Football Gold: McNeese, LSU, Saints

As a major economic driver, football brings big bucks into cities around the country. The NFL alone generates billions of dollars in revenue a year. Meanwhile, an excellent college team can be a draw for players from all around the country and bring in significant financial support for the university, as well as local businesses that supply food and other services.

Whether interested in college or state football, there are some big changes on the horizon for the McNeese Cowboys, LSU Tigers and New Orleans Saints. New leadership, new players, new strategies and new streams of income are all coming into play in this year’s season preview. Discover what to expect from your favorite teams this year whether you yell “Go Pokes” or “Who Dat?” 

MCNEESE STATE UNIVERSITY: BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD

Plenty of Changes to McNeese Football

by Matt Dye

After 15 straight seasons with a winning record, the Cowboys have had five seasons without one. The closest was last season at 6-6. 

Athletic Director Heath Schroyer knew it was time for a change to get the Cowboy name back. A .500 season wouldn’t cut it, so Schroyer went back to the foundation, to a man that lead the Cowboys for nine of those 15 winning seasons. And just like that, what’s old is new again. 

Matt Viator was the head coach at McNeese from 2006-2015, before that serving as the linebackers coach and then offensive coordinator, totaling 17 seasons. Since he left in 2015, Viator has continued coaching, first as head coach at UL-Monroe and then quarterback coach at ULL.  

Now, stepping back into head coach saddle for the first time since 2020, Viator notes that he may be parking in the same sport here at McNeese, but just about everything else is different. 

“It’s a different place in how it’s being run,” Viator says. “It’s been nine years. I think for the better. Different in a better way.” 

The football program has had a big makeover in the past few years, from how it’s funded to the upgrades to the stadium since the storms for 2020 to the beautiful new press box that will debut this season to the name of the stadium itself, now Navarre Stadium. All of these are signs of things to come. 

As Schroyer said, “It was never about having [Navarre’s] name on the stadium; it was more than that. We had a shared vision to elevate the university and all of Southwest Louisiana.” 

Elevation is a good word, and while Coach Viator has yet to come out and say that the reason for his return was to get the Cowboy football program back to the levels of dominance of the past, it’s hard to believe that wasn’t a strong motivating factor.  

That leaves the one question. What will the actual product on the field look like? For now, it’s hard to say. Viator left it open for all players to return when he took over as you can’t just turn over an entire football roster the way you can a basketball team. 

With that in mind, McNeese’s transfer class was ranked No. 6 in the nation and they were No. 1 in roster improvement for FCS schools, so there’s a lot of hope for a team that finished 6-6 and often played uninspired football last season. Even now, expectations are still cool as the Cowboys are preseason picks to finish sixth in the Southland Conference.  

While Viator has yet to set starters, eyes are currently on Jake Strong, a transfer from Texas Tech, to start at quarterback.  

At running back, senior back Bryce Strong, who averaged nearly 8.3 yards per carry last season, should get the nod to start the season.  

All six home games this season will kick off at 6:00 p.m., allowing for that magical night under the lights every Saturday, but get your tickets now, as McNeese has reported that 70% of season tickets are sold. 

LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY: THE SHADOW OF YEAR FOUR

A Make-or-Break Year for the Tigers

by Matt Dye

Three seasons ago, the hiring of Brian Kelly was met with mixed reactions from fans. Some thought after the chaotic turmoil of Coach O, Kelly would bring stability to a program that is steeped in championship tradition. 

For better or worse, Kelly tried to play the part, even adopting an awkward Southern twang at times that didn’t fit the ball coach, born and raised in Massachusetts. 

Since then, the gloss has come off, and so have any pretenses, as this year, in some ways, is the make-or-break year for Brian Kelly’s iteration of the LSU Tigers. There’s been a lot of good in Kelly’s reign, such as going 3-0 in bowl games, but there’s also been a lot of bad, such as going 0-3 in season openers.  

Over the course of three seasons, Kelly is 29-11, with a 4-8 record against ranked teams. And it doesn’t help that the last three head coaches at LSU won a national title by their fourth season. 

Expectations are high, and probably higher than they should be, given that since Kelly has taken over, NIL has changed the landscape of recruiting and retaining talent in college sports, while, at the same time, the SEC has expanded from 14 to 16 teams. 

This season, Kelly has put together the top-ranked transfer portal class to help 5th year quarterback Garrett Nussmeier get to the top of pile.  

Nussmeier, who threw for over 4,000 yards last season and 29 touchdowns, is the pre-season No. 2 Heisman contender (behind Texas’s Arch Manning), but he’ll have to get a whole new group of playmakers to shine as only one of his top five receivers, Aaron Anderson, is still on the squad. 

Transfers Barion Brown from Kentucky and Nic Anderson from OU are two targets that Nussmeier hopes pan out early and often, as the Tigers moved toward more of a pass-first offense last season (albeit, the previous two were with Jayden Daniels at the helm).   

