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LOUISIANA La. -- Louisiana cornerback Kyle Ward doesn't fear man-to-man coverage or the crafty moves of opposing receivers.
If Ward's instincts aren't enough to handle the job, he figures his speed will compensate.
It's always been that way for the Ward, who starts for the Cajuns' football team and is a sprinter and jumper on the track and field team.
Ward, who initially went to Alcorn State on a football scholarship, transferred to ULL last year to play football and then got a track scholarship.
Now 10 games into his first Division I season, Ward has risen to the top of the Cajuns' depth chart and will start Saturday when ULL travels to Louisiana-Monroe in a Sun Belt Conference game that has championship and bowl game implications.
Ward's rise to starter has been sudden, considering he didn't even practice with the Cajuns last year.
Then because of his involvement in track, Ward missed all of the 2005 spring training.
Despite his inexperience, coverage concerns haven't bothered Ward, who has started UL's last six contests.
"It's easy," said Ward, whose brother, B.J. Ward, plays for the Baltimore Ravens, while another brother, Nick Ward, is on the roster of the Arena Football League's Georgia Force.
<center><p><a href="http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/112405/spo_cajuns001.shtml">The rest of the story</a>
By BOBBY ARDOIN
Special to The Advocate
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"At the cornerback position with my size and speed, I normally don't have to strain. You just have to relax, because a big part of playing cornerback is having confidence and my confidence is due to my speed," he said.
The 6-foot-3 Ward often has an advantage over smaller wide receivers.
"People look at cornerback like it's something to be afraid of, because of the exposure," he said. "If a (defensive lineman) goes into the wrong gap or something, no one sees that as much as when a cornerback gets beat in coverage. All 90,000 people in the stadium are going to see that. It's a position where you have to have a short memory," he said.
Teams have completed 20 touchdown passes against ULL this season, but Ward said none of those have come because of a coverage breakdown by him.
Ward, who played at Kimball High School in Dallas, played in the same high school secondary as ULL fellow cornerback Michael Adams.
That friendship helped lure Ward to ULL from Alcorn, where he played football for several games as a freshman.
"I went to Alcorn on a football scholarship and I played there on the special teams my first two games," Ward said. "After that I received a hairline fracture to the shoulder.
"The more I thought about it, the more I wasn't going to maximize my full potential at Alcorn. I started looking for a program with some prestige."
Adams urged Ward to contact Clay Jennings, who coached ULL's secondary before leaving this year for the University of Houston.
Last spring, Ward finished third in the SBC's outdoor meet with a personal-best 14.0-second time in the 110-meter hurdles. His fastest 100 meters was run in 10.7, he said.
When he began practicing in August, Ward admitted he had a long way go.
"There were six cornerbacks on the roster at that point, not counting the walk-ons and the redshirts. I was the No. 6 corner, so I was down about as far as you could go," Ward said.
By the time ULL met Northwestern State on Sept. 17, Ward was seeing considerable playing time. He missed the Central Florida game on Oct. 1 because of infected tonsils, but started two weeks later when the Cajuns lost at Arkansas State.
"When I started at ASU, it was quite an experience. I was learning throughout the whole game and I'm still learning up to this point," Ward said. "I don't think it was an inappropriate time for me to become a starter, because mentally I thought I could handle it."
ULM (5-5, 5-1) needs to defeat ULL (5-5, 4-2) to earn an outright conference championship and a berth in the New Orleans Bowl which has been moved to Cajun Field (Dec. 20) because of hurricane damage at the Superdome.
The Cajuns can earn a share of the SBC title by defeating the Indians and will host the bowl game if Arkansas State (4-2 SBC) loses at North Texas on Saturday.
ULL was 1-5 at one point, but Ward said he never wavered in thinking the Cajuns would improve.
"Those games we lost early were lost in the fourth quarter," he said. "It took awhile, but we're finally learning how to win and that's been what has allowed us to pull out the games we have."
After watching ULM's offense on tape this week, Ward said he's impressed with the Indians' ability to move the ball.
"They like to do a lot of things. They do the most things of any offense that we've played this season. Sometimes they act like they're going to bring it in to run the ball, but I think they really prefer to throw," Ward said.
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