Taking the final home bow
<blockquote><p align=justify><b>Cajun fans wave bye to 22 seniors vs. FIU Panthers today.</b>
LOUISIANA La. — Today is Senior Day at Cajun Field, with 22 players taking a final bow as Louisiana hosts Florida International at 4 p.m. in the last home game of the season.
But it’s more than a little symbolic that redshirt freshman Jerry Babb is the starting quarterback for the Ragin’ Cajuns.
Senior Eric Rekieta will finish his two-year Cajun career on the sidelines with a broken collarbone suffered four games ago against New Mexico State.
Rekieta had hit 99-of-165 passes for 1,090 yards and 7 touchdowns before the injury, including a school-record 473 yards against UL Monroe.
He finishes just a shade outside of the career Top 10 for yardage at UL with 1,742 (No. 10 James Freeman had 1,760) and has served as a valuable bridge between Jon Van Cleave and Babb.
Babb (88-of-167, 860 yards, 2 TD; 51-146-3 rushing) stepped in to direct wins over NMSU and Idaho before faltering in last week’s 48-3 loss at Southern Mississippi.
His mistakes have mirrored the Cajuns’ growing pains in the second year under coach Rickey Bustle, a year which still has a chance to finish on a high note.
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Bruce Brown
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The Cajuns are 2-8 overall but have won two of the last three and could win four of the last five by topping FIU today and Middle Tennessee on the road in the finale.
“Patience is part of it,” Bustle said of his reclamation project. “I probably don’t have enough of it. I want to win now.
“We’ve asked the seniors to leave us something to build on. We still have a chance to win four of the last five.”
Sure to be a pivotal part of today’s effort is senior wide receiver Fred Stamps, who has caught a pass in all 42 of his collegiate games and is among Cajun career leaders with 164 receptions for 2,551 yards and 16 touchdowns.
Stamps is headed toward another All-Sun Belt Conference finish with a team-high 46 catches for 735 yards and 4 scores.
Other senior starters on offense include tight end Josh Joerg (9-84-1), fullback Wayne Stein, wide receiver Eric Bartel (18-159-0) and guard D’Anthony Batiste.
Defensively, front-liners include defensive ends Antonio Floyd (28 tackles) and Derace James (22), defensive tackles Daniel Taylor (20) and Darryl Blappert (6), linebackers Ross Brupbacher (54) and Ricky Calais (17) and safety Patrick Lamy (40).
Punter Grant Autrey (39.7-yard average) is also a senior.
Floyd, Brupbacher and Calais already have their degrees and are working on further academic progress.
The Cajuns have gone 6-4 in their last 10 Senior Days at Cajun Field, and the last time they hosted a Division 1-AA team (such as FIU) they beat Nicholls State 20-0 in the 2001 season opener.
But the 2-7 Panthers of coach Don Strock have won their last two games, scoring 89 points in the process.
“The worst mistake you can make is thinking they’re 1-AA and you won’t have any trouble,” Bustle said. “I know we’d better be ready to play.”
Strock, a former Virginia Tech star and Miami Dolphins quarterback, has former Dolphins Bruce Hardy and Tony Nathan on his coaching staff.
“Against certain teams, NFL experience is an advantage,” Strock said, “but it’s a disadvantage when we play veer and option teams. You don’t see that a lot in the NFL.”
The Cajuns and Panthers may see a lot of each other in the near future.
Today’s game counts as one of UL’s Sun Belt games this season, and Sun Belt member FIU is aiming to step up to Division 1-A soon.
CAJUN CLIPPINGS — Sean Comiskey has made 9-of-12 field goals. No Cajun kicker has made more than 10 in a season since Mike Shafer was 14-of-14 in 1994 ... it’s been 56 games and 235 runbacks since the Cajuns returned a kickoff for a touchdown ... the Cajuns have been outgained in every game this year.
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Kwarteng claims crucial fumble, turns momentum
<blockquote><p align=justify>LOUISIANA La. — Louisiana’s football squad was in some trouble midway through the first half here Saturday night.
The Cajuns had just seen an early 13-0 lead dwindle to 13-7 when Florida International converted an interception into a touchdown, and the visiting Golden Panthers had possession once again with momentum on their side.
On the first play of that possession, though, an attempted reverse turned into disaster and Cajun linebacker Eugene Kwarteng fell on a fumble.
Three plays later Dwight Lindon bowled into the end zone to make it a 21-7 game after Jerry Babb’s two-point pass play to Bill Sampy.
