The Book: 2002-03 Louisiana Football season

[Cajun1997]

Originally posted by AustinCajun
I think a convincing win over ULM is VERY important. The late season rally will carry over to next year. A loss vs ULM takes away from the fine performance vs Arkansas.

I agree Austin, we need this win. It will help with recruiting and overall team confidence.

[Turbine]

This is not a Jon vs Eric post. This is a post for the value of a rested defense.

Going back to the Idaho game where the Cajuns had 45 running plays to Idaho running 45 plays. . .

The credit in many ways goes to Eric as he did what was asked. It was the "type of offense that Eric ran" that resulted in a rested defense. I find his handoffs are quicker, he sees the first read quicker. The sustained drives gained valuable rest time for the defense.

In my opinion an offense run by Jon will generally put up more points, but it also will result in a defense that gives up more points.

It is no secret that potent quick strike offenses rarely are coupled with a stingy defense.

[NewsCopy]

Advertisers-Bruce Brown

Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns are getting bugged.

Just when they wanted to build on momentum gained from last Saturday's near-upset of Arkansas, coach Rickey Bustle's squad saw a brief return of rainy weather and the rebirth of a healthy crop of mosquitoes around the practice field.

Of course, after you've wrestled a Razorback Hog for three hours, you're not going to let a little insect distract you. Not when you're trying to become the first Ragin' Cajun team since 1996 to win as many as four games.

That's the plan for this Saturday's season finale at UL Monroe.

The rest of the story

[NewsCopy]

Advertisers-Bruce Brown

MONROE - Back in 1986, when Jim Mora took over as the head coach of the NFL's New Orleans Saints, his first team finished 7-9. He could have been elected mayor, so grateful were Saints fans for some semblance of respectability.

Mora was baffled by the reaction, and quickly reminded fans that the franchise had yet done nothing. The next year the Saints had their first winning season in history at 12-3 and made the playoffs.

That, obviously, was more what Mora had in mind.

Rickey Bustle heads into his first season finale at UL Lafayette with a 3-8 record.

If the Ragin' Cajuns defeat 2-9 UL Monroe at 4 p.m. today at 30,427-seat Malone Stadium, it will be the first time since 1996's 5-6 finish that the school has won as many as four games.

Just as Mora came from a background loaded with postseason play, Bustle grew accustomed to bowl games while an assistant at Virginia Tech. He clearly has bigger plans for the Cajuns than just four or five victories in a campaign.

First things first, though.

The Cajuns, who came within a late interception of upsetting SEC member Arkansas last week, are favored to build on that momentum and finish with a win today.

The rest of the story

[Turbine]

The Cajuns finished 3-9, and if we were talking basketball they shot a brick at the end. But this is football and I am looking for bricks. At the end of football season what you hope for is the chance to find bricks that can help lay the foundation of success for the future of football at the University of Louisiana. In my opinion Louisiana's 2002 Ragin' Cajuns did create those bricks. Good bricks.

In facing the toughest schedule in memory, it was expected to be a season of highs and lows. Lets look at a few of each.

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The high point had to be the near upset of SEC west leader Arkansas, followed by the ultimate compliment, from instate rivals from Monroe. The ultimate compliment is when a team takes you seriously and does not take you lightly. Respect is not a song, it is an opinion.

Along with respect, Coach Bustle instilled on this team, pride. The pride started with coach Bustle and the respect he gave seniors who were not his own. He made them his own, he could have done as so many new coaches do, which is to ignore the seniors and start working long-term on kids who will later have several years under his system. Instead he undertook the arduous task of uninstalling poor tendencies and habits. This paid off in the first winning record at home in 6 years.

The respect that coach Bustle and his staff showed for the seniors who had never known winning at home brought to the fore another quality, loyalty. Loyalty to kids who were not his own. Loyalty to kids who had another system ingrained into their psychic makeup for 3 or 4 years previously. Loyalty to players who had chosen his program before it was his program.

The underclassmen that are still with the program will come to the fore in the future and never forget the lesson of loyalty that coach Bustle taught them with the 2002 squad.

