It wasn’t that long ago when the Cowboys ruled the Southland Conference roost and Incarnate Word played the role of league doormat.

My how things have changed.

When the teams meet at Cowboy Stadium Saturday night it will be the Cardinals with the national ranking (No. 5) and looking like the top dog in the conference. As for McNeese State, the Cowboys are looking for a victory.

The reversal of roles can be traced to the strange afternoon of Feb. 26, 2021, when the teams met in a still-battered Lake Charles six months to the day after Hurricane Laura ripped through town.

During the odd spring season that was put together after 2020’s fall campaign was wiped out by COVID, the Cardinals stomped McNeese 48-20, throwing for a late touchdown to add insult to defeat, throwing for a late touchdown to perhaps send a message of their arrival.

It was the last time the Cowboys were nationally ranked as they entered the game as the No. 19 team in the Football Championship Subdivision.

Maybe it started when UIW stunned McNeese in the fall of 2018 with a 45-17 thumping in San Antonio, but that doesn’t seem to be it. The change seemed to begin in the late winter of 2021 if we look closely at the numbers.

Since that day McNeese has gone 10-24 while the Cardinals have posted a 30-9 mark.

“They have built a really strong football program over there,” McNeese head coach Gary Goff said of UIW. “They got things going.”

Last season the Cardinals advanced all the way to the FCS semifinals after sharing the Southland championship with Southeastern Louisiana.

“They are a very good football team,” added Goff. “They can score fast.”

UIW has built its success in large part through the NCAA transfer portal. This year’s team is no different.

The Cardinals roster is loaded with 40 transfers with 26 of those coming from the Division I level. They have 21 graduate students or fifth-year seniors on the team.

McNeese has four seniors.

“They have used the transfer portal to build their team,” Goff said. “They have a lot of experience and guys who have played a lot of football.”

That includes quarterback Zach Calzada, who started 10 games at Texas A&M in 2021 before transferring to Auburn last fall. He is fourth in the nation in total offense on the FCS level at 310.2 yards a game.

Calzada is sixth in passing yards with 1,797, connecting on 131 of his 197 attempts. He has 11 touchdown passes and seven interceptions.

“He is a good football player who has a lot of weapons around him,” Goff said.

This is the third consecutive year the Cardinals have been in the national spotlight and the third coach to lead them there.

Clint Killough took at UIW after serving as the team’s associate head coach last fall. He was a player when the program moved up to Division I in 2012.

Now he is in charge of the Southland’s best team, flipping the script on McNeese in the process.