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Fourth quarter in the two early games finds Commerce up by twenty-eight points at NWST and SELA up by thirty points at HCU.

Halftime, the good news is that the defense appears to have settled in and are containing SFA. Bad news is that the offense continues it inconsistent play from possession to possession.

Poor start for Lamar, win the toss, take the ball, three and out on three passes. Penalty on the punt. SFA first possession five plays, 74 yards and a touchdown.

Cards open Southland Conference competition this year against SFA. Game time is 3 PM October 12th.

Conference games only this week. I suppose for each school their game is the top game of the week, but for me it's a toss up between UIW versus Nicholls and Lamar versus SFA. Using the rankings UIW/Nicholls is the game of the week, but Lamar gets their shot at both of them later and the results of that game gives indication of what is to come. For me Lamar is the key game this week as SFA has a conference loss to McNeese on the books, so they need the win to stay relevant and Lamar needs the win to maintain the preseason expectations. HCU has a chance to prove last week's win at McNeese wasn't a fluke if they can take down SELA and NWST has what might be their best chance for a win this year playing Commerce.

With this weeks Massey Ratings should Lamar be the underdog at home versus SFA this weekend? I expect a close game.

That's just great, six weeks and he should be ready for the last game against us. That might have slowed McNeese offense but HCU still scored a bunch of points.

October 5th Final Scores McNeese 22 - HCU 43 Commerce 9 - SELA 21 NWST 17 - SFA 59 Prairie View 28 - UIW 56 Southern 7 - Nicholls 51

Half time for all the 6 PM starts and one surprise. HCU is up 27-9 over McNeese. SELA up by seven over Commerce. Prairie View is playing UIW tough trailing 19-14, with Nicholls up big on Southern 38-0. SFA is up 31-0 on NWST after the first quarter.

Although Lamar doesn't play this week there are still five games involving SLC teams. Three are conference games and two are Non-conference games. The two non-conference games are both against SWAC members with UIW playing Prairie View and Nicholls taking on Southern. The conference games are McNeese at HCU, Commerce at SELA and NWST at SFA.

Soccer sitting at 1-1-1 in conference play with a 4-0 win over Nicholls. The four goals ties for the most in a match this year and with the shutout the largest margin of victory. Hope this is an indication that Soccer is starting a streak toward the top, but Nicholls is last in the conference at 0-3 so far. Volleyball finished the opening weekend with a split and host current conference leader Commerce Thursday before traveling to last place Corpus on Saturday.

The SLC goes two and three this week, but the wins didn't come where you might have wanted or expected. All five games were on the road, HCU and McNeese win while SELA had a chance falling late in the game to Tarleton St. NWST lost by 19 and Lamar as noted on the game thread lost by 20. This week could have had a much better outcome, but all three losses were to ranked teams. Week six will be mostly conference games with only UIW and Nicholls playing non-conference opponents while Lamar has a bye week.

Final score UCA 34 - Lamar 14. In some ways this game was closer than the score shows, but it easily could have been worse. Biggest difference was rushing yards. Lamar could not stop UCA with any consistency. UCA only punted twice. As usual the play calling seemed somewhat questionable as UCA stopped Lamar three times inside the red zone where the Cards tried to tun the ball when a play action pass would have been a good call on a first down. UCA just keyed on Griffin and shut him down for the most part in that location of the field.

After swapping punts on both teams first possessions of the second half each team has a nice drive resulting in touchdowns in the third quarter. UCA has the ball as the game goes from the third to fourth quarters. Score at the end of three UCA 27 - Lamar 14

Been on the road so just catching up. Lamar offense still struggling. Lamar only one for three on field goal attempts with one blocked and one missed. Central Arkansas out rushing Lamar 3-1. Defense has only stopped UCA once. Passing is similar for both teams.

I agree that there are lots of other sports and things in general that should be driving conference realignment, but my position is that college football and basketball tv revenue is the current driving factor. Tell me what other thing other than money makes sense for multiple schools to all want to move conferences at the same time. The PAC 12 was a great conference in all sports except for tv revenue. Because the football playoff system allowed for them to be excluded didn't help but the twelve team playoff system starting this year would have fixed that. Maybe Oregon and others will be able to overcome the perceived competitive advantage of the SEC and Big 10 by playing them consistently but that may take several years. Look at the schools that left other conferences before and tell me how they are doing on a competitive basis. Examples are Missouri or A&M competing for conference championships on a routine basis? What about Nebraska or Colorado? All four were original members of the Big 12.

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.

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.

Gonzaga doesn't play football, Montana, Montana State and Idaho and the Dakotas are all FCS teams. Hawaii is already a member. FBS schools that make sense geographically are UTEP, Texas St, UTSA, New Mexico, New Mexico St and maybe a couple of others. Now the Mountain West is beginning to look a lot like the old WAC.

I'm not sure any quarterback can be a successful passer if he is worrying about getting sacked every time he goes to throw the ball. Bottom line is the o-line has to protect him consistently. I think the reason so many coaches like or want a dual threat is that the dual threat has a better chance to make something out of a broken play.

Until the o-line improves, especially at pass blocking Lamar is one dimensional and that dimension is named Griffin.

At some point I think you're going to see a conference including the Pac12 disappear not add FCS schools. The prestige of the PAC-12 name may save it as they poach the best from the rest of the conferences. The Sun Belt currently has fourteen members. The Mountain West after the initial poaching is down to eight members. The American has fourteen members. C-USA has ten members, the Mid-American has twelve, The Pac-12 probably needs to get to ten members to be comfortable, but needs two to survive, who are the most likely targets? The Pac-12 may also be thinking that one or two teams might decide to return to get them to ten or twelve but that will be a big pill for the returning teams to swallow. So, who do they go after?

I suppose the question is have both Volleyball and Soccer played tough enough competition to be prepared adequately for conference. We'll see starting this week.

I too am disappointed with the penalties. This week I might give the offense a little break as it is possible that the game plan was more conservative since it was Longino's first start. The o-line has to improve.

Missed a game when I first looked at this weeks schedule. Final count for the week, one loss to an FBS school, three wins against SWAC competition, two wins and two losses against the Big Sky and a loss to MVFC. 5-3 overall versus FCS but not impressive and no wins against upper tier FCS. Looks like the SLC won't deserve more than one bid for the playoffs.