'We just got it done': McNeese gets a suffocating, business-like win against Abilene Christian

Solely in pregame aesthetics, Saturday exuded the pageantry and spectacle one would expect of homecoming.

Women donning flamboyant hats were escorted to midfield of a game that, if not for one turnover, would have never been in doubt. Alumni returned. A former McNeese graduate assistant, Ed Orgeron, sat in the seats high atop the Jack Doland Field House to watch his son, Parker, catch five of quarterback James Tabary’s passes.

The football game itself emitted no sort of similar fanfare, only the business-like satisfaction of a 33-14 McNeese win against Abilene Christian — a one-win opponent worthy of a homecoming tussle that the Cowboys were happy to dispatch with No. 1 Sam Houston State looming next week.

“We just got it done tonight,” McNeese coach Lance Guidry said. “Next week, just getting it done ain’t going to be enough.”

McNeese’s defensive line, which entered with 12 sacks across the first eight games, sacked Dallas Sealey three times in the first half — Chris Livings got him twice — and six times total.

The Abilene quarterback who threw for five touchdowns last week and reaped Southland offensive player of the week honors had little time or wherewithal to replicate his feat.

“They stressed to us all week that he was a very elusive quarterback and he bounced around the pocket a lot,” Livings said. “We had to contain him. He was very fast.”

Livings’ two sacks came in the first half. Fellow defensive end Jammerio Gross added 2.5 in the second. Isaiah Golden added 0.5 while the vulnerable Cowboys secondary permitted none of the “chunk plays” that have plagued it all season.

Of Sealey’s 15 completions, none went longer than 15 yards.

“(Sacks and pressure) make our job a whole lot easier because we know the ball has to come out quick, so we can sit down on routes,” cornerback Khalil Thomas said. “With them playing at that level, it’s hard for the quarterback to get the ball downfield. They played outstanding, man.”

As Sealey languished while running for his life, Tabary methodically eviscerated another secondary.

Tabary’s numbers, by his own standards, were pedestrian. He completed 28 of 41 passes for 275 yards and two touchdowns, hitting. 12 different receivers while moving into a tie for third on McNeese’s single-season completions list.

But this night belonged to his defense.

Livings, the younger brother of former LSU defensive end Nate Livings, got both sacks in the first quarter — the second coming after Sealey converted a third-and-7 and the Wildcats approached midfield.

Instead, Livings bombarded an Abilene offensive line that was under duress all evening — McNeese permitted only 90 rushing yards, 34 of which came on one Adrian Duncan run that began Abliene’s first drive of the second quarter.

The Wildcats punted following Livings’ drive-stalling sack, beginning McNeese’s 11-play, 71-yard scoring drive that ended on Tabary’s 13-yard touchdown to Lawayne Ross.

Against Abilene Christian’s zone defense that permitted countless underneath throws, Tabary was pinpoint in an 18-completion first half where a Ryan Ross fumble was all that prevented McNeese from turning the game farcical.

Ross, who did not start for the first time this season, fumbled a screen pass on his own 25 with McNeese already holding a 7-0 lead. Abilene scored two plays later as Sealey found Troy Grant streaking across the end zone, tying the game after Ross’ second lost fumble in three weeks.

It was the only blemish on an otherwise sterling first half. McNeese led 19-7 after Gunnar Raborn’s career-long 47-yard field goal — his second make of the first half — as the clock wound under 10 seconds.

Out of the locker room, Abilene Christian possessed the ball for 6:37 of a seemingly interminable third quarter. It ran 14 plays.

McNeese allowed 16 yards. Jermaine Antoine snatched his second interception in as many games in the fourth, all but ending the game. It sent a battered Sealey trudging for the sideline and the Cowboys anticipating a looming showdown with the Bearkats next week.

“We can’t be good, we’re going to have to be great,” Guidry said. “We’re going to have to put all three phases of it. Our kids know that and our coaches know that.”

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