LSC Week Ten Preview

November 5th, 2026 5:00am

Week 9 Recap

A bit of a rough week in the LSC, with four blowouts and a record-setting performance on the ground for Western Oregon.  In the one competitive game, UTPB put Angelo State through the meat grinder and made a 20-10 game feel like 40-10.  In the other blowouts, Justin Brennan was nearly perfect and the Central Washington ground game was in rare form, and West Texas A&M and Midwestern State both blasted their opponents in the first half and never look back in their wins. 

Now, about last week:

Western Oregon wins at Western New Mexico 56-28

WNMU was holding their own in the first half, training by just a 14-7 score but surprisingly throwing the ball well with Jase Ashley having nearly 200 passing yards in the first half.  But once the second half started, WOU made a defensive stand that they haven’t had all season long – they shut down an opposing passing game.  Of course, it is very possible and probably likely that the genesis of that defensive stand was a Daniel Cooper hit on Ashley that ended his night while Cooper was docked an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.  Kainan Manna did complete the drive with a WNMU touchdown, but he couldn’t build any offensive momentum for the Mustangs. 

While the WOU defense was feeling pretty good about things, the WNMU defense…well, let’s just say they literally got run over.  WOU obliterated the school record against for most rushing yards in a game against a Division 2 team with 527 yards (the previous high was 302 yards).  Their 700 total yards is also a school record.  Tyler Konold led the way with 144 yards and a touchdown, Jermaine Land wasn’t far behind with 131 yards and a touchdown, and Jordan McCarty even added 97 yards and a touchdown.  McCarty also had 146 passing yards, a touchdown, and 2 interceptions, but WNMU couldn’t capitalize on either interception.  WNMU did have some success running the ball in the second half, with Joshua Gaines leading with 107 yards and a touchdown, but much of that came after WOU had the game well in hand with a 42-14 lead and the Wolves were well on their way to a 42-point second half.  

Western Oregon improves to 5-4 and Western New Mexico falls to 3-6.

#7 Central Washington wins at Eastern New Mexico 49-20

After ENMU scored on the first drive of the game, CWU would follow by scoring touchdowns on their first 3 drives while the defense locked down the Greyhounds for most of the game.  CWU did very little wrong, gaining an even 600 yards, with 301 of them on the ground.  Ryder Bumgarner led the way again with 132 rushing yards and 2 touchdowns and Antoine Lee joined in with 117 rushing yards and a touchdown.  Justin Brennan was nearly perfect, completing 12 of 13 passes for 290 yards and 3 touchdowns, 2 of them to Mason Juergens and the other to AJ Perez, who led all receivers with 148 receiving yards.  Clifton Cooper did what he could, throwing for 248 yards and 2 touchdowns but was picked off twice.  He also ran for 82 yards.  Darwin Parker was Cooper’s favorite target with 10 catches for 106 yards.    

Central Washington improves to 7-2 and Eastern New Mexico falls to 0-9.

Texas-Permian Basin wins at home over Angelo State 20-10

In many Angelo State games this season, the Rams were able to move the ball well, but various errors short-circuited many potentially successful drives.  Well, ASU ran into a UTPB defense dead set on putting the ASU offense through a meat grinder, and it went about as well as the Falcons could have hoped.  ASU trailed 17-3 at halftime and didn’t have a drive of longer than 25 yards.  ASU drew to within 17-10 after taking the first drive of the second half 73 yards for a touchdown thanks to a 52-yard pass from Maddox Maher to Canon Wiese.  That was their best drive of the day, and after that the Rams would drive into UTPB territory twice more but turned the ball over on downs and was intercepted.  Angelo State just couldn’t get any momentum going in this one. 

