The Book: 2002-03 Louisiana Football season

[Cajun1997]

a 5-7 season and 20,000 plus average attendence per game. That would be a nice building block for next year.

[Cajun1997]

Cajuns lose to Middle Tennessee
La Tech loses to SMU
ULM loses to New Mexico St
LSU losing (middle of 2nd quarter) to South Carolina
only Tulane has won (so far) beating UAB

[Turbine]

[Cajun1997]

Stop by the Mean Green Board.

[Cajun1997]

#13 Boise State
#21 Bowling Green
#25 Colorado State
#26 Air Force
#27 Marshall
#31 TCU
#34 Hawaii
#41 Southern Miss
#47 Toledo
#48 South Florida

Sun Belt teams
#71 New Mexico State, 4-3
#92 North Texas, 2-5
#95 Middle Tennessee, 2-5
#96 Utah State, 2-5
#99 Arkansas State, 4-5
#104 Louisiana, 1-6
#110 Idaho, 1-6
#114 ULM, 1-6

SBC overall record: 17-41 another tough season for all of us in the Sun Belt

[Cajun1997]

Texas A&M, 5-2, ranked #15
Minnesota, 7-1, ranked #32
Houston, 3-4, ranked #86
Alabama@Birmingham, 3-4, ranked #77
Louisiana State, 6-1, ranked #7
New Mexico State, 4-3, ranked #71
Middle Tennessee, 2-5, ranked #95

[Cajun1997]

North Texas, 2-5, #92
Idaho, 1-6, #110
Arkansas St, 4-5, #99
@Arkansas, 3-3, #36
@ULM, 1-6, #114

[Turbine]

I love this feature by SwampFox



The average rank of the teams we have played is 54.71



The average rank of the teams we have left is   90.20

Time to do some damage.

[Cajun1997]

the combine record of the teams we have played is
30-20
the combined record of the teams left to play is
11-25

your right. It is time to do some damage.

[Cajun1997]

Attendence for 10/19/02 SBC games

Mean Green @ (ASU) Indians
12,671

Cajuns @ Blue Raiders
9,726

(ULM) Indians @ (NMSU) Aggies
12,183

very, very, very sad. I don't care that most of these teams have losing records. #1 it is your school, support it #2 each team entered into yesterday's games with only 1 loss in conference play, meaning each still had a shot at the conference title. NMSU and ASU were 1-0 and 2-0! Sun Belt fans must do better than this.

Utah State had 15,942 for their home win against New Mexico.

[NewsCopy]

Advertisers, Bruce Brown

LAFAYETTE - When the 2002 season began, UL followers were hoping for realistic improvement from the Ragin' Cajuns.

Three years under Jerry Baldwin had produced a 6-27 composite record and no excitement about the program.

Under the circumstances, a competitive finish of 5-7 would have been acceptable in Rickey Bustle's first year at the helm.

Seven games into the campaign, Bustle is looking at a 1-6 record that includes a 0-2 start in the Sun Belt Conference.

The Cajuns are out of the Sun Belt race, and now must focus on improvement down the stretch.

"We're playing for pride right now," senior cornerback Charles Tillman said. "We're going to play hard."

If they do, finishing 5-7 is still a viable option for the Cajuns, who would be overmatched only at SEC member Arkansas in their remaining five games.

The other four are all in the Sun Belt, at home against North Texas, Idaho and Arkansas State and away against UL Monroe in the Nov. 23 season finale.

It would not be unreasonable to see UL take a 4-6 mark to Fayetteville to play Arkansas.

Obviously, Bustle has some corrections to make if that is going to happen.

One week after shoring up a leaking kickoff coverage team, the Cajuns fell apart on defense and gave up 520 yards in last Saturday's 48-35 loss at Middle Tennessee.

This defense somehow kept the Cajuns competitive in the opening 31-7 loss at Big 12 member Texas A&M, despite an avalanche of turnovers by the offense, but it has since been diminished by injury.

Now the offense is productive (416 yards, 35 points) - although still anemic on the ground (20 yards) - and the defense is struggling.

Given the rugged early schedule, a record of 1-6 is not that shocking.

The rest of the story

[NewsCopy]

By GLENN QUEBEDEAUX special to The Advocate

LAFAYETTE -- Rickey Bustle found himself using the "P" word Saturday after Middle Tennessee's Blue Raiders virtually knocked his University of Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns out of contention for Sun Belt Conference championship.

"It's a matter of pride now," said Bustle, whose team lost 48-35 to drop to 1-6 overall and, more importantly, to 0-2 in the Sun Belt Conference standings. "I told our bunch inside that the conference championship is done with; I was honest with them.

"But I still think some good things can happen for our football team. It's going to be a matter of how much we care about this program and the pride we have in it."

The Cajuns, with five games remaining, still have an opportunity to finish with .500 record overall, although that could be difficult considering they face defending Sun Belt Conference champion North Texas and Southeastern Conference power Arkansas during that stretch.

A sweep of their four remaining SBC games could also leave the Cajuns with a 4-2 league mark in Bustle's first season.

"I don't think this team will let down," said senior cornerback Charles Tillman. "We'll go out, play hard, fly to the ball and give it everything we have. It's a matter of pride now."

The Cajuns had harbored higher goals heading into Saturday's meeting in Murfreesboro, Tenn., only to see those goals destroyed by junior quarterback Andrico Hines and a Blue Raider offense that exploded for its highest scoring output of the season.

Hines rushed for three touchdowns, threw for another and accounted for 422 of the Blue Raiders' 520 total yards as the hosts improved to 2-5, 1-1. The latter left the Blue Raiders in the thick of the running for the SBC title which they shared a year ago with North Texas.

"I thought it would have been like 28-24 or 28-21 ... something like that," said ULL quarterback Jon Van Cleave, who also had an impressive performance, throwing for 396 yards (28-for-41) and two touchdowns. "But they're a good football team and offensively, they have some firepower."

The rest of the story