They gave up 87 points? What the heck is going on with NSU football?

Time for a reality check on Northwestern State football.

The 2024 Demons aren't ready for prime time. Not to say this is a hopeless season – in fact, it's exactly the opposite. It is filled with optimism and belief, radiating from new coach Blaine McCorkle and his staff, and the 106 players who will never yield, like their fight song says. Fine if you don't believe. They do. They'd appreciate your support now, but they are willing to earn it.

They'll tee it up in Turpin Stadium Saturday evening at 6 in their fourth game, facing Weber State out of Utah. The Wildcats' program has been consistently ranked in the nation's top 25 – most of the time, in the top 15 and often, in the top 10 – for the last 15-20 years in the Football Championship Subdivision, the NCAA Division I level where Northwestern also plays.

There is a massive gap between the programs. Here's the stark truth, facts McCorkle does not shy away from as he talks to his team, or anyone else, as he did early Sunday to the First United Methodist Men's monthly breakfast gathering.

As of this Thursday morning, Sept. 19, it has been 684 days since the Demons won a football game. They didn't play the last four of the 2023 season, meaning that the program was halted, suspended, shut down. You can count on no fingers any other Division I football program that stopped competition in midseason in at least a half-century, probably longer. Not here to dispute the decision made last fall to stop playing; but as a result, there was rampant speculation that football was finished at NSU.

It's not. It's back, but it's now a startup team, with a rebuild nearly from scratch.

The Demons haven't won a non-conference game in six years. Some of those non-conference games have been "paycheck games" such as visits to LSU and Texas A&M; other six-figure appearance fees have been collected from less prominent but much better resourced opponents such as Tulsa, Louisiana Tech, UL Lafayette, and Southern Miss.

It's been since 2008 that the Demons had a winning season. There have been 15 consecutive non-winning seasons (.500 in 2013 and 2014), the third-longest skid in FCS.

The latest reality bite: in the last game, last Thursday at South Alabama, the Demons picked up about $350,000 for visiting, and were routed 87-10. Not going into all the distressing notes, but it was the worst drubbing for our boys since leather helmets (LSU 78-0, 1921).

"We gave up 87 points," McCorkle said Sunday morning. "And I'm fine. Because I know, without a doubt, who we are and where we are headed."

As to where they are now: here's perspective from an expert. Glenn Moore played tight end on the Demons' 1988 Southland Conference championship team. His expertise, however, comes from nearly 30 years of college coaching, the last 25 as a head coach – in softball. He was the successful softball coach at LSU (winning two SEC championships) and since 2001, he's been in charge of a Baylor program that has often been ranked in the top 10, and has made three Women's College World Series trips.

Glenn knows all too well about the transfer portal and NIL and all the rip tides in college sports that are tearing at the core of the NCAA. He lives at the other end of that world. Baylor has money. Baylor plays bigtime football. Glenn and wife Janice, who's from here, have a son playing for the 2024 Demons. Ty is a tight end who signed in the spring. He began his college career at Baylor.

So is Glenn discouraged by that 77-point beatdown last week? Not a bit. He said so in a Facebook post:

"As a former member of an SLC Championship team and a very proud alum (along with my wife) and also the father of a current Demon, I couldn't be more proud of the players and coaches who have been chosen to bear the painstaking yet awesome task of reversing the path. I promise if you saw behind the surface, this program would make you proud and honestly emotionally supportive.

"To say this is a difficult task in today's world of athletics is a major understatement — we all know that. But the people are in place that can get it done.

"Unfortunately unless donors can replace the money needed to run a program, FCS teams have to play the mismatched 'money' games. We are not close to competing in them because of where the program is and has been, but we also don't get back on our feet without those games and the revenue from them.

"I know it's not in the nature of most fans but this situation calls for unusual patience and devotion, if one ever did. It's very unrealistic and even unfair IMO to expect anything more than to just be competitive, and never quit, in the SLC this year."

That's not what McCorkle and his team are trying to do. It may be all they can do. Hope, faith and persistence may be their best assets this season. Along with doing things the right way, on and off the field. As to that, here's another expert view:

Vance Morris lives here. He's a retired football coach. He coached in the big time (Missouri as a young man, to name one job), and he coached at small colleges (Louisiana College, Austin College as head coach, to name a couple more).

He watched a Northwestern practice in August. He came away with two impressions:

"In all my years watching football, I've never seen a practice better organized, more efficient, more effective. There was no wasted time, no wasted effort," he told me at Nicky's one night. He added:

"Don't be surprised if at some point this season, they beat somebody you'd never think they could. What's going on there is really good."

One more thing McCorkle will tell you. He took over a program that has won 12 conference championships.

"We're gonna get this going again, and we're gonna win Number 13," he says, without a shadow of a doubt.