By RICHARD THIBERVILLE JR., LCU Sports Information Director
PLAINVIEW, Texas – The reigning Sooner Athletic Conference champion Louisiana Christian University football team scored three straight touchdowns to end the third and start the fourth quarters to open up what was a three-point game and post a 44-27 win over the Wayland Baptist Pioneers Saturday night at the Greg Sherwood Memorial Bulldog Stadium.
Louisiana Christian moved to 3-0 overall for the first time since the 2023 season. That year, LCU started 7-0 on its way to winning the Sooner Athletic Conference Championship for the first time and clinched a spot in the NAIA Football Championship Series. The win also moved the Wildcats to 2-0 in SAC play.
WBU (1-2, 0-2) tightened things up late in the third quarter with a touchdown, tacking on a two-point conversion to cut LCU’s lead down to just a field goal at 24-21.
But that’s where the game turned solely into Louisiana Christian’s favor. On the first play following the kickoff, Johnson broke free for a 41-yard gainer. Right after that, E.J. Scott went over a defender to grab a pass from Bryce Perkins in the end zone for a 34-yard score and a 30-21 lead.
After a three-and-out got the Wildcats the ball back, Perkins went to Scott to pick up a 3rd-and-8 play with a gain of 16 yards and, on the very next play, Johnson broke free for a 62-yard rumble to the end zone to extend the lead to 37-21.
Backing up Wayland Baptist almost all the way to its own end zone, with a stiff wind now blowing in the faces of the Pioneers, helped make things almost easy for LCU as a 12-yard punt set up the Wildcats already inside the Pioneer red zone at the 18-yard line. Just two plays later, Darius Washington took in a pass from Perkins, made three WBU defenders miss tackles, and sauntered into the end zone for a 16-yard score and a 44-21 lead.
The Pioneers added a touchdown on their ensuing drive but got no closer after the Wildcats stopped the two-point conversion attempt.
Johnson had himself a night on the ground, rushing 15 times for a career-high 196 yards and a pair of touchdowns, averaging 13.1 yards per rush.
The Wildcats had 590 yards of total offense, 341 on the ground and 249 through the air.
LCU’s defense held Wayland Baptist to 333 total yards of offense and made 17 tackles behind the line of scrimmage for losses.
The Wildcats step out of SAC play for their second game of the year against a NCAA Division 1 program next Saturday, heading down to Baton Rouge to take on Southern. Kickoff of Saturday’s contest against the Jaguars (1-2) is set for 6 p.m. at A.W. Mumford Stadium.