McNeese quarterback Cam Smith (2) fakes the handoff to running back Danuel Oscar (22) during Saturday’s scrimmage. The Cowboys are trying to put 2017 behind them. Despite going 9-2 overall, McNeese did not get a bid to the NCAA Football Championship Division playoffs last year.

LAKE CHARLES — The 75th version of the McNeese State football team opened to the public Saturday.

Under cloudy skies and with rap music blasting in the background, the Cowboys began their march to where they feel they should have been last year — the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs.

Despite going 9-2 last fall, McNeese didn’t get invited to the postseason party. Even finishing third in the Southland Conference — which got three teams into the playoffs — didn’t warrant a bid.

Haunted by an opening-weekend loss to Nicholls State on a last-second field goal, McNeese began to put all that behind with Saturday’s public scrimmage at Cowboy Stadium.

And on first glance it seems at least half of the Cowboys are ready for the season to start right now. The McNeese defense, led by sophomore end Cody Roscoe, controlled most of the action, especially early. 

“We have a really good defense,” Roscoe said. “We expect we can dominate a lot of teams this year. That’s what we want to do.”

Playing in seven games last year as a true freshman, Roscoe led the Cowboys in forced fumbles and had seven tackles for loss. He was back at it again Saturday with four sacks.

“Cody has had a really good camp,” said McNeese head coach Lance Guidry. “He has shown us a lot with a lot of speed. He was all over the place today.”

The front seven of the Cowboys also played well against the run. Clearly the defense was ahead of the offense as the Cowboys finished what was Day 9 of fall camp. 

“You expect that,” said Guidry. “I though our defense could have made even more plays. We missed some tackles and I think our offense did some good things. 

“We know they will have to get better and that is going to happen. It’s still early. I think you will see a much better performance by the offense next week in our second scrimmage.”

The Cowboys will do this again this coming Saturday.

“That will be an important step for us,” said Guidry. 

One thing missing from Saturday’s scrimmage was scoring. The McNeese offense never reached the end zone against a defense that considers itself on of the best in the nation.

“Those guys are good over there,” senior quarterback James Tabary said. “Going against that group on a daily basis is tough but it is going to help us in the long run we believe. If we can execute against them then we can execute against anybody we play.”The problem was the Cowboy offense didn’t really execute, especially in the red zone. McNeese managed just three field goals, two by Gunner Raborn of 34 and 24 yards. He also missed a pair. Baily Raborn made his only try from 38 yards.

“We have to get better when we get in a position to score,” said Tabary. “We have to come away with touchdowns and not just settle or field goals. You have to score touchdowns to win games.

“That way my main concern for me today was not putting points on the board.”

Tabary finished 10 of 14 for 72 yards to lead the quarterbacks. Backup Parker Orgeron was 8 of 13 for 68 yards. Cam Smith had the best day going 5-for-5 for 66 yards. 

However, the defense recorded nine sacks with linebacker BJ Blunt adding a pair. Blunt finished with four tackles behind the line of scrimmage and forced two fumbles.

The only touchdowns were scored by the defense, or at least would have been. Both plays were stopped after the turnover. 

The first came when Andre Lee picked off a pass from Matt Keller and raced into the end zone from 42 yards out early in the scrimmage. The same came when Andre Sam picked up a fumble. 

“We can’t turn the ball over,” said Tabary. “We have to make sure that is our number one thing we got going for us. We want to control the game.”

Making the biggest impact other than Roscoe on defense were Blunt and safety Jovon Burris. The two made impact hits during the two-hour scrimmage with Burris breaking up three passes. 

“Those two guys right there,” Guidry said while pointing to Blunt and Burris, “we got to get them on the field. They are going to make plays for us. We saw that today.”

The receivers were unable to get much separation from the defense backs, perhaps because they know the routes so well after eight practices.

Lawayne Ross led the receivers with three catches for 30 yards while his brother Ryan led the runners with 18 yards on six carries. 

The offense was only able to run for 68 yards on 25 tries not counting the sacks.  

“We still have to do a better job executing our offense no matter how good the defense is,” said Tabary. “We had a couple chances to make some plays and didn’t do it. That’s on us.”

One thing which might be scary for McNeese opponents is that the defense didn’t seem to think it played all that great. 

“We had a lot of missed assignments and tackles,” said Roscoe. “We have a lot of things we can do better. 

“Our goal is to dominate every down, every play. We expect to win each play. Win the day, that’s our goal.”

On Saturday the Cowboy defense did just that.