For UTPB, Braxton Baker made his first start of the season after relieving Nate TenBarge the past two weeks, and while he didn’t do an impression of Kaden Brown, he did do enough to keep the Falcons ahead.  Baker completed 22 of 39 passes for 214 yards, a touchdown, and 2 interceptions, but the UTPB defense prevented the interceptions from aiding ASU’s hopes for victory.  Cheno Navarrette led UTPB in rushing (73 yards) and receiving (66 yards) and scored both UTPB touchdowns (1 rushing and 1 receiving).  Not the most aesthetically pleasing game you’ll see, but UTPB will take it anyway. 

Texas-Permian Basin improves to 6-3 and Angelo State falls to 3-6.

Midwestern State wins at Texas A&M-Kingsville 37-14

Kingsville has this habit of falling behind by multiple scores early and then having to fight back to make it competitive.  While they were able to do that in the big comeback over WT, it mostly hasn’t been the case in their losses and this game followed that pattern.  Midwestern State’s offense overwhelmed the Javelinas, scoring all 30 points in the first half while TAMUK lived out a nightmare, with an interception, two turnovers on downs, a fumble, and giving up a safety in their scoreless first half.  MSU only managed a single touchdown in the second half, but their defense kept Kingsville from putting together a serious rally to hold on to second place in the LSC. 

For Midwestern, Kaden Brown was at it again, throwing for 337 yards, 5 touchdowns, and an interception that didn’t amount to any change in the scoreboard.  Fabian Baez caught 6 passes for 147 and 2 touchdowns, and Dominic Cox caught 14 passes for 129 yards and 3 touchdowns.  Mills Dawson threw for 233 yards, a touchdown, and an interception, and those numbers represented the struggles TAMUK had on offense.  Christian Kretz, with 60 receiving yards, set the TAMUK season receiving yards record with 1184 yards. 

Midwestern State improves to 7-2 and Texas A&M-Kingsville falls to 4-5.

West Texas A&M wins at Sul Ross State 62-33

Will Howell and the Sul Ross State offense got out to a very quick start, leading 13-7 late in the first after two Howell touchdown passes to Taribbean Ramirez.  That happened to be the last time the Lobos would be happy in this one.  WT would then score the game’s next 41 points to finish the first half, along with a 34-0 second quarter and that was pretty much it.  Now-backup quarterback Knox Porter was in the game late in the second quarter and the Buffaloes would put it into cruise control in the second half. 

Gafford was the star for the Buffaloes, throwing for 223 yards, 5 touchdowns, and an interception on just 9 of 12 passes.  Porter also threw two touchdowns as well.  Tory Simmons led all rushers with 126 yards and a touchdown.  For Sul Ross, they were left to throwing on just about every down after being held to negative-3 rushing yards.  Will Howell earned a big ice pack for his shoulder, completing 38 of 58 passes for 460 yards and 5 touchdowns, but many of those yards came against a more laid-back WT defense once the game was out of hand.  Ramirez caught 14 passes for 179 yards and 4 touchdowns, and Will Craven caught 9 passes for 101 yards and a touchdown.  I guess if you have to lose, at least stuff the stat sheet as much as you can? 

West Texas A&M improves to 4-5 and Sul Ross State falls to 2-7.

Playoff Watch

Week 2 of the NPI ratings for Super Region 4 now see two LSC teams in the top 10 – Central Washington at number 6 and Midwestern State at number 10.  So if the season ended today, CWU would visit number 3 Northwest Missouri State and MSU wouldn’t have a spot.  At least CWU isn’t paired with Western Colorado this week, so isn’t that good, CWU fans? (I think I know the answer to that question, and it begins and ends with “no it isn’t, dummy” since the next potential opponent is now Northwest Missouri State).  As possible LSC champion, CWU would receive an automatic playoff spot, but MSU still needs to keep winning and work their way into at least the top 8 in the ratings.  That makes the MSU/UTPB game this week one of the most important games in the entire region for that reason.   