Just a few minutes later, it wasn’t a contest any more when the hosts scored two more times in the last 34 seconds of the half on the way to a 43-10 win over the Panthers.
“That fumble recovery was big,” said Cajun defensive coordinator Brent Pry.
“We’d been preaching turnovers all season. That’s one thing we could really point to all year, and when we create turnovers we can win football games.”
The Cajuns went into the game ranked eighth nationally in turnover ratio, and made that number prophetic with the recovery on a play that FIU head coach Don Strock said may have been a game-breaker.
“I think that was going to be a touchdown,” Strock said. “They (LOUISIANA) didn’t have anybody on the other side.”
The play was designed as a tight end reverse, but Panther quarterback Josh Padrick and running back Adam Gorman mishandled the first exchange and Kwarteng plopped on the loose ball at the FIU 17.
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Dan McDonald
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“The play was there,” said Padrick, a victim of four sacks and many more hurries from the Cajun defensive rush. “I didn’t handle it cleanly and the ball just popped out.”
“They caught us with a couple of the reverses,” said Cajun head coach Rickey Bustle. “On the films I looked at I never saw them run that. We’re fortunate they didn’t get any really big plays off of them.”
Instead, it was the Cajuns that pulled off the big plays in the first half, forcing a punt after Lindon’s score and marching 94 yards to Josh Harrison’s first career touchdown with 33 seconds left before intermission.
Then, with FIU scrambling to get any points before halftime, Derace James stormed through to block Adam Moss’ 53-yard field goal try with one second left in the half.
Antwain Spann scooped up the ball and returned it 45 yards for a shocking 36-7 lead.
“It was unbelievable,” Spann said. “The ball popped right up in my hands, and when I got it I just turned on the jets and took it from there.
“We practice it every day with our pride and joy team, and the defensive line did the job by penetrating the gaps. I just did my job.”
While the Cajun offense was accounting for 443 yards and scoring 29 second-quarter points and 36 first-half points – both easily season highs –, it was the hosts’ defense that set an early tone.
FIU didn’t have a first down until the fourth play of the second period, and the Cajun defense gave up only the 10 points despite FIU ending seven drives inside the Cajun 40.
“They’d been showing a lot of one-back and two-back all year,” said Cajun assistant head coach and secondary coach Gary Bartel.
“They went exclusively one-back tonight, and once we knew what their plan was we could circle in on it. Our ends did a great job of pressuring from the outside.”
“We were able to get some fourth down stops and block two kicks,” Pry said. “And we probably pressured the quarterback better than we have all year.”
“These things happen to young programs,” said Strock, whose squad is in its second year of existence and was playing only its second game ever against a Division I-A opponent.
“But they’re happening too much to us. Our special teams … we need to keep the children from watching that film. That was a horror show.
“We understand where we are and we’re building this thing, and our kids play hard. But sometimes they don’t play smart and without a lot of discipline. We had some guys step up to the plate, and some didn’t.”
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Cajuns relish runaway victory
<blockquote><p align=justify><b>Louisiana ends home season in style with 43-10 blowout</b>
LOUISIANA La. — How do you react to a new situation?
It was a nice problem to have for Louisiana’s Ragin’ Cajuns, who led visiting Florida International 36-7 at halftime of Saturday’s home finale at Cajun Field.
Coach Rickey Bustle’s squad had only exceeded that many points once this season, in a 45-42 homecoming loss to UL Monroe, so the midpoint runaway was uncharted territory.
“It’s never happened before,” Bustle said. “But there were still nails in the coffin, and championship teams do that.
“We need to understand what to do in the second half, and for the longest time they (the visiting Panthers) were basically winning the second half. I was upset with that. We were playing hard, just not smart.”
Of course, when you lead by 29 points at halftime and you’re honoring 23 seniors, it would be hard to let down enough to lose.
So, despite an astounding 14 penalties accepted against the two teams in the third period alone (25 overall), UL improved to 3-8 with a 43-10 victory.
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Bruce Brown
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“The penalties got out of hand,” said quarterback Jerry Babb, who hit 21-of-36 passes for 207 yards and ran 7 times for 47 yards and a score.
“Every time we got something going, we’d have something called against us. So we would have a third-and-20. But we just had to come back and do it the next play.
“That third quarter was amazing. We knew we had to come back out with an edge, and we didn’t get it done. In the future that could come back to bite us.”
