Northwestern State opened Week 0, and the result didn’t go the way everyone expected. College football was back under the lights, but the scoreboard kept moving the wrong way for the home side. 

Louisiana Christian defeated Northwestern State 42–37 on August 27. The win was surprising because LCU plays in the NAIA, while Northwestern State is an NCAA Division I FCS program. LCU’s recap calls it the first win by an NAIA team over an NCAA Division I program that awards scholarships. Some write-ups still list LCU as second because of Quincy’s 2009 result.

The game started along expected lines. LCU trailed 0-10 early and 14-27 at halftime. They then outscored Northwestern State 28–10 after the break. Datlan Cunningham scored on a 37-yard run. 

Ernest Mitchell took an interception 42 yards the other way. LCU QB Bryce Perkins hit Darius Washington for a 24-yard score, and LCU went from down 27–14 to up 35–30 by the end of the third. Perkins then found Omarius Davis on a long throw, making it 42–30.

Cunningham finished with 14 carries for 117 yards and two scores. Perkins went 14-of-25 for 178 yards, two touchdowns, and one interception. Davis had five catches for 81 yards and a touchdown.

The win was also LCU’s first over any Division I opponent. The schools had not played since September 28, 1968, when Northwestern State won 39–14. The “first-ever” claim is not completely clean. Quincy University, then an NAIA school, beat Indiana State 26–20 in overtime on August 27, 2009. 

Indiana State was an FCS scholarship team, which is why some count Quincy first and LCU second. Older results make it more complicated. Wofford, then NAIA, beat East Tennessee State 16–9 in 1980, when the labels and aid rules were different. That is why “13th NAIA win over D1” and “first versus a scholarship D1 team” are not the same claim.

The Wildcats made history, but Northwestern State still moved the ball most of the night.

How the numbers still favored Northwestern State

Northwestern State finished with 525 total yards to LCU’s 347. The Demons had 29 first downs to 19. They held the ball for 36:53, and LCU had it for 23:07. Northwestern State completed 32 of 45 passes for 341 yards. LCU still won while getting outgained by around 180 yards. 

Northwestern State is in its third year under Blaine McCorkle. The Demons went 0–12 in 2024 and 1–11 in 2025. McCorkle entered the night at 1–23. This was not an NAIA team knocking off a healthy Power Conference roster. 

It was a Southland FCS club still climbing out of hard seasons. LCU returned 18 of 22 starters from an 8–3 team that went 7–1 in conference play in 2025 and shared the SAC title.

“Tonight was just a perfect example of a group of guys trusting their coaches and trusting their teammates, and playing one play at a time,” LCU coach Ben McLaughlin after the win. “Tonight was just a great example of playing the next rep. I told the team before the game that nobody’s allowed to look at the scoreboard until the game is over. When we got up in the second quarter, nobody looked at the scoreboard. When we got down 27-to-14 at halftime, nobody flinched.”

NAIA football allows up to 24 equivalency scholarships, so LCU is not a zero-aid program. Thursday also had other lower-division upsets.

Ohio Dominican beat FCS Morehead State 42–40 in three overtimes. West Florida beat No. 16 Southern Illinois 34–31. LCU’s result landed in that pile, then stood out because of the NAIA-to-scholarship-D1 framing. 

Next up for the Wildcats is the home SAC opener against Langston on September 5. Count Quincy as first, or count LCU as first against a scholarship D1 roster. Either way, this was one of Week 0’s rare ones.