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His team has to deal with an offense that was non-existent on nine of its final 10 possessions Thursday night, and a defense that gave up three touchdowns on Florida Atlantic's last four meaningful drives.
It wasn't a pretty picture for Louisiana head football coach Rickey Bustle, whose team disappointed everybody - mostly itself - in a 28-10 loss to the underdog Owls.
"It's going to be a long road," Bustle said after his team held its normal next-day practice Friday. "The biggest challenge now is to your character and your belief in each other. But I know this team is strong."
Whether it's strong enough remains to be seen. The loss in the Sun Belt Conference opener means that the Cajuns have to win five of their last six just to record a winning season. Four of those six games are on the road including a second straight Thursday night outing this week at Arkansas State.
And even going five-of-six may not be good enough to win the conference title and its accompanying New Orleans Bowl berth. Depending on how the rest of the league shakes out, the only way UL can assure itself of being in the league and bowl hunt is to sweep all six remaining Sun Belt games.
<center><p><a href="http://www.theadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051009/SPORTS/510090373/1006">The rest of the story</a>
Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@theadvertiser.com
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To even have any hope of that, the Cajuns will have to find offensive and defensive consistency that was missing Thursday. Outside of two drives totaling 109 yards and 10 points on its first two possessions and a 56-yard march that netted nothing in the third period, UL had a total of 46 offensive yards with redshirt freshman quarterback Michael Desormeaux struggling in his first start.
"It's a learning process," said UL offensive coordinator Rob Christophel. "We went through a lot of the same things with Jerry (junior quarterback Jerry Babb) two years ago."
Babb, who ranks in UL's career top five in passing and total offense, went down early in the Central Florida game with an injury. Desormeaux took over in that game and led the Cajuns to three scores and a rally from 21-0, but couldn't carry that success over to Thursday after a too-simple 67-yard march on UL's first possession.
It went hand-in-hand with the defensive struggles. After holding FAU to three field goal tries in the middle two quarters - all missed - the Owl offense scored three times in the fourth quarter including drives of 77 and 58 yards.
FAU had 23 first downs to UL's 11, and generated 276 pass yards to the Cajuns' 47.
"We've got a plan," Bustle said. "I know that it doesn't look like much right now and that there's a possibility right now, but I believe in this team. ''
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