LSC Standings

Week 10 Preview

As was mentioned in the Playoff Watch above, all eyes will be on Wichita Falls, where Midwestern State tries to keep their playoff hopes alive with a win over a UTPB team that has leaned into their defense in recent weeks.  West Texas A&M visits Western Oregon with both teams hoping to extend their winning streaks to four games.  Central Washington looks to stay undefeated in conference play when they host Western New Mexico.  Eastern New Mexico travels to Angelo State still looking for that first win.  Finally, Texas A&M-Kingsville tries to even up their record at home against Sul Ross State.    

All games are on Saturday, November 7.  All game times are in the Central time zone.

Texas-Permian Basin at #23 Midwestern State, 1:00 PM

Series History: Midwestern State leads 6-4

Last meeting: 2025 (Texas-Permian Basin won 37-15)

Here’s the most important game in the LSC this week for the playoff implications.  Midwestern State sits in the number 10 position in the NPI rankings for Super Region 4, and UTPB is in position number 15.  An MSU win may move the Mustangs up even closer to the top 8 spots in the rankings, while a loss will likely knock them out and move UTPB up at least a little bit, but possibly not in the top 10 either.   With MSU going to ENMU next week, the Mustangs will be heavily favored in that game, this matchup with UTPB is MSU’s season. 

I expect UTPB will treat this game like the Northeastern State game, where they gave up 377 passing yards to star quarterback Donnie Smith, but picked him off five times, including a pick-six that gave the Falcons their first double-digit lead of the game.  UTPB leads the nation with 18 interceptions and are tied for first in the nation with 4 pick-sixes.  Am I expecting UTPB to get five picks in this game?   No, but they might get a couple, especially if the pressure of a possible playoff berth gets to Kaden Brown and the MSU offense.  Even if UTPB doesn’t get a lot of interceptions, they still need to lean on their defense to have a chance by making this game a bit ugly and messy.  Get some quick stops, get a couple picks, and try to get MSU to second-guess themselves on offense. 

What is missing in the discussion is the MSU defense, which has improved over the course of the season.  The Mustangs give up 149 rushing yards and 233 passing yards per game, and the average passing yards per game is better than UTPB’s at 244.  MSU also has 12 interceptions, so while MSU might not want to have a defensive battle with anybody, getting a few stops against a UTPB offense that hasn’t been great in recent weeks, will be a huge advantage for MSU.  

This game has all the makings of one of the top games of the entire LSC season.  You have a high-flying Midwestern State team that has surged after having been down the past few seasons against a UTPB team that wants to prove that they still belong at the top of the LSC.  I think UTPB keeps it close with their defense, but I think MSU gets enough out of the passing game to see them through.  Midwestern State by 3 points. 

West Texas A&M at Western Oregon, 3:00 PM

Series History: Western Oregon leads 4-1

Last meeting: 2025 (West Texas A&M won 35-7)

Last season’s blowout win was WT’s first win against Western Oregon in 5 tries, and this series has been responsible for some of the strangest games in recent LSC memory.  Both teams are riding 3-game winning streaks and have found much success running the ball.  Now I have to mention one thing about these winning streaks – both WT and WOU do have wins over ENMU and WNMU during these streaks, take it for what it’s worth, but until I hear otherwise, they still are wins. 

Now, let’s take a closer look into those running games, especially WT’s – The Buffaloes have averaged 271 rushing yards in their 4 wins and 84 rushing yards in their 5 losses.  Yes, we can take the opponents into consideration, as the quality of opponent in their losses is much higher than the quality of opponent in their wins, but the trend is still there – when WT runs the ball, they have a better chance of winning.  What about Western Oregon?  How might they counter the WT running game?  WOU has been one of the best in the LSC against the run, giving up 123 yards per game.  They held UTPB to negative-2 rushing yards and won despite giving up 343 passing yards to the Falcons.  They also would like to gain over 200 rushing yards, as like WT, WOU wins when they run well, but they also have run well in some of their losses, like the 243 yards they ran for against CWU. 

