a bang-bang play — it took a very lengthy replay review to determine whether his knee was down before the ball came out — but it’s still something a senior can’t do in that situation.

The good news in all that?

It took those final two turnovers, one of which saw the Wildcats offense take possession at the McNeese 2, for the conference’s best passing team to finally score touchdowns. Despite repeatedly having its back against the wall, the McNeese defense proved itself a week after its letdown at Sam Houston State.

“I feel like (facing those situations) can improve us,” said safety Aaron Sam. “But at the end of the day we’re all human. Mistakes will happen, no matter if they fumble it on the negative-20 or the plus-20. We have to play from there and try to stop (the opponent).”

The other bright spot is the Cowboy offense had a bit more balance. Sams averaged 18.4 yards per completion, finally taking advantage of what opposing defenses are challenging him to do. 

He’s already averaging more than 8 yards per carry with teams scheming against him as a runner, and with more performances like Saturday’s that number can get even higher with teams respecting the pass.

The Cowboys will have to cut the slop to win tough road games at Northwestern State and Southeastern Louisiana. 

“Six turnovers is not acceptable at all,” said tight end Zach Hetrick. “We have to get better, because it can lose us games for sure.”

When they play clean football, the Cowboys can be a thing of beauty. It’s just a matter of reaching that growth spurt at the right time.

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Alex Hickey covers McNeese sports. Email him at ahickey@americanpress.com(Rick Hickman/American Press)