NATCHITOCHES – The margin for Northwestern State remains razor-thin.
A second straight matchup against a Top 20 team with a handful off turnovers, penalties and missed chances ended in a 41-14 loss at the hand of No. 15 Lamar on Saturday night.
"We've played two top 20 teams in a row and a lot of our young guys found out what championship-level football at this level looks like," head coach
Blaine McCorkle said. "There is a lot of valuable lessons in that for them. A lot for us to learn as we build this thing."
Down 3-0 after a 50-yard field goal from Lamar's Ben Woodard, the Demons were poised to take the lead late in the first quarter after one of the eight chunk plays by the offense on the day.
A 59-yard catch from
Jimmie Duncan set NSU up at the Lamar five-yard line, but three plays later a 24-yard field goal was blocked keeping the Demons off the scoreboard.
"We had some missed opportunities today but the biggest might have been on our second drive," McCorkle said. "Get the ball all the way down inside the five and come away with no points. That's unacceptable. You've got to find a way to come away with points, three at the worst. It's a whole different feel if we get a score there."
The defense forced a punt on the ensuing possession to set up the Demons' lone scoring drive of the first half.
Three straight chunk passing plays got the Demons into scoring position – a 14-yard reception from Duncan, 21-yard completion to
Brendan Webb and 13-yard catch-and-run to
Amaaz Eugene. The fourth big play of the drive went to
Jeremiah James out of the backfield on a wheel route who scampered 40 yard down to the Lamar one-yard line.
Three plays later, quarterback
Abram Johnston, with a little help from his center
Caleb Billiot, lunged his way into the end zone to give the Demons a 7-3 lead early in the second.
The Cardinals responded with an eight-play touchdown drive of their own then marched down the field on a 10-play trip, after forcing a pair of NSU punts, to score with 21 seconds left and take a 17-7 lead into the break.
Lamar scored on five of its final seven possessions of the game, and turned back-to-back Demon turnovers into points, as part of four straight scoring drives to put the game away in the second half.
A fumble and interception near midfield on consecutive possession set the Cardinals up with a short field which they converted into 10 points.
The Demons hit a handful more chunk plays in the second half including their longest play from scrimmage of the year.
Brendan Webb beat press coverage at the line for a 78-yard touchdown grab for his second trip to the end zone this year securing the first 100-yard receiving game for a Demon since
Myles Kitt-Denton against Prairie View A&M a year ago.
Webb (126) and Duncan (73), who both finished with career-best receiving days, combined for a pair of 50-plus yard receptions in the game, collecting 199 total receiving yards on six grabs.
"Those are two really good true freshmen receivers that are going to be incredible players here," McCorkle said. "Didn't surprise us what they did today, we've seen that coming for a while. They stepped up and made some plays and caught all their passes from a redshirt freshman quarterback who was protected by two redshirt freshmen and a sophomore up front."
Johnston threw for 284 yards in the game, a season best for the Demons, but the scuttled rushing game managed 23 yards against a stout defensive front for the Cardinals.
The Demons travel to McNeese next week. Kickoff is set for 6 p.m. in Lake Charles.
