UIW Scores Three Touchdowns in Final 2:05 of the Half, Routs McNeese 38-6

For most of the first half, this looked like a grind. Then the clock hit 2:05 in the second quarter, and Incarnate Word turned a one-score game into a rout in about the time it takes to refill a drink.

UIW beat McNeese 38-6 on Saturday in San Antonio, and the final margin was built almost entirely in a two-minute window. The Cardinals scored three touchdowns in the final 2:05 of the half, the teams combined for four in that span, and a 7-0 game went to the locker room at 28-6.

Quarterback Emmett Brown was at the center of all of it. He threw four touchdown passes, ran for a fifth and finished with more than 350 yards of total offense. UIW evened its record at 4-4 and moved to 3-2 in the Southland Conference. McNeese fell to 3-5 and 2-3, and its two-game league winning streak is over.

A strip sack and a trick play

The game was decided early in one sense and late in another. The early part took 36 seconds.

On McNeese's opening possession, Jeremiah Young stripped quarterback Jake Strong on the third play of the game. Terrell Elliott recovered at the Cowboys' 27. UIW did not waste a snap. Brown handed off to Jayden Hibbler, who flipped the ball to Roy Alexander, who tossed it back to Brown. By then tight end Dane Farley was standing alone, and Brown hit him for a 27-yard touchdown.

That was the start of a big afternoon for Young. He finished with three sacks, his second three-sack game of the season, and 3.5 tackles for loss. He now has 7.5 sacks, one shy of the UIW single-season record shared by Myke Tavarres (2015), Justin Alexandre (2018) and Devin Grant (2024).

McNeese hangs in, for a while

Give the Cowboys' defense credit. After the opening punch, it kept a short-field game from turning into an early blowout. McNeese's offense was another story. Strong went 0-for-7 passing, and the Cowboys managed 28 yards on 12 plays across their first three possessions.

Brady Barrier came on in the next series and gave McNeese its best drive of the first half, only to be intercepted at the UIW 41 by Patrick Batiste. It was Batiste's second pick in as many games. The Cowboys' defense then held again, forcing a missed 40-yard field goal, and the score stayed 7-0 deep into the second quarter.

The turning point

Then came the 2:05 that decided everything.

Brown dropped a 29-yard lob into Alexander's hands for a 14-0 lead. The UIW defense forced a three-and-out, and the Cardinals needed one play to cash in, a 56-yard strike from Brown to Jacob Emmers that made it 21-0 with 1:31 left in the half.

McNeese did punch back. Barrier won a 50-50 ball with Smiley Edwards for 34 yards, putting the Cowboys in UIW territory for the first time all day at the 31. On the next play, Barrier found Reed Boyd up the seam for a touchdown. The two-point try failed, and it was 21-6.

The problem was the clock. McNeese left 59 seconds on it, and UIW used them. The Cardinals went 75 yards in six plays, and Brown found Isaiah Champagne in the middle of the field for a 26-yard touchdown with five seconds left in the half. Instead of a two-score game at the break with the Cowboys carrying momentum, it was 28-6.

That last drive is the one McNeese will think about. A 15-point deficit is a climb. A 22-point deficit against a quarterback playing like Brown was playing is a mountain.

A quiet third, then Brown again

To McNeese's credit, it did not fold after halftime. The Cowboys' defense pitched a shutout in the third quarter for the second straight game, holding UIW to three punts, 38 total yards and no first downs in the period, according to McNeese's recap. The Cowboys opened the second half with their best drive of the day, reaching the UIW 27, but it ended on downs.

That was the last real threat. Brown broke free for a 38-yard touchdown run in the second half, his fifth touchdown of the game, to make it 35-6. Nick Rigas added a 25-yard field goal with 7:50 left to close the scoring.

The players who decided it

Brown was the headline. He completed 19 passes for 283 yards and four touchdowns without a turnover and added more than 70 yards on the ground to go with the long scoring run. He spread the ball to eight different receivers. Alexander led the way with 67 yards, Emmers had 56 and Farley 50. Two days later, the Southland named Brown its Offensive Player of the Week.

The UIW run game carried its share too. Hibbler rushed for 75 yards and Lontrell Turner added 48, part of a Cardinals ground attack that topped 220 yards.

For McNeese, Barrier completed 10 of 17 passes for 127 yards with the touchdown and the interception, and ran for 31 more. Marquez Davis led the Cowboys with 63 rushing yards, all of them in the fourth quarter. On defense, Sentario Willis made a career-high 11 tackles and Landon Barrett, the Southland's Defensive Player of the Week earlier this season, added 10.

The stats that matter

The yardage tells part of the story. UIW piled up more than 500 yards, while McNeese finished with 283, 160 of them on the ground, per the Cowboys' recap.

The turnover column tells the rest. UIW finished without a giveaway for the first time all season. That matters more than it sounds. The Cardinals lost the turnover battle in each of their first six games, and they have now been plus-two in back-to-back wins. McNeese's two giveaways, the opening strip sack and Barrier's interception, both came in the first half, and the first one handed UIW a touchdown on the very next snap.

There is also this: UIW is now 4-0 at home, winning by an average of 30.5 points at Benson Stadium, and it has beaten McNeese four straight times.

What it means

For UIW, the timing could not be better. This is a team that lost 28-26 at No. 5 Stephen F. Austin earlier this month after an apparent tying play was wiped out by a penalty, then lost another one it called a heartbreaker on the road at top-10 Lamar. Two straight home wins later, the Cardinals are back to .500 and are still talking about an FCS playoff push. Next on the schedule was a home game against Northwestern State on Oct. 31. The Demons had lost 19 straight games dating back to last season.

For McNeese, it was a step back after league wins over East Texas A&M and Northwestern State. The Cowboys have been away from Lake Charles for more than a month, a stretch that included a 63-14 loss at LSU. Next on the schedule was a homecoming game against Nicholls on Oct. 31, and the passing game, which went 0-for-7 before the quarterback change, was the thing to watch. Both schools have more in their recaps, from UIW (opens in a new tab) and from McNeese (opens in a new tab).

The last word

Cleaning up mistakes has been a major point of emphasis at UIW, where the belief has been that giveaways were the biggest thing standing between this team and its potential. Saturday was the first full test of that theory, and Brown summed it up afterward.

"When we're not in our own way, I think we're the best offense in the country," Brown said.

One clean game does not prove that. But zero turnovers, five Brown touchdowns and 21 points in about two minutes make a pretty good opening argument.

Sources: UIW Athletics and McNeese Athletics recaps. More college football coverage on Undrafted.

Photos: UIW Athletics.