Rising from his three-point stance, Chris Livings faced no resistance.
He sped untouched around an exhausted Tarleton State offensive line, sights set on 6-foot-7 quarterback Garrett Simpson. Simpson’s only objective in this four-receiver set was to fire a pass downfield.
Livings crushed him from the blindside, McNeese State’s second sack in five minutes.
Redshirt freshman Kendal Franklin provided the other, again an unimpeded, bumrush, with ten minutes left in the second quarter of Saturday’s 33-3 win.
“The first ten minutes of the second quarter,” cornerback Jermaine Antoine said, “we kind of started getting it going.”
Two plays after Livings’ hit, on third-and-10, Simpson found Bubba Tandy across the middle for 11 yards.
Erik Jones, forced to free safety after more attrition in the Cowboys secondary, poked the ball from the receiver’s hands. Jones recovered, giving McNeese a final drive before the first half concluded.
Trent Manuel booted his second field goal as time expired, ending a 20-point second quarter where a Texans spread offense predicated on deep throws gained just 34 yards against a McNeese defense that still required modification at halftime.
Catering to the predictable, pass-heavy offense, new defensive coordinator Tommy Restivo chose to play more coverage schemes in the second half, abandoning the loaded line of scrimmage. Tarleton State ran the football six times for minus-4 yards in the first half.
“We knew they probably didn’t want to do that anymore,” coach Lance Guidry said. “Once you make a team one-dimensional then it’s easier to be a play caller on defense. Hats off to the defense. They pressured the quarterback, they stopped the run, so I was pleased the way they played.”
Tarleton State ran 18 offensive plays in the second half. It gained 15 yards, going three-and-out on each of its final six drives, the longest of which was seven yards. Three of the six drives resulted in two or fewer yards.
This startling suffocation came after a jitter-filled first quarter where the Texans mounted 79-yard drive, complete with passes of 17 and 51 yards against the Cowboys’ inexperienced secondary that was without Josh Washington, who sat out with a high ankle sprain.
Washington, the backup for a suspended Dominique Hill at Buck safety, didn’t dress as a precaution, Guidry said. In his absence, redshirt freshman Trent Jackson moved to Buck and Jones moved to free safety.
“We did start out kind of slow,” Jackson said. “But it’s the first game, you know how it goes. Everyone starts out pretty nervous. But after a couple stops, a couple big plays, we turned it on.”
Guidry lamented some back-end secondary breakdowns and penalties — three of the Cowboys’ seven penalties came in that sluggish first quarter — but the unit avoided issuing long scoring plays.
“And when you don’t do that,” Guidry said, “you make them restart each series and you have a chance to stop people.”
McNeese relished those chances. Tarleton State was 0-for-12 on third down conversions.
“We executed, we could have executed a little better, you know, but I think we did pretty well for our first game,” Antoine said.
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