BEAUMONT, Texas – Lamar University (5-4/2-2 SLC) hits the road to San Antonio Saturday to take on No. 8 UIW. The game holds extreme importance for both teams who enter the game from different ends of the spectrum. San Antonio's version of the Cardinals are looking to put a hold on the conference regular season title and the league's automatic bid to the NCAA FCS playoffs. UIW is 7-2 on the year and is the Southland's lone remaining undefeated team. For LU, the Cardinals are looking to bounce back from last week's heartbreaking overtime loss and send a message to the rest of the league that they still have a shot at the crown, and they're not done fighting.
 
A victory Saturday for UIW and they sit firmly in the driver's seat, but a victory for Big Red would put them just a game out of first with two still remaining on the schedule.
 
Led by the league's leading rusher – Khalan Griffin (182-1038/7 touchdowns) – Lamar will look to do something that no other team has done this season defeat UIW in front of its own fans. The league's other Cardinals are a perfect 6-0 at home this season and have lost only one home game over the course of the past four years.
 
In addition to UIW's strength at home, Lamar will also be looking to turn back a recent trend. San Antonio's Cardinals have won three straight in the series and five of the last six with the lone Lamar win during that stretch coming in 2018 when Big Red blocked a potential game-winning field goal with seconds remaining and returned it 66 yards to defeat UIW as time expired. That win sparked a six-game win streak that put Lamar in the FCS playoffs for the first time in program history.
 
Saturday's game will kick off at 2 p.m. from Gayle and Tom Benson Stadium in San Antonio. It will be broadcast live on Newstalk 560 and stream live on ESPN+.
   
LU vs. the Cardinals
The series between the two schools began in 2011 and has been renewed 10 times. UIW holds a slim 6-4 series advantage and has held all the momentum in the series lately. San Antonio's version of the Cardinals have won three of four in the Alamo City and have taken four straight and six of the last seven. The last Lamar win in the series was a six-point decision in 2018 at that saw LU block a field goal and return it 66 yards for the game-winning score as time expired.
 
Looking to Go Back-to-Back
Despite Saturday's loss, the Cardinals are still within striking distance of their second consecutive winning season. The 2023 campaign marked Lamar's first winning season (6-5) since 2018. If the Cardinals can get two more wins this season it would be the first back-to-back winning records for the Cardinals since the 1966 (6-4) and 1967 (7-3) seasons.
 
Millennials
Senior running back Khalan Griffin is not a millennial, but he did surpass the 1,000-yard mark for the season Saturday against Southeastern Louisiana. He finished the game with 29 carries for 146 yards – his fifth 100-yard rushing game of the season – and leads the league averaging 115.3 yards per game. The Tyler, Texas native is currently sixth nationally in rushing and became the first Cardinal to rush for over 1,000 yards since 2015 when Kade Harrington posted a 2,000-yard rushing season.
 
Opportunistic D
Beaumont native Kristian Pugh picked off his first pass of the season and third of his career. The pick, which came late in the fourth quarter, was the team's eighth pick of the year. LU has already picked off as many passes this season as it did all of 2023.