BEAUMONT, Texas – It's the date fans on both sides of the border circle on their calendar each year. The final week of the regular season has arrived and that means McNeese vs. Lamar – the Battle of the Border. The 2024 matchup with the Cowboys and Cardinals is set up the way a rivalry game should be. Both teams come in evenly matched on paper.
 
The Cardinals are 6-5 (.545) on the season and tied for fourth with a 3-3 (.500) record in the Southland Conference standings. The team LU is tied with? McNeese. The Cowboys are also 6-5/3-3 on the year. Both teams got off to great starts with wins over nationally ranked teams, both teams recorded wins over Top 25 programs to land in the nationally rankings, both teams ran into some obstacles late in the season and both seem to have righted the ship.
 
For McNeese, a victory over Big Red would be a final exclamation point on a bounce back season and lock in one of the nation's largest single-season turnarounds after going 1-10 a year ago. The Cardinals, on the other hand, would secure their second consecutive winning season with a victory Saturday. It would be the Cardinals' first consecutive winning seasons since 1966 and 1967.
 
Saturday's game is slated for 7 p.m. from Cowboy Stadium in Lake Charles. It will be broadcast live on Newstalk 560 KLVI and streamed live on ESPN+.
   
LU vs. the Cowboys
The series between and Lamar and McNeese dates back to the 1951 season. The Cowboys own a 28-12-1 (.713) all-time record with a 13-7 (.650) mark in Lake Charles. The series has been nearly even over last 10 meetings with Lamar having won four of those games. Big Red has won two of the past three meetings including a 52-27 decision last season in Beaumont. The Cardinals cross the border looking for their first win on the road since an overtime decision in the spring of 2021 (the 2020 season that was pushed to the spring semester due to the COVID pandemic).
 
Demoting the Colonels
Lamar's impressive victory last Saturday against Nicholls was historic. The Cardinals surrendered just seven points to Nicholls marking the fewest points scored by a Nicholls squad in series history, a history which dates back to the 1972 season.
 
Looking to Go Back-to-Back
With Saturday's win over Nicholls, Lamar can post its second-straight winning season with a victory in the season finale at McNeese. The 2023 campaign marked Lamar's first winning season (6-5) since 2018. If the Cardinals can get a win Saturday it would be the first back-to-back winning records for the Cardinals since 1966 (6-4) and 1967 (7-3).
 
Something We've Not Seen Since…
Junior Kyndon Fuselier got Lamar's scoring started in the win over Nicholls with a 40-yard punt return he took to the end zone. His first punt returned for a score not only earned him Southland Conference Special Teams Player of the Week honors but it was the first punt returned for a score by a Cardinal since Brendan Langley returned a punt 75 yards for a touchdown in 2016.  
 
Neutralizing the Negatives
Lamar has been stung by five turnovers in the past two games - three fumbles and two interceptions - but the Cardinal defense has not allowed the situation to get any worse. Of the five Cardinal turnovers during that stretch, LU's opponents have been unable to score off the miscues. Following one of the interceptions against Nicholls, the Cardinals picked off a pass on the very next play to get the ball right back.