It was disappointing and more than a little disheartening, but far from devastating.

Not yet, not this early.

Still, McNeese State’s season-opening loss to West Florida, the top-ranked team in Division II, was a gut punch to the Cowboys.

The defending national champion made all the big plays while Football Championship Subdivision McNeese made far too many mistakes. In the end, the Argonauts showed what made them champs in a 42-36 victory Saturday.

The Cowboys showed what makes them a work in progress.

McNeese missed three extra points and a short field goal attempt, a situation that was as problematic in the spring. Those six points left on the field proved to be the difference, but they were not the only trouble spots.

“That is unacceptable,” Cowboys head coach Frank Wilson said of the kicking woes.

Jacob Abel missed on a 32-yard field goal try and Grayson Kennedy followed with two missed conversion kicks. A third failed when the Cowboys’ holder dropped the snap.

“That is frustrating when it happens,” McNeese quarterback Cody Orgeron said. “We will have to get that fixed.”

But there were other miscues.

The defense committed a key penalty on each of the first four West Florida touchdown drives, extending the possession on three of those.

“We need to find a way to not self inflict things,” Wilson said. “It’s disheartening when we can’t get off the field and they don’t have to complete a pass to do it.”

The Cowboys also had 116 yards on 12 penalties overall.

“It is disheartening that you have that volume of penalties,” Wilson said. “You get 36 points, you should be able to win the game.”

McNeese wasted a career day by Orgeron. The sixth-year quarterback had his biggest day as a Cowboy, throwing for 367 yards on 31 of 47 passing and two touchdowns. He also had a 1-yard scoring run.

“I thought we got into a rhythm early on offense and just kept going,” said Orgeron, who dating to last spring has three 300-yard performances in his last four outings.

Orgeron has not thrown an interception in his last 138 pass attempts, four shy of Cody Stroud’s school record.

He connected with 10 receivers, with TD passes to Markel Cotten (13 yards) and Josh Matthews (2 yards). Matthews had eight grabs for 88 yards while converted quarterback Walker Wood finished with seven for 104.

But the the Argonauts used big plays to offset McNeese’s numbers. The Cowboys ran 25 more plays and had the ball for almost 13 more minutes but UWF had the big ones.

Agros quarterback Austin Reed hit on 19 of 36 passes but had 380 yards and four touchdowns to four receivers. More importantly McNeese’s defensive line, that boasts all-American Isaiah Chambers, was unable to get to Reed.

“We could not get to him,” Wilson said. “He got the ball out faster than we could get to him.”

McNeese was able to get one turnover, an early fourth-quarter interception by Colby Richardson with the deficit 28-22. But the Cowboys went three-and-out and when UWF scored on Shomari Mason’s 17-yard run with 12:37 left the Cowboys were chasing the Argos down to the wire.

“We have to do something there,” Orgeron said. “You could feel the momentum change and the crowd getting into it. We just didn’t move the ball.”

McNeese’s shot at a miracle comeback ended on its final penalty as kicker Brandon Hayden recovered an onside kick with just over 2 minutes left but was flagged for touching the ball before it went 10 yards.

“It was frustrating,” Richardson said of the penalties and Argonauts big plays. “We got a lot of cleaning up to do.”

McNeese out-gained the Argos 490 yards to 466, but on the important downs it was the visitors from Pensacola who made plays.

“We had our opportunities on offense and on defense,” Wilson said. “We did not play the way we desire to play.”

After missing an early field goal attempt, Deonta McMahon gave McNeese the lead on a 3-yard touchdown run. But David Durden scored on a 44-yard pass from Reed just over a minute later and then on a 6-yard run early in the second quarter to give West Florida the lead for good.

Durden finished with 172 yards on six catches, including a field-flipping 74-yarder on a third-and-13 from the Argos three midway through the second.

After his touchdown run the two teams traded scores until McNeese ran out of time.