Big crowd in Cajun fall camp
<blockquote><p align=justify>LOUISIANA La. — Tear up all the old schedules for preseason football practice.
It’s a whole new ball game for collegiate teams checking in for the start of fall drills for the 2003 season, and UL will start experiencing those changes today.
There will be more players on the field when the Ragin’ Cajuns hold their first practice session beginning at 3 p.m., but over the course of the next four weeks that group won’t be logging as many practice hours.
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Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@lafayette.gannett.com <!--
New NCAA regulations now mandate that incoming freshmen and returning varsity players check in at the same time. In previous years, the newcomer class was permitted to arrive several days early to get a jump on orientation and practice.
Other regulations limit the days that teams can hold two-a-day practices. Collegiate squads can work out only once each day for the first five days of drills, and after that cannot hold two-a-days on back-to-back days.
That’s something Cajun coach Rickey Bustle instilled last season, alternating one-a-days and two-a-days throughout his first fall camp
“Not that many people were doing that last year,” he said Sunday after welcoming back his 105 squad members. “I had a lot of coaches ask me about it at clinics and what I thought about it. I guess we were a little ahead of the game.”
Per NCAA regulations, teams must work out in helmets and shorts for two days and in helmets, shoulder pads and shorts for two days before being permitted to don full gear for the fifth day of practice.
That will come Friday for the Cajuns, who will have their first two-a-day session on Saturday.
The bigger change, Bustle said, is having the varsity in camp at the same time as the freshmen.
Both groups checked in at the UL Conference Center Sunday and went through physicals and equipment checkout Sunday evening.
“I’m not certain of the benefits, to be honest,” he said. “I think they’ll lose some of the camaraderie they (the freshman group) have had in the past, and we won’t be able to have the individual time with them.
“I talked to a bunch of coaches, and they were all up in the air about how they were going to handle practice. I had our schedule done, and I changed it when I got back from the Sun Belt meetings.”
How he and the Cajun staff will handle it is bring the freshmen and other newcomers out for practice one hour early each day through the first three days.
For example, the newcomer group will hit the field at 3 p.m. today through Wednesday, and returning varsity members will join them at 4 p.m.
“It means that they’ll be able to hear everything and see everything twice,” Bustle said. “That’s the teaching part of it. We’ll teach exactly the same things, and that’s where they’ll get the extra repetitions.
“When it came down to it, after the individual periods there wasn’t a lot of group stuff you could do with just the freshmen.”
Sunday’s 2 p.m. squad meeting was the first time Bustle had met with his charges since the end of the spring term, but he was happy with what he saw.
“When you have that many records in the summer conditioning it’s impressive,” he said. “The records give the guys something to shoot at, but I’m more excited about how many guys we had get personal bests. That says that we’re heading in the right direction in the weight room.
“But the first thing I told them today was that we weren’t just going to let those records just hang here on the wall in the weight room. We’ve gotta take it out on the field with us.”
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Transfers from D1A Programs
Today at practice, Turbine and I were discussing the transfer rules about D-1A players. Basically, we were lamenting the fact that a player like a Craig Nall had to transfer to a 1AA program, when he probably could have played for a 1A program. The problem is he would have had to sit out for a year. At first I was thinking that a change in this rule could be a big boom for the smaller 1A programs, but then another thought came to mind..
If a smaller school found a diamond in the rough ( like a Stamps) or someone the big schools missed, would he be enticed or tempted to transfer to a BCS school?
:confused: Do you guys think a more liberal transfer rule (like in baseball) would be good or bad for non-BCS football schools?
Lawrence Johnson's daily insight into Louisiana's football practice
<blockquote><p align=justify><i><b>Series:</b> Cajun junior tight end Lawrence Johnson, a mass communications major from New Orleans, will be offering daily insight into Louisiana’s preseason football training camp for the Advertiser.</i>
