Nov. 15, 2007

by Louis Bonnette

One more victory and McNeese State's Cowboys will have their first undefeated, untied regular season record since the 1995 campaign.

In fact, it will be only the fourth in school history.

Besides that year, there have been only two other undefeated, untied regular season records posted by the Cowboys, an 8-0 mark under Coach Les DeVall in 1963 and an 11-0 mark under Coach Ernie Duplechin in 1979.

In 1995, Bobby Keasler was the head coach and he had a senior quarterback by the name of Kerry Joseph who is is now one of the top signal callers in the Canadian Football League.

That year the Cowboys - ranked No. 1 in the nation throughout - ran off 13 straight victories before being defeated by Marshall in a semifinal FCS (then 1-AA) football playoff game at Cowboy Stadium.

Joseph, who now has his Saskatchewan Roughriders in the finals of the western division championship race in the CFL, remembers that year very well. Talking via long distance from Regina, Canada, where he was preparing for this week's finals of the CFL's western division playoffs with the British Columbia Lions, Joseph said of McNeese's run in 1995: "That was an outstanding year. I really think that a defining moment for us that season was our game with James Madison on the road. We were down at the half and it was raining. But, we came back, won the game and we just went on from there."

That was only the third game of the season.

The Cowboys had started the year by beating Southwest Missouri (31-2) on the road and then Southeast Oklahoma (45-10) at home.

In Harrisonburg, VA, the Cowboys got behind James Madison by a 24-6 score at the half.

The only score McNeese had in the first half came on a 57 yard pass from Joseph to Terence Davis. The pass for two points failed.

In the second half, however, it was all Cowboys.

Joseph scored on runs of 33 and one yards, Henry Fields scored on a five yard run and Jose Larios booted a 20 yard field goal.

But, it might have been a punt by Joseph, who was pulling duty for regular punter Brian Stewart, that was the play that saved the day.

Trailing 24-19 in the fourth quarter, the Cowboys were forced to punt. Joseph waited for the snap which sailed over his head. He chased after it, grabbed it on the 12 yard line and kicked.

"All I could think about was getting to the ball to see what I could do with it," he had said after the game. "I didn't know how far it was going to go. I was just glad to get rid of it. It was a miracle."

The ball traveled 78 yards off Joseph's foot (the punt was recorded as 46 yards from the line of scrimmage) and it put the Dukes deep in their territory at their 12.

Four plays later the Cowboys got the ball back on a fumble and kicked a field goal to cut the score to 24-22. Another four plays later Joseph went over from the one and following his two point conversion, McNeese had a 30-24 victory.

In that second half McNeese had outscored James Madison 24-0 and had rolled up 209 total offensive yards, Joseph finishing with 65 yards rushing and two tds and 175 yards passing and one td. A defense led by all-Americans Zack Bronson (now a coach with the Cowboys) and Kavika Pittman had held the Dukes to 62 total yards in that half.

From there the Cowboys went on to knock off Youngstown State, Central Florida (featuring Dante Culpepper), Portland State, Sam Houston State, SFA, Southwest Texas, Northwestern State and Nicholls State to complete an undefeated, untied regular season.

They also won two games deep into the playoffs, Idaho and Delaware (Delaware coach Tubby Raymond surrendered his cap to the Cowboys and it is now in a case in the McNeese hall of fame), before bowing to Marshall.

Joseph would claim conference and Louisiana player of the year honors that season and be named the state's top amateur athlete by the Sugar Bowl Association.

He called it a year to remember, somewhat like the year he's having as a professional right now.

Last Sunday he led Saskatchewan to a 26-24 victory over Calgary in the semifinals of the west division playoffs. In that game Joseph passed for 391 yards and rushed for 109 more, a 500 yard effort.

He was called an outstanding quarterback and outstanding athlete by Calgary head coach Tom Higgins after the game.

His head coach - Kent Austin - called him the complete competitor.

The Saskatchewan fans called him "MVP" which he was recently named for the western division of the league and which he could also be named later for the entire league.