WHAT: #17/25 McNeese (2-0) vs. Mississippi College (2-1)
WHEN: Saturday at 6 p.m.
WHERE: Louis Bonnette Field at Cowboy Stadium
LISTEN: 92.9 FM The Lake; 960 AM The Gator in Lafayette
INTERNET: 929thelake.com
WATCH: Live stream at McNeeseSports.com
 
LAKE CHARLES – The 17^th-ranked McNeese Cowboys will take a break from Southland Conference play on Saturday when they host Mississippi College out of the Gulf South Conference for a 6 p.m. kickoff in Cowboy Stadium.
 
The game can be heard live on 92.9 The Lake or 929thelake.com or and audio and video steam of the contest will be available for a low fee on McNeeseSports.com.
 
The Cowboys (2-0) are coming off a 28-14 win at Stephen F. Austin last weekend and have opened up the season with back-to-back conference wins for the second time in the last three years. Mississippi College (2-1) defeated Belhaven by a 42-21 score in its last outing.
 
Led by senior quarterback Daniel Sams' 164 yards rushing and another 134 passing, the Cowboys rallied from a 14-7 first quarter deficit to outscore the Lumberjacks 21-0 in the final three periods.
 
Defensively, McNeese surrendered 235 yards in the first quarter but dominated the remainder of the game by allowing just 171 total offensive yards with 26 of those coming on the ground.
 
But for the second straight week, it took at least a quarter for the Cowboys to get going.
 
"No clue why that is," said head coach Matt Viator who notched his 70^th career win. "We know we have to improve on some things. We're not there yet offensively but we're close."
 
McNeese may need to try to break out of that early game slump on Saturday against a run-happy Mississippi College team that racked up 500 rushing yards in a win over Belhaven last week.
 
"They're coming in here with the triple option," said Viator about MC's offensive game. "At the time we scheduled the game, they weren't running it. We haven't seen it since the 2013 season."
 
If fans can remember, that was against a West Alabama squad that took the Cowboys to the wire before QB Cody Stroud found Diontae Spencer for a 20-yard touchdown with 46 seconds to play to lift McNeese to a 44-42 win.
 
"Defensively, they'll run a 3-3 stack defense," said Viator. "We haven't seen a defense like that in a while."
 
McNeese will enter the game ranked tied for fourth in the nation in scoring defense (10.0 ppg), 12^th in rushing defense (85.5 ypg), and 20^th in total defense (316.5 ypg).
 
Offensively, the Cowboys are 15^th in rushing (240.5 ypg) and tied for 20^th in scoring (35.5 ppg).
 
"This is an important game for us," said Viator. "We need to keep the momentum going."
 
The Cowboys will be looking at keeping their non-conference, regular season home winning streak intact, which now stands at seven straight games. The last non-SLC regular season home loss came at the hands of Texas State on Oct. 8, 2011.
 
Saturday will be the third meeting between the two teams in the all-time series with the Cowboys holding a 2-0 lead. The teams first met in 1988 with McNeese posting a 6-2 win in a game that was played in a torrential storm and a sloppy field. The next year, McNeese built a 20-0 lead only to see MC take a 21-20 advantage into the fourth quarter. McNeese's Tony Citizen scored the game winning touchdown with just over six minutes to play to give the Cowboys the victory.