On the subject of lows this years squad was having to make a go of it with the equivalent of a Saints team having to play without Deuce McAllister. OK perhaps that is a bit of stretch, but when Coach Bustle did the right thing and dismissed for disciplinary reason his best offensive and special teams weapon, Nick Dugas, it did many things. One of those things is it probably cost the team far more than the 52 fewer points than the team scored last year.

What this disciplinary action did on a positive note is it taught the team that they were in fact a team, and no player is above the team. This will score the Ragin' Cajuns points for years to come.

While the team as a whole did score 52 fewer points than last year, they did not do it against inferior competition. To the contrary there were no Division 1AA teams on the schedule and in fact the 2002 squad played 4 teams who received top 25 votes at some point during the season.

Louisiana also played teams who had a propensity for shutting out opponents’ altogether. During the course of the season UL played the # 2, 12, 19, and 20th ranked pass defense in country. UL also faced 4 of the top 35 rushing defensive teams for 2002.

Sunbelt opponent North Texas ranked 5th in the country in fewest points allowed, while LSU ranks 8th in scoring defense they were #3 at the time. The big improvement at the end of the season was against the 18th ranked scoring defense in Arkansas whom the Cajuns scored 17 against.

Under those circumstances a 4 point per game offensive drop off is not unexpected, and in fact could be deemed a positive. A team without pride would have done far less.

Defense was also a positive note on the season. When the Cajuns lost preseason Butkus award nominee Ross Brupbacher for the season, the team did not fold. In fact against the heightened competition the team allowed 46 fewer points than did the 2001 team.

Coach Bustle did a good job of spotting talent and knowing where to assign the talent. In moving Ivan Taylor from offense to defense he created a NFL light at the end of Ivan's Ragin' Cajun career as he will participate in the post season Hula Bowl.

Charles Tillman will accompany Ivan in the Hula Bowl and together they help demonstrate coach Bustles big time ability to get his players noticed. Combined these two plays show that if a high school player opts to play for Louisiana he will get playing time which will only make him better. He will then stand as good a chance if not better, of getting an NFL break than if he had sat the bench for 3 years and played for some talent graveyard else where.

Together "TnT" Taylor & Tillman helped the Ragin' Cajuns rank 39th in the country in total pass defense.

The 4 fewer points per game given up makes the 2002 squad a quality brick in the foundation of coach Bustle's and the Cajuns future success.

The second biggest brick this year was created through the discipline the team showed that resulted in 33 fewer penalties than the 2001 squad. This coaching staff has their team on the right track for future success.

Finally, besides a winning record at home for the first time in 6 years, the biggest brick built during the 2002 football season was coach Bustles ability to draw 20,794 more fans than the year before. Recruits want to see fans, and fans want to see recruits. The two go hand in hand.

Building a successful program is not a short-term project, but with the bricks manufactured during the 2002 season and the bricks that will be forged in the months and years ahead, we are building something special at the University of Louisiana.

[WebWatchDog]

The Cajuns have a 1000 yard reciever and the last time that happened he is still playing in the NFL.

[NewsCopy]

Originally posted by CAJUNDAVE1 on Delphi

I just returned from the final Quarterback Club meeting of the 2002 football season. This final meeting focused on the positives of the season instead of on what occurred last Saturday. In addition, many of the seniors (who did not have a class) were in attendence.
Cajun fans were obviously disappointed in the outcome of the game Saturday afternoon, but when the season was reviewed and all of the good things that happened were reviewed, it is obvious that things are moving forward in and around the UL football program.

A few specific items that were pointed out included:

1) More than $242,000 in promotional time and adds was donated to the UL football program this season by the various local broadcasting companies (TV & Radio) and other businesses. This total dollar amount also included the various promotional give aways (such as the Pick-up Truck and Tailgating Bar-B-Q outfit, televisions and seat cushions, etc.) that were given away at home games throughout the season. According to those making the presentation, this university has never recieved donations of this magnitude, for promotional purposes, before. And all indications suggest that next year will be as good and probably better.

2) It was also announced that the football program has raised an additional $35,000 to $40,000 over the past few weeks to supplement the football recuiting budget. About $25,000 is actually in hand and the other $10,000 to $15,000 has been pledged, but not yet recieved. It was also announced that this kind of commitment is also starting to roll over to the Basketball program and the other sports.

