DURHAM — The University of New Hampshire football team has never sung in Louisiana. If the Wildcats can beat McNeese State next Saturday in the first round of the FCS playoffs, they'll get that chance.

UNH (9-2) is making its sixth straight trip to the NCAA tournament and is one of four teams from the Colonial Athletic Association in the 16-team field. Senior co-captain and linebacker Sean Ware was surprised the Wildcats drew McNeese State.

"It was random," he said. "That was the reaction. I didn't hear through the talk that we were going down there, that there would be a chance of that. I'm excited. I've never been to Louisiana and like Coach (Sean McDonnell) said, we've never sang in Louisiana so to be able to sing down there would be real good."

The Wildcats secured their at-large berth with a 27-24 come-from-behind win over Maine Saturday at Cowell Stadium, and entertained a slim hope of hosting a first-round game.

UNH is 3-4 on the road in the playoffs over the last five years, with wins at Georgia Southern, Hampton and Southern Illinois last year. Overall, the Wildcats are 29-12 on the road over the last six seasons.

They are also 4-5 in the NCAAs the past five years.

"We were looking forward to the opportunity of possibly playing at home," said UNH coach Sean McDonnell, "but like I said (Saturday) at the press conference it doesn't matter. We've been on the road before. I think our kids know how to handle it. I know our fans will travel as best they can to this game. It's going to be fun for us to be playing on the fourth Saturday of November again for the sixth time in a row."

The winner of the UNH-McNeese St. game will meet the winner of the Villanova-Holy Cross matchup in the FCS quarterfinals.

Villanova (10-1), also from the CAA, is the No. 2 seed. UNH is the only team to beat Villanova, which earned a share of the CAA title with Richmond but got the conference's automatic bid by beating the Spiders during the regular season.

Richmond (10-1), the No. 4 seed, hosts Elon in the first round. William & Mary (9-2), the other CAA team in the field, entertains Weber St. on Saturday.

UNH and McNeese State (9-2) have never met in football. The Wildcats are ranked 10th nationally and the Cowboys of Lake Charles, La., are ranked eighth. Cowboy Stadium seats more than 17,000.

"It's going to be a hell of an atmosphere," McDonnell said. "It's going to be a great place to play a college football game. Obviously excited to be playing again and have an opportunity to go out and represent us and give the kids another shot to play a football game. It never gets second-hand when you're sitting there and you see your name come up. You get that same kind of feeling."

Ware said the most difficult part of a road playoff game is dealing with the opposing fans.

"They'll hassle you to death," he said. "But it's good to shut them up when you get on a roll."

McNeese St. defeated Central Arkansas, 21-17, on Saturday to earn the Southland Conference's automatic bid and its 13th league title. The Cowboys, 3-2 at one time, have won six straight and six of their 11 games have been decided by five points or fewer.

They have beaten Appalachian St. and lost to Stephen F. Austin, two tournament teams. Their other loss came against Tulane, an FBS team.

"It's an opponent that we've never faced and a conference that we're not real familiar with," said quarterback R.J. Toman. "We'll know more when we get film on them and stuff like that. I'm sure a bunch of guys will get on the Internet and try and look up a bunch of stuff on them. We'll see what happens."

McNeese St. is explosive on offense. The Cowboys average 37 points per game. They are also very balanced. They average 223.6 yards per game rushing and 219.4 passing.

Todd Pendland has rushed for 992 yards and 17 touchdowns and quarterback Derri Fourroux has completed 64.2 percent of his passes with 20 touchdowns and six interceptions.

The Wildcats began the process of film exchange late Sunday afternoon, shortly after the tournament field was revealed on ESPNews.

"Just looking at the statistics, they look like a pretty good football team," McDonnell said. "Offensively, they mix it up pretty good."

Montana (11-0), the tournament's only unbeaten team, is the No. 1 seed and Southern Illinois (10-1) is seeded third.

"You could have said we were going to Montana and that would have been just about the same reaction as going to McNeese St.," Toman said. "We had no idea coming in who we were going to get or what we were going to do. It's all a surprise, but we're real excited to be here and we're looking forward to working real hard in the postseason.

"We felt we earned it," Toman added, "so we're going to come out and prove to people that we deserve to be here."

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Rochester's Steve Young injured a shoulder early in the fourth quarter of Saturday's game. Although the defensive tackle returned later in the period, his right arm was in a sling Sunday.

"He's very, very sore," McDonnell said. "We'll know more on Tuesday. It's a tough, tough injury to have at this time of year. But I talked to him after the game and he assured me in his own way that some way somehow he'd find a way to be on the football field next Saturday playing for us."

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In his final regular-season game at Cowell Stadium, senior Terrence Klein had a game-high 14 tackles, including 11 solo. Junior linebacker Devon Jackson and Ware were next with 10 apiece, and junior free safety Hugo Souza had nine.