According to the boards located in the back of the University of Louisiana athletic complex, today's football contest with North Carolina A&T is the Ragin' Cajuns' season opener.

Gone are any indication on those boards, the ones that chart how many goals the UL team reached in each game, that the Cajuns have already played two games. They've been erased from the data banks, so to speak.

"We took them and wiped them clean," said Cajun coach Rickey Bustle. "We're focusing on our next three non-conference games ... that's the second quarter of our schedule. The first quarter's over with."

Bustle's goal is to erase the memories of the 45-3 loss at LSU and the 51-7 setback at Texas A&M, and that task will be a lot easier if the Cajuns perform as expected at 4 p.m. today when UL welcomes Division I-AA North Carolina A&T to Cajun Field for the home opener.

UL (0-2) is a prohibitive favorite against an Aggie squad that is also winless this year. The difference is that the Cajuns' losses came to a Top 10 team and a team that's sneaking up on a national ranking. A&T's losses are to I-AA foes Winston-Salem and Hampton, those by a combined 89-28 score.

"They lost to two very good I-A programs," said NCA&T coach Lee Fobbs of the Cajuns. "They're a solid football team despite who they've been playing."

At this point, the Cajuns will settle for any win, and Bustle would settle for an idea on how far along his squad really is with Sun Belt Conference play looming on the horizon.

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Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@theadvertiser.com