The biggest hope on offense is Harlem Berry, the nation’s top-rated high school running back out of Metairie, joining 2nd year back Caden Durham, who averaged 5.4 yards per carry.  If Berry can tout the rock behind a newly revamped offensive line lost bookend tackles to the NFL draft, the way to winning a national championship within that four-year window becomes ever so much clearer. 

On defense, LSU hasn’t had a top 20 nationally ranked unit since the season of glory, 2019, and even then, it really goes back to when John Chavis left in 2014. The preseason predictions have the defense ranked in the 20s after finishing 61st in the nation the last few years, so there’s hope for improvement. 

If that improvement comes, it’ll likely be behind the play of FSU transfer Patrick Payton, who the coaching staff expects to make noise in the backfield all season long. The Tigers also get Harold Perkins Jr. and Jacobian Guillory back from injury plagued 2024 seasons to help bolster the middle. 

On the corners, Va-Tech transfer Mansoor Delane joins freshman DJ Pickett in a competition to see who can come up with the most interceptions. 

The season starts August 30th, with a trip to Clemson, a team many have ranked in the top 15. LSU looks to break the opening day losing streak, but this time do so under even tougher conditions, with the previous three losses taking place at neutral sites, while this one is at the “original Death Valley.” 

From there, most of the home season schedule looks to be a cake walk, with all of the major bangers coming on the road, with trips this season to Ole Miss, Alabama and Oklahoma to end the season, which are predicted to finish eight, three and six respectively in the SEC. LSU is predicted to be four. 

But predictions are fairly pointless in the sports world. The real question will be can LSU get out the gate 1-0 in 2025? And will they play in a better bowl game than the ReliaQuest Bowl?  

Record: 9-3, back to the ReliaQuest Bowl and looking for a new coach. 

NEW ORLEANS SAINTS: NEW LOOK, WHO DAT?

Rebooting the Saints

by Matt Dye

Let’s be honest, it was getting pretty ugly. The New Orleans Saints had become like a heartbroken sad sap, waiting for its ex to come back through the door and make everything alright again.  

The Saints hung on after Drew Brees retired and Sean Payton peaced out, hoping that continuity with coaching by promoting Dennis Allen from d-coordinator to head coach, and bringing in underperforming boy next door Derek Carr, who if you squinted your eyes just right looked like a bad photocopy of Brees, would do the trick.  

Three miserable years and an 18-25 record later, Saints ownership finally acknowledged that things weren’t ever getting back to good, and that it was time to get back in the gym and start over. 

Enter Kellen Moore, who is coming off an impressive string of offensive coordinator positions, most recently for the Super Bowl Champion Philadelphia Eagles. Before coaching, Moore was a quarterback himself, most notably playing for Boise State during an era when people knew who the Broncos and their blue field were. Moore was constantly in the Heisman conversation, finishing as high as 4th, and the top 10 in three seasons. 

Moore looks to bring that offensive mind to revitalize the Saints, who have seen their total offensive numbers drop each of the past three seasons. 

Derek Carr is also gone. Whether a fan or not, most expected Carr to be back and leading the offense this season, if nothing else, to play out his contract, so his sudden retirement in May surprised most. The Saints, for their part, have drafted with his retirement in mind the last two seasons, taking Spencer Rattler in the fifth round last year and Tyler Shough in the second round this year. 

While Shough is considered the front-runner for the position, contract chicanery is currently allowing Rattler more practice time, so it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out going forward. 

Perhaps the biggest benefactor of this recent overhaul is Alvin Kamara, once considered one of the most dangerous playmakers in the league, who won’t be forced to carry the team like he’s been the last couple seasons.  

Competent quarterback play and effective offensive play-calling should allow for wide receivers like Chris Olave and Rashid Shaheed, who missed most of last season with a knee injury, to flourish and open the field up for Kamara to get back to making the spectacular runs that get fans out of their seats. 

On defense, the Saints are returning a lot of big name starters such as Cam Jordan, Demario Davis and the Honey Badger Tyrann Mathieu, but they need some of their young talent to pan out as many of their starters are on the wrong side of 30.  Last season, the defense was nearly dead last in terms of total yardage surrendered. 

But this new look also includes new defensive coordinator, Brandon Staley, who last coached the Rams’ D to the top of the league in 2020 before signing on for a head coaching stint in Chargerland where Moore was his offensive coordinator. 

With roles reversed, the hope is that the Saints can accelerate their rebuilding schedule to maybe a season of contention, as the NFC South is one of the weaker divisions in the NFL, and given the Saints’ poor performance last season, they’ve been gifted with 2025’s third easiest schedule. 

That said, this will be a preseason to watch as to what the Saints’ future will hold. If Shough becomes the first Saints rookie to start the season at QB since Archie Manning, then look out, good things could be in store, and this team might even hit double-digit wins, which would be an incredible season. 

But more likely, they win about six games, yet are in all of them, except for maybe Week 4 at Buffalo. That one might sting a little. 

Record: 9-8 or 6-11, but third in the division behind Tampa Bay and Atlanta.