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The UL Ragin’ Cajuns will be without starting defensive end Christian Ringo when they visit Arkansas State in a critical ESPN2-televised Sun Belt Conference game Tuesday night, UL coach Mark Hudspeth indicated Thursday.
Ringo sustained a high ankle sprain in the 4-2 Cajuns’ 37-20 Sun Belt win at Western Kentucky last Tuesday night.
“We hate losing (Ringo) for a little while,” Hudspeth said.
“I think he’ll have a chance to get back at some point,” the Cajun coach added. “It just won’t be this week.”
Ringo has just seven total tackles, no sacks and no tackles-for-loss through six games this season.
But after making 29 tackles including 10.5 for loss with a team-high seven sacks for minus-41 yards in 2012, the now-junior from Jackson, Miss., was a 2013 preseason all-Sun Belt Conference first-team selection.
Hudspeth said Ringo will be replaced “by committee” on a defensive line that already rolls in several players.
“We’ve still got really good defensive linemen,” Hudspeth said.
“We’ve been playing a lot of guys, because we have a lot of depth,” he added. “But … when you lose somebody, you lose a little bit of that depth.”
Cajun reserve defensive linemen credited with tackles at WKU were Marquise White (four tackles, including 2.0 for-loss with one sack), Chris Prater (two tackles, including 1.5 for loss with one sack) and Remaine Douglas (two tackles including one sack).
ANYAMA, RILES TO GET REPS
With starting outside linebacker starter Chris Hill having sustained a concussion at WKU, Hudspeth said both Boris Anyama and Al Riles “will get reps there” this week.
Before sustaining a hamstring injury that cost him multiple games, Anyama started the season’s first two games at the position.
Riles, who had a game-changing 99-yard pick-six against the Hilltoppers, began the season at safety but also has been practicing at outside linebacker.
Hill’s status for the Arkansas State game is uncertain.
TUESDAY EMPHASIS
After losing back-to-back midweek games at North Texas and to Arkansas State last season, the Cajuns took stock of all that went wrong in those two.
“We knew how the two Tuesday games went,” linebacker Justin Anderson said, “and we put an emphasis on that over the summer.”
Part of what Hudspeth decided, though, was that he had probably overworked his team during a lengthy stretch with no game prior to playing North Texas in 2012.
With that in mind, he backed off a bit in practices leading up to last Tuesday’s game at WKU – and the plan evidently paid dividends.
“I think it probably showed, because we (were) able to play a full four quarters. Didn’t tire out. And, really … I thought we got stronger as the game went on,” Hudspeth said. “It looked like that in the fourth quarter. I think our guys … just took over.”
Hudspeth gave his Cajuns all of Wednesday off, and they started preparation for Arkansas State in earnest on Thursday.
THE TIMEOUT
Hudspeth on Thursday was asked to explain his decision to call a timeout with 31 seconds left in Tuesday’s first half and WKU facing third-and-6 from its own 29-yard line.
“We wanted to get a look at what they were coming out in,” he said. “It was a big play, and we wanted to get a look at they were gonna do.”
Stopping the clock, however, allowed the Hilltoppers to complete passes of 27, 21 and 12 yards to set up a 28-yard field that tied the game at 13-13 as time expired before the break.
TV TALK
The ESPN2 TV crew calling UL’s game at Arkansas State will be the same that called UL’s win at Western Kentucky: Joe Davis (play-by-play) and ex-NFL offensive lineman David Diaz-Infante (analysis).
Diaz-Infante was a member of two Super Bowl-winning teams with Denver in the late 1990s, and also played for San Diego and Philadelphia.
HE SAID IT
Hudspeth, who had kind things to say all week about Bobby Petrino, on his postgame handshake with the WKU coach: “That was pretty short. But, nevertheless, those things are way overrated. I wouldn’t have wanted a very long handshake either.”
LAGNIAPPE
After beating Western Kentucky, Hudspeth moved up from ninth place to eighth on the winning-percent list of active NCAA coaches with at least six seasons at .739 and Petrino dropped from eighth to 11th at .731. … With three kickoff returns for 81 yards against Western Kentucky, UL senior receiver/return man Darryl Surgent actually passed – not tied, as originally reported – Joe Redding for most in Cajun history with 115. … Davis and Diaz-Infante also have Saturday’s BYU-at-Houston game on ESPNews, giving them three games in eighth days.
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