LAKE CHARLES – Northwestern State was down, big, at halftime, but not nearly out.
As Clay Holgorsen broke Bobby Hebert's 37-year-old Demon single-game passing yardage record, NSU carved away at a 27-point halftime deficit. The 20th-ranked McNeese Cowboys had to convert a fourth down with under three minutes remaining, and score a clinching touchdown on the next snap, to deny the Demon rally and emerge with a 44-24 Southland Conference football triumph Saturday night.
Holgorsen, a junior college transfer in his fifth start at NSU, threw for 381 yards, going 26 of 41 to break Hebert's record by 17 yards.
Most significantly, he tossed touchdown passes of 4 (to Cameron Lazare), 1 (Kalen Meggs) and 30 yards (to his Northwest Mississippi Community College teammate Marquisian Chapman over an 11-minute span coming down the stretch. That flurry of 21 points drew the Demons within two scores at 37-24 when Chapman weaved between defenders over the middle to complete his scoring play with 5:20 remaining, and giving Holgorsen the record.
Improbably, an NSU team that trailed 37-3 after McNeese's first series of the second half had an onside kick opportunity to make things extremely intense. But the Cowboys' B.J. Blunt fielded it flawlessly, and McNeese senior quarterback James Tabary provided the finishing blows.
On third down at the NSU 41, he scrambled 10 yards. Then on fourth-and-9 at the Demons' 30, after an NSU timeout with 3:01 left, Tabary found tight end Lawayne Ross for 24 yards, and David Hamm's 6-yard touchdown run on the next play salted away the verdict.
McNeese (8-2 overall, 6-2 in the Southland) stopped a two-game win streak by the Demons (3-7, 3-5), who posted the most yards by any conference team, 431, against the Cowboys, who led the nation's FCS ranks allowing only 250 per game. McNeese had 478 yards, 299 passing, 285 by Tabary (17-28, 3 TDs), who sat out most of the third quarter after the Cowboys opened the 37-3 lead.
The late-game drama unfolded despite a dismal walk into the Demon locker room at halftime. That's when the comeback began, said senior linebacker Peyton Guidry.
"We talked about who we are as a team, some of the coaches, some of our seniors. We wanted to define ourselves as a team, that we're not going to quit. We been preaching that all year. We're going to fight until the last second, and we did," said Guidry, who led NSU with nine tackles.
Holgorsen, who passed for 237 yards after halftime, downplayed his record total due to the unsuccessful rally.
"I was just trying to get my team back in it. I just did my job," said Holgorsen. "It would have been a lot more memorable if we had completed that comeback."
The Cowboys took control despite being outgained in the first quarter, thanks to an 85-yard fumble return for a score by Trent Jackson.
Late in the first period, the Demons were bidding to tie the game at 10, first and goal at the McNeese 9, but true freshman quarterback Kaleb Fletcher was gang tackled behind the line and was stripped of the ball while falling backwards. Jackson scooped up the ball and went the distance to get the Cowboys' fifth defensive touchdown of 2017, moving McNeese ahead 17-3.
NSU put up 140 first quarter yards on the nation's top-ranked defense, allowing an average of just 250 per game. But the only scoring was Eric Piccione's 38-yard field goal ending an 11-play, 59-yard drive and putting the visitors up 3-0 midway through the first 15 minutes.
McNeese took the lead and expanded it in a flash. After the NSU kickoff, the Cowboys covered 68 yards in seven plays, the last a 14-yard Darious Crawley run to go up 7-3. A mixup fielding the kickoff led to a loose ball that McNeese recovered at the 12, and cost the Demons three points, a 29-yard Gunnar Raborn field goal just 18 seconds later after a three-and-out by the NSU defense.
Despite the fumble return touchdown by Jackson, the Demons stayed in range for a while, missing a chance to cut the deficit late in the first quarter. A 43-yard Clay Holgorsen to Bobby Chan-Chan, playing for the first time in three weeks, got NSU near the red zone, but the drive stalled and an off-target snap contributed to a rare Piccione miss, barely wide left, on a 39-yard field goal in the last minute of the period.
The Cowboys broke it open in the final 5:20 of the half. Tavarious Battiste raced 46 yards on a speed sweep to stretch the lead to 24-3. McNeese polished off the half with 11 seconds left when Parker Orgeron, son of former Demon defensive line great and LSU head coach Ed Orgeron, made a circus catch on a 16-yard toss from Tabary as his parents and other family watched in a booth next to the Demon Sports Network radio broadcast.
The Demons wrap up their season next Saturday afternoon at 3 in Turpin Stadium in the annual "Battle for Chief Caddo," the largest trophy in sports, when Stephen F. Austin visits. The Lumberjacks fell 34-13 on their homefield Saturday to Nicholls.
