Bobby Keasler, McNeese legendary football coach and Hall of Famer who guided the Cowboys to four Southland Conference football championships from 1990-1998 and a 1997 appearance in the FCS (then 1-AA) National Championship game, passed away on Tuesday at the age of 80.
Funeral arrangements are pending.
A native of New Iberia, Keasler was named head coach for McNeese prior to the 1990 season and in his nine-year career, he became McNeese’s winningest all-time football coach, a mark that stood until 2025, while his teams won four Southland Conference championships (1991, 1993, 1995, 1997) and participated in the NCAA FCS playoffs a total of seven times.
His 1995 team went undefeated in the regular season and was ranked No. 1 in the nation for the entire regular season and dropped its only game in the FCS semifinals to Marshall. His 1997 team ran off a 13-2 overall mark and 6-1 league record on the way to the NCAA FCS national championship, a narrow 10-9 loss to Youngstown State. He compiled a 78-34-2 overall record and a 43-13-2 league mark during his tenure at McNeese.
Keasler earned conference coach of the year honors in 1990, 1991, 1993, 1995 and 1997 and is still the only coach in Southland Conference history to garner the award five times. In addition, he was named the Louisiana coach of the year three times.
He coached 53 first-team All-Southland players and 16 first-team All-Americans as well as seven Southland Players of the Year and four Southland Freshmen of the Year. He compiled an 8-7 record in the FCS playoffs, and in four of his nine seasons as head coach, the Cowboys won 10 or more games. His teams averaged 8.7 wins per season.
Keasler was a 2006 McNeese Hall of Fame Inductee and was enshrined into the Southland Conference Hall of Honor in 2014. In 2013 he was honored by the league as the Southland Conference 1990s Coach of the Decade.
He concluded his coaching career after a three-year run as head coach at Louisiana-Monroe before returning to Lake Charles to retire.