NATCHITOCHES – The first Exchange Bank Demon Great of the Game of the 2024 Northwestern State football season is a value pack.
 
Five of the Demons' 12 conference championship teams in school history will be honored as the first Demon Great of the Game when Northwestern faces Prairie View A&M at 6 p.m.
 
Being honored in the Demons' home opener are the 1953 Gulf States championship team, the 1984 Gulf Star championship team and the 1988, 1998 and 2004 Southland Conference championship teams.
 
The 1953 squad enjoyed a five-win turnaround from the prior season, going 6-2 and 5-1 in league play under head coach Harry "Rags" Turpin to capture their first of five Gulf States Conference crowns in program history.
 
The 1984 team went 4-1 in Gulf Star Conference play to capture the first of head coach Sam Goodwin's four conference championships as the Northwestern head coach.
 
Four years later, Goodwin's Demons were a perfect 6-0 in Southland Conference play and 10-3 overall, collecting a 22-13 playoff victory at Boise State before falling to Idaho a week later.
 
Goodwin's 1998 squad went 6-1 in Southland play and won 11 games, including a pair of playoff wins at Turpin Stadium – 48-28 against Illinois State and 31-20 over Appalachian State – before falling in the national semifinals to UMass.
 
The 2004 edition of the Demons won its final three Southland games to finish 4-1 in league play and deliver Northwestern its most recent conference championship. That group of Demons started the Southland Conference's only Triple Crown championship run – football, men's basketball and baseball regular-season titles in the same athletic year – for an athletic department.
 
The Exchange Bank and Trust Demon Great of the Game is in its second decade of honoring former Northwestern State student-athletes and staff members. Exchange Bank and Trust has been a key supporter of Northwestern State Athletics throughout its long history as the oldest financial institution in Louisiana.