LAKE CHARLES – McNeese scored two touchdowns on its first two possessions of the game then turned things over to the league's top-ranked defense to help the 13
th-ranked Cowboys stay unbeaten on the year after a 21-7 Southland Conference win over No. 17 Southeastern Louisiana on Saturday night.
The win moved the Cowboys to 5-0 on the season and 4-0 in the league while SLU fell to 3-2 and 2-1. And for the fourth straight game, the nation's top-ranked scoring defense held its opponent to under 10 points in a contest.
"This was a really good game," said head coach
Matt Viator who with his 73
rd career win, tied former Louisiana Tech head coach Maxie Lambright at No. 4 on the Southland Conference's all-time winningest coach list. "A really good effort by our kids. Our defense was fabulous. Offensively we made a lot of good plays in the first half and had a chance for some others in the second, but give them credit, it kind of came as advertised."
The Cowboys rolled up 232 yards rushing for the game, led by sophomore
Ryan Ross's 149-yard effort on 15 carries with two touchdowns. It's the first time in school history a McNeese team has rushed for 200 or more yards in a game in the first five games.
Quarterback
Daniel Sams, who entered the game No. 1 in the conference in total offense per game, recorded 212 on Saturday behind 75 rushing yards and another 137 passing.
The Lions, who came into the game as the Southland's top-ranked rushing offense, was held to a season-low 59 yards on the ground and 231 total, another season-low.
The Cowboys held the Lions' offense to seven 3-and-out series, including four of the five in the third quarter the SLU managed to gain just 29 yards and one first down in the quarter. The defense also sacked two Southeastern quarterbacks a total of four times in the game, including three on starter D'Shaie Landor.
Sams got the Cowboys on the board first on a 3-yard run to make it 7-0 at the 9:57 mark of the first quarter. The scoring play was set up by a 57-yard pass from Sams to
Kent Shelby two plays earlier that moved the ball from the McNeese 42 to the SLU 3.
SLU went 3-and-out in its first offensive possession and pinned the Cowboys down at their own 46-yard line. But seven plays later, Ross took a hand off, bounced off a defender, and bolted 58 yards for a score to make it 14-0 to cap off a 94-yard drive just 10 minutes into the game.
Southeastern closed the gap to 14-7 early in the second quarter when Xavier Roberson scored from 1-yard out on a play that was set up by a 54-yard completion from Landor to William French.
McNeese answered with a little over a minute to play in the half with Ross's second score of the game on a 4-yard run to cap an 8-play, 69-yard drive to make it 21-7.
The second half was all about the defenses as neither team was able to move the ball much.
The Cowboys held the Lions to just 88 yards of offense and five first downs in the second half, including five yards rushing in the final two quarters.
A McNeese fumble recovery on a punt return by Smiley early in the fourth quarter may have been the dagger the Cowboys needed.
Jean Breaux hit a 49-yard punt that was fielded by Smiley at the Southeastern 35, who muffed the catch and McNeese's
Josh Washington jumped on it for the recovery to give the Cowboys the ball back with 14:02 to play.
That set up a 9-play drive for the offense as it drove down to the Lions' 15-yard line.
Trent Manuel pulled a 32-yard field goal wide left but despite the miss, the drive took nearly five minutes off the clock.
The Cowboys forced SLU into a punt on its next drive, then after the Lions forced McNeese to punt to get the ball back with 5:07 to play,
Wallace Scott put the icing on the cake after he sacked Landor at the McNeese 25-yard line, forcing a fumble, then recovering that fumble to give the Cowboys the ball with 4:11 to play.
Scott recorded his second sack of the game with less than two minutes to play to give the Cowboys the ball back and run out the clock.
McNeese will return to action next Saturday when it visits Central Arkansas in another Southland game featuring two unbeaten teams. UCA defeated Houston Baptist on Saturday to run its league record to 3-0 on the season.