Of course, I haven’t mentioned the pass defense yet, and we can’t discuss WOU without talking about that pass defense!  But, did you know that WT’s pass defense is also quite ineffective, giving up 313 yards per game?  I think that for this reason, the passing games might end up cancelling each other out and the team that runs the ball better will have the advantage.  I think Western Oregon has been consistently strong running the ball all season and ran for over 200 yards against the two best defenses they saw this season (CWU and UTPB), and WT has run their best against lower-tier defenses except for Angelo State.   I think the WOU offense will do enough on the ground to keep the WT defense off-balance, and I’m not sure WT will run it well enough to be in line with a win, unless Ryan Gafford or whoever WT starts at quarterback (Knox Porter did play last week, so is that a sign?) has a big game throwing the ball, which I won’t rule out even though I’m going with the Wolves here, however tentatively.  Western Oregon by 7 points.   

Western New Mexico at #6 Central Washington, 3:00 PM

Series History: Central Washington leads 8-0

Last meeting: 2025 (Central Washington won 91-31)

Central Washington looks to stay undefeated in conference play and win the LSC championship outright with a win over a WNMU team that hasn’t given up less than 41 points in a game this season.  Looking at the basic statistics for both teams, I’m not going to mince words here – this is an absolute nightmare matchup for WNMU.  WNMU gives up 355 rushing yards per game and 270 passing yards per game while CWU averages 235 rushing yards and 237 passing yards per game.  CWU does give up 192 rushing yards per game, so in my opinion, WNMU needs to try and play a ground-oriented game of keep-away and limit the number of CWU’s possessions.  The problem with this strategy is that I don’t think WNMU will be able to stop CWU enough times to make it work, so the best-case scenario for the Mustangs is to win a shootout and maybe get a turnover or two, but WNMU gives it up more times (16) than they take it away (12).  While I’m not going to say that WNMU doesn’t have any chance of winning, it doesn’t look good at all.  Central Washington by 21 points. 

Eastern New Mexico at Angelo State, 6:00 PM

Series History: Angelo State leads 30-19-1

Last meeting: 2025 (Angelo State won 31-20)

Angelo State will finish 2026 with their first losing season since 2016, but they are looking to finish their season on a high note with the two New Mexico schools rounding out the Rams’ schedule.  Eastern New Mexico is still looking for their first win of 2026 haven’t given up less than 41 points in a game since the opening game of the season.  The Greyhounds could potentially have a chance to play spoilers next week when they host Midwestern State, but MSU has some work to do this week, so I won’t look ahead here.  This game looks a whole lot like the CWU/WNMU game, although ASU’s offense isn’t as dynamic as CWU’s.  However, ENMU’s defense is quite similar to WNMU’s and that isn’t good.  ENMU gives up 50 points a game and 527 yards per game, which is really impressive (I guess) considering they actually gain 510 yards per game on offense.  Will ENMU move the ball in this game?  Sure they will, at least a little bit, but the Angelo State defense isn’t bad, giving up 374 yards per game.  ASU is going to get their share of stops in this game, but I don’t know how many stops ENMU will get, and that’s the difference here.  Angelo State by 17 points. 

Sul Ross State at Texas A&M-Kingsville, 7:00 PM

Series History: Texas A&M-Kingsville leads 33-7-1

Last meeting: 2025 (Texas A&M-Kingsville won 52-3)

TAMUK really doesn’t want to finish with their second straight losing season, so they need to win their last two games to make that happen.  Obviously, the Javelinas don’t want to get blown out in the first half again, which has been their main issue in most of their losses this season, so they need to lean on that offense to take control of the game early and get defensive stops.  Sul Ross has one of the worst run defenses in the entire LSC (281 yards per game), so I would expect Edward Chumley to get the ball early and often to take advantage of that deficiency.  Will Howell is going to throw the ball quite a bit for Sul Ross, so the pressure will be on the Javelina defense to prevent a repeat of the Kaden Brown Show.  Will Howell is very good, but Sul Ross isn’t Midwestern State-level good, and I think Chumley and the TAMUK ground game will be the difference in favor of Kingsville.  Texas A&M-Kingsville by 17 points.