By Jason Pugh, Northwestern State Associate Athletic Director for External Relations; featured photo by Chris Reich, NSU Photographic Services
CAPE GIRARDEAU, Missouri – The Northwestern State football team’s 2024 non-conference schedule concludes Saturday, giving the Demons another shot to put the lessons learned from the first four weeks of the season into action.
The challenge for the second straight week is another Football Championship Subdivision team that has burnished itself as a perennial top-25 team in Southeast Missouri State. One week after facing a Weber State team that traditionally makes its home in the national polls, the Demons will do so against a similar program on the road at 3 p.m. inside Houck Field on ESPN+.
“We know what quality opponents feel like,” first-year head coach Blaine McCorkle said. “One of the best ways to get better is to play against good people, and we’ve done that. Our kids are somewhat battle tested. We’ve learned form those battles we’ve been in, and we know we have to clean up those mistakes and play cleaner football and try to turn one of these into a win.”
The Redhawks (3-1) come into Saturday’s matchup after a 38-21 win at then-No. 7 Southern Illinois while the Demons (0-4) are seeking the first win of the McCorkle era after falling to Weber State a week ago.
That win moved Weber State back into the STATS Perform Top 25 at No. 25. Now, the Demons face a team that is solidly in the top 25, albeit one that does it in a much different way.
Weber State came into last week’s game with the No. 11 rushing attack in the FCS. This week, the Demons face a SEMO passing attack that ranks sixth nationally at 292 yards per game.
“They can throw the ball, and we have to be prepared for the run as well,” linebacker Blake Gotcher said. “Everyone needs to do their job, practice well and good things are going to happen.”
SEMO quarterback Paxton DeLaurent ranks in the top 10 nationally in passing touchdowns (12, 2nd), completions per game (25, 6th), passing yards (1,068, 7th) and passing yards per game (267, 10th). His receivers Dorian Anderson and Mitchell Sellers have combined for nine touchdown catches with Anderson sharing the national lead with five.
“It’s definitely a change of pace,” McCorkle said. “Two weeks ago against Tennessee-Martin, they threw the ball 64 times and had only four or five called runs. We joked in the coaches’ office that they only have two runs in their offense – they run on the field and they run off the field. DeLaurent can make every throw. If I were a fan, I’d really love watching him. I’m not really excited about facing him this week, but he’s a fun watch. They also have a true freshman running back, Payton Brown, who’s a very talented kid, fun to watch on film. They have the ability to play several different ways.”
The challenge for the Northwestern offense is a similar one – although more introspective.
Through four games, the Demons are losing the time of possession battle by more than six minutes per contest. One key behind that stat is third-down conversions.
In its first four games, Northwestern has converted 10 of 55 third-down conversions (18.2 percent) while its opponents are 26-for-55 (47.3 percent).
“The main thing we need to do offensively is maintain drives,” running back Kennieth Lacy said. “You maintain drives you wear a defense down and give our defense a chance to stand up and make stops. That will be one of the key points Saturday we need to do to win.”
Part of that could be attributed to the youth movement that has permeated the Demons’ 2024 roster – one that McCorkle freely acknowledges.
“We’re young,” McCorkle said. “I think we have 19 redshirt freshmen and sophomores getting significant snaps on both sides of the ball – really in all three phases. Battle tested we are in a hurry. Long term down the road the rest of this year and years down the road, that will pay dividends because those are guys the Northwestern State fans will get used to hearing their names for a long, long time as we continue to grow the program.”