Louisiana-Lafayette is coming off its first winning football season in a decade and has its sights set on an outright Sun Belt Conference championship.
The Ragin' Cajuns won their last five games last season to finish 6-5 and tie for the Sun Belt title with a 5-2 record, but lost a tiebreaker to Arkansas State for the league's automatic bid to play Southern Mississippi in the New Orleans Bowl.
That was especially disappointing because the bowl game was played on the Lafayette campus because of damage to the Superdome from Hurricane Katrina.
"It was hard to watch two other teams playing on that field," said ULL quarterback Jerry Babb, who's one of 16 returning starters and one of the main reasons the Sun Belt coaches made the Cajuns the preseason pick to win the league.
Babb, who'll be starting for the fourth consecutive season, was the league's preseason Offensive Player of the Year. Last season, Babb battled through a shoulder injury to complete 60 percent of his passes for 859 yards and three touchdowns and rush for 400 yards and four touchdowns."He's been in the league since I've been here," said Rickey Bustle, whose first three Cajuns teams won three, four, and four games. "I think he's a got a lot of things going for him because he does throw the ball well, he's mobile, he's a great leader on the team. He's played through some injuries, but he's always fought to come back and that's why our kids believe in him."