McNeese legend Bobby Keasler, winningest coach, dies at 80

Bobby Keasler left McNeese football with a standard the program still measures itself against. The former Cowboys coach, Hall of Famer and winningest coach in school history died Tuesday at 80, a loss that reaches far beyond Lake Charles because his teams helped define what McNeese could be at the Division I-AA and FCS level.

Keasler went 78-34-2 in nine seasons, according to McNeese, and his teams won four Southland Conference championships while reaching the NCAA Division I-AA playoffs seven times. Those Cowboys did not just pile up wins. They became a regular part of the national conversation, finishing with an 8-7 postseason record and averaging 8.7 wins per season during a run that turned McNeese into one of the subdivision’s most stable powers.

His peak came in 1997, when McNeese finished 13-1 and advanced to the Division I-AA national championship game. That playoff march included a 19-14 win over Montana on Nov. 29, a 14-12 victory at Western Illinois on Dec. 6 and a 23-21 win at Delaware on Dec. 13 before the Cowboys fell 10-9 to Youngstown State in the title game on Dec. 20 at Finley Stadium in Chattanooga, Tennessee. One point separated McNeese from a national championship and cemented that team as one of the defining squads in program history.

The recognition followed Keasler after his McNeese run ended. The school inducted him into its Hall of Fame in 2006, and the Southland Conference later named him its 1990s Coach of the Decade in 2013 before placing him in the Southland Conference Hall of Honor in 2014. McNeese also said nine of his players earned All-America honors and 38 landed All-Southland recognition, another sign that his influence ran through the roster as well as the standings.

Keasler’s career later took him to Louisiana-Monroe, where he coached from 1999 through 2002 and finished 8-28, resigning after an 0-3 start in 2002. That second chapter never matched the heights of Lake Charles, which only sharpened the scale of what he accomplished at McNeese. A native of New Iberia, Louisiana, Keasler remains tied to the era when the Cowboys were a Southland standard and a playoff threat with national relevance.