McNeese Football Prepares for Texas A&M - Commerce

LAKE CHARLES, La. (KPLC) - The McNeese Football team enters their week six matchup with the Texas A&M - Commerce still in search of their first win of the year, and this week they do so looking to avoid setting history, as a loss would give McNeese a record of 0-6, which would be the worst start to a season in school history, one worse than their 0-5 start in 1954.

The Pokes have already reached the halfway point in the season, and this is their final game before a bye next week, and when asked if the Cowboys feel any pressure to get in the win column before the bye, Head Coach Gary Goff said “Oh it would be terrific right? We always focus on one game at a time, obviously, this season hasn’t started the way we wanted it to at all but at the same time there is a lot of football left, the conference is still wide open, and you’ve got the defending conference champs in the same boat that we are, there are a lot of teams in our conference that are in the same position that we are. I’m not saying that our conference is necessarily down or anything, our conference has played a lot of tough games before getting into conference play, so we’ve got a lot of football left.”

As Goff said, the Southland Conference has struggled in a big way this season. The conference was a combined 6-25 in Non-Conference play, meaning that while the Pokes find themselves on the verge of the worst start to a season in school history, they’re still not too far back in the conference standings.

Southland Conference Standings:

Texas A&M - Commerce, who the Cowboys take on on Saturday, is in the same boat as the Cowboys as they are also still in search of their first win of the year, but they have yet to take on a conference opponent.

“Commerce is very similar to us, same situation as they’re seeking their first win... we’re kind of prepared for a little bit of everything this week, defensively I think they’re going to bring a lot of pressure, mix their coverages up quite a bit, kind of keep our quarterback guessing a little bit, and then offensively they’re going to play two quarterbacks, and offensively they’re kind of like us, they’re trying to find their identity,” said Goff.

The good news for McNeese? Although several players are no longer with the team for various reasons, the latest being quarterback Tre Simmons who entered the transfer portal earlier this week, according to Goff, the Pokes’ captains, or the Tag Holders as they’re known, feel good heading into their week six matchup, and it seems like the locker room is still together as a unit.

“I met with them (the Tag Holders) yesterday (Wednesday) just to kind of check their pulse and they said hey coach, we’re excited about this week’s game. They’re listening, and I don’t think there’s a lot of rumbling going on in the locker room, and that’s one of the things I was talking to them about saying how it’s going, and they said coach, we think everything is going great, everyone wants to get on the field and play Saturday and get this thing right. They understand there’s still a lot of football to be played and there’s a lot of conference games ahead of us,” said Goff.

For the full Thursday press conference with Coach Goff, click here.

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