“Guys were excited at halftime,” wide receiver Bill Sampy said. “Coach Bustle told us, don’t let up. He told us we still have a second half to play, and to keep pounding.”
“This was a big win,” Bustle said. “We needed a win, and we got a win. Now we can go to Middle Tennessee (next week’s finale) with a chance to win four of our last five.
“If we can win or play well in that game, it would be a testimony to the coaches and the players.”
The Cajuns blew the game open with a 29-point second period, capped by Antwain Spann’s 45-yard touchdown return of a blocked field goal on the final play before halftime.
UL had just steamrolled FIU for a 10-play, 94-yard march for a 28-7 lead, with Sampy’s over-the-shoulder catch of a 43-yard bomb from Babb putting the ball on the 9 to set up Josh Harrison’s 1-yard score.
“That was just a matter of concentration,” Sampy said. “I saw the ball, focused on it, and I knew the team needed it. It was right before halftime, too.”
The Panthers were scrambling to answer that score, and appeared to get a break when the clock was stopped with a second to go before intermission. Adam Moss lined up a 53-yard field goal, but Derace James stormed through to block it and Spann was there to pick up the deflection.
“It was kind of unbelievable,” Spann said. “The ball hopped perfectly to me, 10 yards out there. It’s always incredible when you get a blocked kick. It’s something we practice every day, and the defensive line did a great job getting penetration.”
“Derace made a real big play there,” Bustle said. “I was just yelling for it to bounce one more time. I knew we would get it. We have those outside guys looking for that stuff.”
UL marched 79 yards in 16 plays to start the game, with Babb hitting 5-of-7 passes and Chester Johnson scoring from the 8.
The Cajuns made it 13-0 on Babb’s fourth-and-goal 8-yard run to finish a 54-yard drive before FIU’s Adam Gorman scored on a 26-yard run to make it 13-7.
That’s when the Cajuns got busy. First, Eugene Kwarteng claimed a Panthers fumble at the FIU 17 to set up a 3-play scoring possession capped by Josh Harrison’s 1-yard run. Then came the 94-yard drive. Then the blocked field goal.
The game was essentially over then, although the Panthers got a second-half field goal and Harrison raced 23 yards for a final TD.
“We were fortunate to take control early,” Bustle said. “It was a crazy first half.
“Defensively, we came up with big plays. On offense, we ran the ball well (236 yards). We’re still rotating two or three backs in there. In the second half, we still made plays.”
The Cajuns made plenty of plays on Saturday. And, despite an understandable loss of focus, they closed out a satisfying home finale in style.
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Penalty barrage reaches absurd level
<blockquote><p align=justify>LOUISIANA La. — It’s a good thing Louisiana scored a 43-10 victory in Saturday’s home finale against Florida International.
If they had been on the short end of the score, the Ragin’ Cajuns would surely have been in a surly mood over the 25 penalties called on the two squads — 13 on the visitors for 96 yards and 12 on the Cajuns for 126 more.
The latter figure is an unhappy high mark for coach Rickey Bustle’s two years at UL.
Referee Rick Doan and his officiating crew might have iced their shoulders after throwing that many flags.
In the third period alone, there were 14 penalties accepted against the Panthers and Cajuns.
Especially absurd was an FIU field goal drive that made the score 36-10.
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Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com
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Adam Gorman ran 4 yards to the UL 23, and a personal foul call pushed it to the 12. After two incompletions, the Cajuns were called for pass interference in the end zone.
The Panthers then committed back-to-back procedure penalties to put the ball back on the 12. Then an offsides on UL put it back on the 7. Finally, after an incompletion, a stuffed run and a sack, FIU settled for a field goal.
Of course, the Panthers sent the ensuing kickoff out of bounds for another flag.
On the next FIU possession, coach Don Strock thought Cory McKinney made a sideline catch and was flagged for his protest. Except that Doan initially called personal foul on the Cajuns.
When corrected, he said, simply, “Personal foul on that team,” pointing FIU’s way.
And, after UL went ahead 43-10 and FIU was flagged for a personal foul on the kickoff return, Doan said, “Personal foul on this team over here.”
Those things are amusing when you win ... usually only when you win.
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Is Stamps still double covered?
I couldn't go to the game but I did read the paper and Stamps only had 3 receptions. How is this possible against a 1AA school? Was he double covered all night? He only needed 9 receptions to move into 2nd all time now he still needs 6. Don't the coaches realize that if he does good it will be easier to recruit his replacement? Get Stamps the ball.
