This is a great article by Dan McDonald. I copied it for historical purposes.
I like his usage of Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns. He is one of on only a handful of writers who use UL straight up.
Dan McDonald / Staff Writer
Posted on April 7, 2002
LAFAYETTE - It can now safely be said ... there were a lot of players on Louisiana's Ragin' Cajun offensive football squad that were concerned when Rickey Bustle was named as the Cajuns' head coach in December.
"The rumor was out there that we were just going to run the ball all the time," said wide receiver Fred Stamps laughed after Saturday's Red-White spring football game. "I guess those rumors weren't true."
Stamps had no complaints Saturday, after he caught five passes for 159 yards during the two-hour scrimmage that wrapped up spring drills for the UL squad. He also had a 61-yard scoring catch from quarterback Jon Van Cleave with exactly two minutes left that helped boost the Red team to a 24-10 "victory."
"Fred's a big-play guy," said Bustle. "He's got to learn to really stay focused, but he didn't give up on himself after he had a couple of drops today. The guys that can make big plays, you want to keep giving them the opportunity."
The opportunities were there Saturday for both the number one offensive and defensive units, both of which had its share of moments in the sun on the warm Cajun Field afternoon.
"Our ones did some good things," said Bustle, whose team wrapped up its NCAA limit of 15 practice sessions with Saturday's drills. "Our defense has to play with a lot of emotion. They didn't have as much emotion as they did Thursday, but we tried to put them in some tough situations to see how they'd do."
The defensive unit had dominated an abbreviated Thursday scrimmage, but the first team offense moved the ball with authority in a second half that saw that unit put up 24 points. Running back Jerome Coleman had two of those scores on runs of one and 18 yards after tallying twice during situational-scrimmage work in the first half.
For the day, Coleman rushed 18 times for 74 yards, and his 18-yard scoring run provided the final score with 11 seconds left before Bustle's whistle signaled the end of the month-long spring session.
Van Cleave, returning as the Cajun starter after throwing for 2,499 yards, a 55.0 completion percentage and 14 touchdowns as a sophomore last season, hit on 7-of-18 passes for 190 yards, no interceptions and the score to Stamps. During first-half situational work, he was 11-of-19 for 139 yards and three scores in skeleton drills.
"I think we've come a long way," Van Cleave said. "It was rough early in the spring when everything was brand new and we were adjusting to the two-backs and two-receivers. It was a learning experience, but we're going to be all right.
"It's a lot easier when you've got six or seven people protecting instead of five, and this is a great receivers group. You put it up there and they'll go get it."
The other Cajun quarterbacks, Matt Lane and Eric Rekieta, didn't have as much success, considering they were operating against the bulk of a number one defense that recorded two sacks, five tackles for minus yardage, a fumble recovery by Marrious Berry and Charles Tillman's interception and 14-yard return that set up Jonathon Knott's 35-yard field goal.
That number one defense set a tone early in the second half after the situational first half after Coleman's fumble gave the White squad a first down at the Red 37. The defense held there, giving the Red team possession at its own 21, and completions of 32 and 38 yards by Van Cleave set up Coleman's one-yard scoring burst.
"We told the defense they had to go out and stop them," Bustle said. "That's a situation we'd worked on this week, and we told them they had to go out and get the ball back. We had a lot of people that stepped up over there and played well."
LINK BROKEN
Quote
2002 New UL Helmet Logo
.jpg)
.gif)
