THE HOME FOR LU SPORTS TALK

Only five games on tap this weekend and Lamar at Central Ark is the premier game. SELA takes on Tarleton and McNeese plays Weber St. These three games should provide some real insight for Lamar in conference. HCU plays Indiana St and NWST plays Southeast Missouri. The last two I suspect are losses for the conference. Hopefully the conference can win some of the first three.

Lamar is at Conway for a 6 PM start against the Bears Saturday evening. This game will show if Lamar is ready for a playoff berth or not. UCA is ranked #7 in the FCS coach's poll. A road game against a top ten nationally ranked opponent would be a big feather in Lamar's tail.

With the Mountain West Conference being poached of its top members (and likely more of them leaving soon to backfill the PAC12), it looks like we'll start the next round of realignment in college sports. That said, if the Sun Belt or C-USA called, would you want O'Malley to take the call- knowing there would be a HUGE fundraising effort (probably $30M+) to upgrade/expand facilities, including probably needing to double the capacity for Provost Umphrey Stadium? Obviously, moving to FBS wouldn't get SEC or Big 12 teams to play football games in Beaumont, but the paychecks for non-conference would be bigger; the football TV deal isn't as lucrative as you'd think (~$700K …

What you guys got for this game. Lamar now rated 41 by Massey, second in the SLC behind UIW and followed by Nichols, SE La & McNeese in that order. Tx Southern rated 106. If LU doesn't play down to the competition, they should win by 3+ scores. I am going with 38-13.

https://lamarcardinals.com/news/2024/9/20/football-culture-shift-taking-place-on-the-gridiron.aspx

8 Games are on tap this weekend. UIW is off, HCU plays FBS UTSA. Remainder of games are three versus Big Sky, three versus SWAC and one MVFC. SELA takes on FCS #1 ranked South Dakota State. Lamar, McNeese and Nicholls play SWAC schools with Lamar hosting Texas Southern who currently sits first in the west division of their conference. I believe the SLC can win all three of the SWAC contests and maybe one of the Big Sky games.

What's considered a successful season for Lamar football in 2024?

With the PAC-2 adding 4 teams from the MWC, I have heard some talking head chatter that UTSA & SWT (Tx St) could be considered for additions to whatever the PAC becomes.

Massey Ratings Weber State - 10 They moved up 5 spots this week Lamar - 64 We moved down 9 spots this week after what looks like a lackluster win. Would be a statement win for this season for LU to pull off a victory. Weber ranked in the top 25 in Massey and both FCS polls. I have faith that Rossomando will have them ready with a chance to win. We continue to grow under Coach Pete, but we are headed in the right direction.

Week three opens Thursday evening with Northwestern St taking on FBS South Alabama. Probably a blowout win for South Alabama. Notable games this week include UIW versus Southern Illinois, Nicholls at Sacramento St and SELA versus Eastern Washington unless something happens to this game as a result of hurricane Franciene. For me Lamar versus Weber St is the game of the week. Conference play opens with SFA at McNeese.

LU improved to 2-1 on the season beating Weber St 17-16 at home on Saturday night! if you look at SLC standings McNeese is #1 and our own Lamar Cardinals are #2. A quick look at the standings LU by winning percentage should be #1. That’s okay. It’s good to see LU doing well.

Lamar takes on Miss Valley Saturday at 6 PM. Miss Valley fell to Tenn St in their opening game in a battle of FCS schools. It is a home game against a FCS school so Lamar should be slightly favored. Keys for Lamar in my opinion are reducing the penalties, moving the ball consistently on offense and the d-line controlling the line of scrimmage. O-line needs to block better than last week to give Coleman time to get passes off and open holes for the backs to get to the second level.

Week 2 has the SLC playing four FBS schools and five FCS. The marquee game this week in my opinion is UIW at South Dakota State. The Commerce-UC Davis game should decide whether SLC is in the plus column for FCS wins this week.

Anyone doing a game thread this week ?

Through the first half of the Thursday night games and last weeks McNeese game it looks like the SLC will be one and three with the lone win coming from SFA against non-D1 North American University. Northwestern St played it close against Tulsa for the first quarter but since then have caved. That might sound good, but Tulsa is picked next to last in the AAC. Southeastern La. hasn't done anything against Tulane.

The new season will be here soon. What's everyone's expectations?

With the posting of both the Women's and Men's non-conference schedules the full schedules are complete. Both have some challenging games in the non-conference, but there are still lower division teams on the schedules beyond the exhibition games. If both the men and the women can continue to improve maybe that will change over the next few years.

Cards fall in their opening match versus A&M 5-0. Lamar was outshot 25-6.

Anyone have any links to watch Lamar’s media day ?

Isaiah Menefee III from Lufkin

Scuttlebutt I've been hearing: - None of the guys in the portal that haven't announced a new school are closing the door on returning to Beaumont - No one is taking calls from other Southland schools, out of respect for the program, their teammates, and Coach Davis (to me, that's a testament to Davis' leadership that they don't want to double-hit the Cardinals program) - They're not recruiting as much as selecting portal guys, including from other SLC schools; pretty easy to pluck from a school like HCU since they were 9th in conference and then hired from within... if I had offers, I'd take that as a sign they're not serious about investing in the program, and thus…

Both men and women will play twenty conference games this year. Cards will only play UNO and Southeastern La. once each. The conference will not be divided into divisions. For tie-breaking purposes the once only games will be important. Since it is difficult to get quality non-conference home games is it better to play more conference games and if so, why not play a full round robin of twenty-two games.

Hearing McGrath who previously has been with the Seattle Mariners organization, University of Elon and most recently at the University of Iowa will be named the new Cardinals pitching coach. https://hawkeyesports.com/coach/sean-mcgrath/