3) Several individuals were also recognized for their support of the program by donating their time and/or materials for the renovation of the entrances to Cajun Field, the building of a new marquis at the entrance to the athletic complex at Reinhardt Dr. and some improvements that are being made to the Baseball stadium.

4) In addition, Coach Bustle went over the list of players that he "red____ed" this season, and some others that he said will make considerable contributions to the Cajun team next season. He indicated that there are currently 16 players on the team that did not set foot on the field this season who have already broken some of the schools strenght records!!!

5) Although he was not at liberty to discuss recruiting in detail, Coach Bustle indicated that he was pleased with the way things were going and made it clear that he and his staff now have recruiting as their top priority. He could not provide specific information, but said that in the next day or two, we might be reading in the paper about another verbal committment from Texas (I think that will make 5)!!!!

6) Coach Bustle stated that the team would have a final team meeting later this afternoon. He stated that once the meeting was finished, and after this the seniors left the room, thew group that remained would be given the plan for the offseason. He indicated that they could expect things to be done different than in the past and that many would be in for a "big" surprize when they were turned over to the new strength and conditioning coach! He said that the young men that make it through the offseason workout program will definatly go into next season bigger, stronger and faster!

7) Coach Bustle and the others present gave a huge ovation to the many seniors on this years squad who were present and stuck it out for their 4 or 5 years at this university. These guys went through some very tough times, but coach Bustle made it clear that they were the backbone of this team and that they will always be considered the foundation of the Cajun program when things get turned around! Andre George got up and spoke to the group on behalf of the seniors. He thanked everyone for the support they recieved this year and asked everyone to continue supporting Coach Bustle and his staff. Andre made it clear that he, and the other seniors, know that Coach Bustle is the person who can, and will, get the Cajun football program winning in the very near future.

8) When asked, Nelson Schexnayder also confirmed that next years OOC football schedule includes road games at South Carolina, Minnesota, Oklahoma State and Southern Mississippi along with home games against La Tech and Houston. Then of course we will have the regular home and away conference schedule.

All-in-all, although we only won tree ball games again this year, this was a very different season than in the past. There is no doubt in my mind that the future of Cajun Football is bright. As fans, we need to continue supporting Bustle and his staff in any way that we can. We need to renew our season tickets, and increase the number if we can. In addition, any increase in financial contributions of any kind (or amount) will go a long way in helping out.

Also, we need to make sure that we support all of the other sports teams in the same way that we have the football program this year. We have a potential top 25 Basketball team, a potential top 10 Baseball and Softball team, along with a good track and field program. In addition, Coach Hall appears to know what it will take to revive the women's Basketball team and get them competative and the women's Volleyball team had a wonderful year, considering that they almost started the season without a coach.

If everyone will just increase the financial support that we currently provide to athletics, I think we would all be surprized at how much better things would get and how quickly it would happen!

I will conclude by saying that, even though we finished 3-9 this football season, I have never felt better about the future of Ragin Cajun Football and Cajun Athletics in general! Everyone, please keep up the good work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The source

[Turbine]

Not counting bowl games, Louisiana's non-conference opponents finished 2002 with a combined 40-32 record, or .56 winning perentage.

[California Cajun]

I was disappointed in the season-ending ULM game. What I'm looking for in terms of improvement before the talent and skill kicks in is a team that gets up for every game. We have to become a team that gives everything it has with what it has. Bustle pretty much admitted that he didn't get his team ready.

I was also disappointed that our team was walking off the field while the Battle of the Bayou Trophy ( a boot ) was being presented to the winning team.

I'm very optimistic about the Bustle era, but we certainly threw up a "brick" at our last game as you say.

[Turbine]

Thanks coach Bustle for the first trip around the sun.

Now we go for the belt.

SunBelt Title 2003

Congrats on anniversary 1

[Pirogue]

That's Tillman on the far left... Check out the Miami player with our logo on his lid...

Peanut does have quite a collection himself...

[Turbine]

In the Final 2002 RPI Louisiana came in at 125, which is 7 notches higher than the 2001 team.

We were on pace to have the highest ranking in 6 years before the inexplicable loss to UL Monroe.

It was a season of key losses at key positions, where the Cajuns won every game they were supposed to save one.

The future looks bright.