The 2006 McNeese State Cowboys football team was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

team that represented

McNeese State University McNeese State University is a public university in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Founded in 1939 as Lake Charles Junior College, it was renamed McNeese Junior College after John McNeese, an early local educator. The present name was adopted in 1970. ...

as a member of the

Southland Conference The Southland Conference, abbreviated as SLC, is a collegiate athletic conference which operates in the South Central United States (specifically Texas and Louisiana). It participates in the NCAA's Division I for all sports; for football, it pa ...

(Southland) during the

2006 NCAA Division I FCS football season The 2006 NCAA Division I FCS football season, the 2006 season of college football for teams in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), began on August 26, 2006 and concluded on December 15, 2006, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, at the 2006 NCAA ...

. In their seventh year under head coach Tommy Tate, the team compiled an overall record of 7–5, with a mark of 5–1 in conference play, and finished as Southland champion. The Cowboys advanced to the

NCAA Division I Football Championship The NCAA Division I Football Championship is an annual post-season college football game, played since 2006, used to determine a national champion of the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). From 1978 to 2005, the game was kn ...

playoffs and lost to

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbi ...

in the first round. After a 1–4 start to the season, Tate was fired as head coach and replaced with

Matt Viator Matt Viator (born September 3, 1963) is an American football coach. He served as the head football coach at McNeese State University from 2006 to 2015 and the University of Louisiana at Monroe from 2016 to 2020. Viator began his coaching career in ...

as interim head coach. After a 5–1 start as interim head coach, on November 13 Viator was named as permanent head coach of the Cowboys.

Schedule

References

McNeese State McNeese State University is a public university in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Founded in 1939 as Lake Charles Junior College, it was renamed McNeese Junior College after John McNeese, an early local educator. The present name was adopted in 1970. ...

McNeese Cowboys football seasons Southland Conference football champion seasons McNeese State Cowyboys football {{Collegefootball-2000s-season-stub