<table bgcolor=#818181> <td> <Font color=#ffffff> <p align=justify><b> The exhibition's over </b>now. You know, the one that everyone knows what's going to happen, the one that in the overall scheme of things doesn't really matter.
The Louisiana Ragin' Cajun football team will be more remembered more for how they play the final 10 games of the 2005 season than what happened in last Saturday's 60-3 crunching by Texas.
That's why Saturday's contest at Eastern Michigan may actually be more important than the season opener, since it could set a tone for 10 straight games that could all be called toss-ups.
"The rest of our schedule's very competitive," Cajun head coach Rickey Bustle said Monday. "There's some good teams, but I've been in this deal a long time and they (Texas) may be the best team I've ever faced."
Bustle started stressing that very point to his squad immediately after the loss.
"You have to be realistic," he said. "I've always been honest with our guys. But I also told them that North Texas lost to that team 65-0 in the first game last year and wound up in a bowl game.
"I'm glad we've got that one done now. I'd hate for us to be playing well and have that happen in the middle of the season."
That doesn't figure to happen again. After Eastern Michigan (0-1), the Cajuns play three straight home games including the Sun Belt Conference opener against Florida Atlantic on Oct. 8. That game kicks off seven straight league games that covers the remainder of the season.
Eastern Michigan, on the other hand, gets its shot at a major power one week after Saturday's game, with the Eagles going to meet Michigan on Sept. 17 before playing eight straight Mid-American Conference games. EMU's already let one chance at a non-conference win slip away, falling at Cincinnati 28-26 last Thursday.
"They played Cincinnati close," said Cajun quarterback Jerry Babb, "so we know they're a good team. You always make the most improvement between the first and second games, and for us we saw what we need to do to improve. There's nothing like game situations to show you that.
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"We made a lot of mistakes. We've got to work on our offensive line protection, and we as quarterbacks have to make better throws. Our wide receivers got open a bunch ... I thought for a bunch of freshmen and new guys, they played great."
Bustle said that pregame plans included getting backup quarterback Michael Desormeaux into the game in either the third or fourth series.
But UL began the third series on its own two-yard-line, and was down 21-3 before its fourth offensive series.
"We didn't want to put him in that spot the first time he goes out there," Bustle said. "But we are going to do that every chance we get. We need that second quarterback to be ready to play."
Desormeaux completed 7-of-15 passes for 57 yards in his debut, playing two second-quarter series and all of the fourth quarter when he had a 57-yard touchdown run negated by a penalty behind the play when Texas already led by the 57-point margin.
"That's the worst beating I've ever taken in my life," said cornerback Michael Adams, "but it was a good thing that we got to play those guys. We can bring back the fact that we played hard, we didn't give up and we tried to make plays."
Adams had more than his share of those plays, becoming the first player to recover a fumble and pick off a pass in the same game since Charles Tillman did that in 2000 against North Texas. He also added his fourth blocked kick of his career when he snuffed a second-quarter PAT, and grazed another after Texas' first touchdown.
That makes 18 blocked kicks for the Cajuns since 2002.
"We had positives," Bustle said. "We didn't play as well as we'd hoped, but we probably could have played a perfect game and still been on the short end. I told our guys to look at the film and see that when we did things right, they'd be surprised how well some of them came out."
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