The University of Louisiana's offensive line entered the 2006 season with three returning starters and one highly-regarded junior college addition.

But there's little doubt that the group's most important contribution has come from a redshirt freshman, a local guy, a player who flew in under the team's radar.

"Hey, I just take it as it comes," Chris Fisher said this week, a smile on his face.

Why shouldn't he be smiling? The Lafayette product was listed as a third-team guard and a fourth-team center going into fall drills. He didn't even rate a full biographical sketch in UL's media guide that was published in July.

Now, in the last two games, he's been the Cajuns' starting center - not an easy task considering how much UL operates in the spread formation.

"I really hadn't played the position in three years," Fisher said, "but it only took about a week to get back used to snapping, blocking from there, everything else you have to do."

It didn't take much longer than that for the St. Thomas More product to get noticed, especially by offensive line coach Ron Hudson.

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Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@theadvertiser.com