The Cowboys beat the Rainbow Warriors 27 to 10 in the regular-season opener on 26 September 2026. It was a straightforward result, but not one that tells the whole story. And here's the thing — the Cowboys had looked shaky on paper before kickoff.
They'd dropped 24 points to the Chippewa the previous week, then scraped past the Bears 21 to 13. To be fair, they'd followed that with a narrow 13 to 13 draw against the Rams. The Rainbow Warriors came in with mixed form — a 29 to 19 win over the Aggies, then a heavy 21 to 6 defeat to the Rebels, before losing 37 to 27 to the Cardinals.
By then, expectations were cautious at best. The Cowboys had the deeper squad on paper, but depth means little when the first quarter is already lost. The Rainbow Warriors, meanwhile, had been out-thought on the touchline in their last outing. They came for a cross he never reached, metaphorically speaking, and found themselves five points behind within minutes.
The scoreboard tells one tale, but the game told another. The Cowboys managed 27 points against a Rainbow side that had conceded 37 just days earlier. Yet the margin felt comfortable, not comfortable because of dominance, but because the Rainbow Warriors ran out of legs by the third period. They had one foot in the next round of nothing, really — the standings go out of the window in these games when everyone is still finding their feet.
The Cowboys extended their unbeaten run to eight, though last season's draw against the Rams was hardly a triumph. The Rainbow Warriors' unbeaten streak, if you could call a three-game stretch without a loss that, ended here. The table goes out of the window in these games — but the Cowboys at least held their nerve.
