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Two years ago, the game between Louisiana College and Texas Lutheran ended with one of the more dramatic moments in recent Wildcats history. Jamie Bunting's last-second touchdown pass to Cortland Bell tied the game and sent the Wildcats on to an overtime victory. It came after the Bulldogs' placekicker missed a field goal that would have clinched the win.
 
Flash forward to Saturday's LC-TLU game in Pineville, and the game set up to have an eerily similar end. After Texas Lutheran's Tyler Brandenburg missed a 43-yard field goal with 3:32 left in the game and the Bulldogs leading 38-32, the Wildcats had the opportunity to repeat history.
 
LC quarterback Easton Melancon led the Wildcats on a drive that started at their own 26 and had them to the TLU 12-yard line with 30 seconds left. But on a third and 10 play, Melancon, facing pressure, dumped the ball to freshman running back Aurren Cooksey who took on a tackler before being brought down at the 2-yard line.
 
As seconds ticked off the clock, confusion took over to spoil the Wildcats' comeback bid. With Melancon trying to get his team set to run a play, LC coach Dennis Dunn – thinking Melancon might try to spike the ball to kill the clock – left the sideline to try to get Melancon's attention.
 
Dunn was flagged for sideline interference. With just six seconds on the clock, the 5-yard penalty brought with it a 10-second run-off. Game over. Wildcats lose 38-32. TLU players rushed the field to celebrate a second straight win over LC. Several LC players dropped to their knees in stunned disbelief.
 
Even after the game, there seemed to be confusion about what exactly happened on that final play.
 
"There was a little confusion on the sideline," Melancon said. "Me and coach Dunn weren't on the same page. He thought that I was going to spike it.
 
"Right when we got the ball back, I had the image in my mind that we were going to win the game. It sucks."
 
"We were out of timeouts… He was running up to spike it, and it was fourth down," Dunn said. "We could not spike it at that point. I was just trying to get his attention to not spike it. He was gonna spike it and game over. It was an end of the game situation where you practice those things, but you never think they're going to come back to bite you."
 
"Once he got tackled, we realized we needed to hurry up and get on the ball," senior receiver Kyle Galyon said. "At first, Easton was gonna spike it to stop the clock, but he realized late that it was fourth down, so he tried to call a play. And we just didn't have good enough communication on the sideline, and it ended up not working out for us. "
 
"It was supposed to be a dead ball issue – that's what we call it," junior receiver Ladarius Gardner said. "Easton was going to throw a streak, but Coach Dunn ran on the field… telling him if we dead the ball, it's a loss of down. and it was fourth down. We just had a misunderstanding about it."
 
That misunderstanding cost the Wildcats the chance to avenge last year's bitter loss to TLU and dropped the Wildcats to 1-2 on the young season ahead of their next three games, all on the road, including games at Bacone, No. 4 Wesley College and No. 2 Mary Hardin-Baylor. The Bulldogs, similar to the Wildcats, have received votes in the recent D3football.com Top 25 poll. Though the game was nonconference, it could decide later which of these teams makes the NCAA Division III playoffs, should it come to that.
 
"It didn't work in our favor, man," senior linebacker Landon Henry said. "That's a big L for us. Even though it doesn't count against us in conference, it's still a big loss. We just need to come out better than ever, have a great week of practice and stop whoever we got next."
 
Henry is part of an LC defense that was shredded for 559 yards, including 345 in the first half, alone. In that half TLU ran 49 plays and dominated time of possession to build a 28-17 halftime lead.
 
The Bulldogs' little keg of dynamite, sophomore running back Marquis Barrolle, all 5-4, 150-pounds of him had three of those touchdowns on a combined 143 yards of receiving and passing. He finished the game with four touchdowns, 179 yards rushing and 64 receiving, thought the Wildcats did slow him some in the second half. 
 
"He kept his legs running," Henry said. "We've never faced a back like that. But we have to do better at tackling, and doing a way better job at coming out here prepared – not waiting until the second half to start it. But come out in the first half and shut everything down."
 
TLU did get out to a quick start in the game. Two first quarter touchdown runs by Barrolle put the Bulldogs up 14-0.
 
The Wildcats bounced back with their own two scores – the first coming late in the  first quarter when Melancon hit Gardner with a 4-yard pass to cap a two-play 29-yard drive set up by freshman Jacoby Davis' 68-yard kickoff return.
 
LC tied the game just a few minutes into the second quarter off a trick flea flicker play when senior running back Brandon Smith tossed the ball back to Melancon after getting the handoff – Melancon then hitting sophomore receiver Shed Davis for a 46-yard score.
 
TLU answered with Barrolle's third touchdown of the half, a 6-yard run to cap an impressive 17-play, 86-yard drive that chewed 6:46 off the clock and put the Bulldogs up again, 21-14. Texas Lutheran dominated time of possession in the first half, finishing with a nearly 2-to-1 advantage.
 
After Adan Olivares got the Wildcats back to within four on a 37-yard field goal, TLU quarterback Trenton White guided his team on another long drive – this one 78 yards in five plays, capped by White's 29-yard pass to Dustin Hannon to put the Bulldogs up 28-17 at the half. White finished 24-of-36 for 269 yards and rushed for 29 more.
 
"They imposed their will on us up front offensively," Dunn said. We couldn't stop No. 5 (Barrolle) all day, and they kept the ball away from us."
 
 To their credit, the Wildcats' defense did slow TLU much more in the second half and did not allow any points in the third quarter. The only score of the quarter came when Gardner capped LC's best drive of the game, 11 plays and 88 yards, with a 4-yard touchdown run on a handoff from Smith on a reverse play. That brought LC to within four, 28-24, heading to the fourth quarter.
 
But, the Bulldogs put some distance between themselves and the Wildcats early in the fourth quarter. Barrolle's fourth touchdown of the game – a 7-yard run – made the score 35-24, TLU.
 
A Melancon 35-yard touchdown pass to sophomore Jake Dunbar bought LC to within one score again, 35-32, after the Wildcats converted the 2-point conversion on Melancon's pass to Galyon. Melancon finished 25-of-46 for 377 yards and three touchdowns despite being harassed much of the game by TLU's defense, which got to Melancon for five sacks.
 
TLU upped the lead to six when Brandenburg connected on his only field goal of the game, that from 37 yards out with 9:03 to play. 
 
LC had two chances to take the lead. The Wildcats' second to last drive, which started at their own 31-yard line, ended eight plays later when Melancon's pass to freshman Devin Sylve on fourth and two at the TLU 27 resulted in no gain and a turnover on downs.
 
The Bulldogs would drive from their own 27 to the LC 26 before Brandenburg's field goal miss would set up the final drive for LC, a drive that ended with the sideline interference penalty that ended the game.
 
"That's the gamer that Easton Melancon is," Dunn said. "He got us in position. That's all you can ask – is get there and have an opportunity to do it. Just unfortunate it had to end like it did. If we could have had just one shot into the end zone."
 
"This was personal for me today," Galyon said. "They took our dream last year. They came to our house and out-played us. We just have to put this game behind us and move on for next week."
 
The Wildcats next game is Saturday, Sept. 27 when they travel to Muskogee, Oklahoma to play at Bacone. Kickoff is at 2 p.m.
 
"This is just a huge, huge learning experience," Gardner said. "But we're going to press forward. We're going to find out what it is that needs to be fixed, and we're going to fix it. It sucks, but like it is when we win, we have a 24-hour rule. We need to put it behind us and look forward to the next team and keep it going."