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UL's football staff, fans and players didn't get to see as much as they'd hoped, but they got to see plenty of offense in Saturday's rain-shortened Red-White spring game at Cajun Field.
By the time head coach Rickey Bustle shook the rain from his whistle and called proceedings to a halt midway through the third quarter, UL's first offense had scored on four of five possessions and the backup offense had scored twice operating against the Cajuns' top defense.
"It was exciting to see a lot of different people make plays," Bustle said, "but our secondary gave up some of those plays."
Officially, the Red team captured a 24-23 win thanks to a deflected extra point by defensive tackle LaQuincy Williams on the game's final play. The White unit, made up most of UL's No. 2 offense and defense, had driven 65 yards in a driving rain on the first series of the second half.
Connor Morel's second scoring linkup with Marlin Miller pulled the White team within a point, but the conversion failed in the quagmire that Cajun Field was rapidly becoming.
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Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@theadvertiser.com
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Heavy rains began at the end of what became an abbreviated halftime.
"I don't know what we would have done if they'd made that extra point," Bustle said. "I was going to end it, but we wanted to give the White the chance to finish or the Red to stop them."
Neither team did much stopping during the scrimmage that wrapped up spring drills for the Cajun squad. There were no turnovers and only two punts, and the combined offenses tallied six times in 10 possessions.
"We got out of it what we needed to," said UL offensive coordinator Blake Anderson. "We told them before we started to have fun and play like they were eight years old. We didn't make it any more complicated than it needed to be."
The Red unit, which included the Cajuns' No. 1 units on both sides of the ball, spotted the White a 10-0 advantage as part of the game's ground rules. That was made up before the conclusion of the first two eight-minute quarters, with the only Red drive that didn't result in points coming when Drew Edmiston missed a 42-yard field goal into the wind late in the first period.
Quarterback Michael Desormeaux broke loose on a 60-yard option run on the scrimmage's third play and also hit on seven-of-11 passes for 92 yards. Backup John Hundley, splitting time between the Red and White teams, hit 5-of-6 passes for 82 yards, including a 61-yard touchdown strike to Jason Chery.
Chery also had a 21-yard touchdown run on a reverse and Edmiston hit a 27-yard field goal at the halftime horn as the skies began to darken.
White unit quarterback Morel had more than his share of success against the first-team Red defense, with a picture-perfect 75-yard strike to Miller on the last play of the first quarter. Morel finished 3-of-4 for 86 yards.
"In the second half we were going to open it up a little more and have some fun," Desormeaux said. "The first half we got what we needed to accomplish, but in the second half we wanted to get a lot more guys involved and we didn't get to do that."
The final spring action was in sharp contrast to the previous Saturday's scrimmage, when the defense dominated and did not allow a point from any of its units. In fact, the No. 1 defense hadn't given up a touchdown in any of the Cajun scrimmages before Saturday.
"That's part of it when you split up teams," said UL defensive coordinator Kevin Fouquier. "I'm pleased overall with what I saw all spring."
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