2006: UL-6 FAU-0

[Cajun Express]

It is hard to believe that in just a couple of years Cajuns football has gone from being frequent guests of the espn.com bottom 10 list to today's situation, where most fans, including myself, are dissapointed with the team's execution last night in WINNING a key sunbelt game.

The so called ugly win really should only upset people because it provides solid evidence that we are not quite as strong as we believed prior to the game. Still we have to give FAU a little credit. I think they will not be last in the league at the end of the season.

[Cajunsmike]

Mark this down somewhere, Jay. I agree with everything you said here.
We will, and should be, favored in every game. [I believe that if we go in to Troy without a conference loss, we will be favored there, as well.] However; there is not one team remaining on our schedule who will lose to us if we play like we did Wednesday night.

I believe that we are better than every other team in the conference, but I also believe that our edge is razor thin. We must play well in all our remaining games to win.

If our defense plays like they did on Wednesday, we will have a chance to win every game. Same goes for the way our offense played at Houston. Now put those two together and we will run the table. We all know how low the odds are of having both units play at that level for all of the remaining six games.

[RaginFan2]

The so called ugly win really should only upset people because it provides solid evidence that we are not quite as strong as we believed prior to the game. Still we have to give FAU a little credit. I think they will not be last in the league at the end of the season.

I think you are right on, Express! Sometimes you have to tip your hat to the opposition for their play rather than just bash your own team. Those guys are on scholarship, too, and didn't want to look bad on national TV. I was somewhat impressed with the talent FAU has. I think they'll give a few SBC teams some problems. I wouldn't be surprised if they win more than they lose in conference.

[RaginFan2]

I do have to say that I would have liked to have seen Babb pulled and Des take some snaps in the FAU game, just to see if it changed anything. Jerry was having an off night, to be sure. But what do I know? After all, I'm just a girl.

Yeah, but you're a smart one who is football-savvy!

[ShowDog]

I'll throw in my .02...Des is a fantastic player, and with Jerry's injuries in the past, I'm more than willing to "save" Des should something happen to Babb. At the FAU game, Babb came limping off at the end of the game. The ankle again, just like in the EMU game. Nervous Nelly that I am, I'm worried about that ankle. I think something's up with it, and I want Des ready to take the helm if and when he is needed. If I were a coach, I have to say that the idea of playing Des a lot and him possibly being injured would make me very nervous. I'm okay with the way they have used Des this season.

I do have to say that I would have liked to have seen Babb pulled and Des take some snaps in the FAU game, just to see if it changed anything. Jerry was having an off night, to be sure. But what do I know? After all, I'm just a girl.

Girl or not, probably the best anaylsis on this thread. Maybe the coaches are thinking the same thing. Very few or no touches for MD in case Babb gets injured.

[Just1More]

Girl or not, probably the best anaylsis on this thread. Maybe the coaches are thinking the same thing. Very few or no touches for MD in case Babb gets injured.

Can't argue with that... I believe this viewpoint from CajunKate will turn our to be prophetic during this season. We have last season to use as a compass. We are going to have to give MD some snaps in upcoming games. I am not sure of the reasoning behind all of the FAU offensive series, but MD might have been a good twist in this game (at QB). My guess is the coaches did not work on this during preparation, so we never saw it. Nothing against Babb, but he was struggling on reads, and appeared to be hyper like in the LSU game. THAT, of course, has a lot to do with the defense being in your face... but I see nothing wrong with letting Babb come out, settle down, watch the defense, etc, and come back in... in games where our offense is struggling. The starting QB can get some good reads from the sidelines, just as coaches do. Anyhow, CajunKate is right.

[Kal]

I think you are right on, Express! Sometimes you have to tip your hat to the opposition for their play rather than just bash your own team. Those guys are on scholarship, too, and didn't want to look bad on national TV. I was somewhat impressed with the talent FAU has. I think they'll give a few SBC teams some problems. I wouldn't be surprised if they win more than they lose in conference.

That's what I believe too. FAU gave us their best shot I think. We didn't give ours. That says alot about us that we can not play as well as we are capable of and still come out with a win.

[Kal]

Yeh that's something that I noticed this week. We had some stupid penalties. Some of the penalties were questionable. But we had some mistiming on coverage that cost us a few yards and we had a couple of false starts. I have found that this year our lines are very well disciplined and usually don't make those mistakes, so it was a little disheartening to see those mistakes happen.

[AstroCajun]

I was interested in finding out more about FAU and I found a crazy stat about them...

Class Breakdown
Freshmen 54
Sophomores 37
Juniors 15
Seniors 11

That is incredible to be that young. Everyone thinks Howard schellenburger (spelling?) is crazy for the scheduling but maybe he knows what he is doing to have his team ready for bigger things in the future. I think he is crazy lol but he has a national title in his past so who am I to judge.

I look for us to win this game and I think we will win by a sizable margin but we have seen in the past the Sunbelt can be very hard to pick. My prediction UL 31 FAU 13

Does this class breakdown look famililar?

This was FAU circa 2006

[NewCajunDad]

UL-L has had as many as 38 - 39 freshman / sophomores travel and dress / participate in games this year. I count atleast seven true freshmen playing and 3 of these have atleast one start on defense. That coupled with injuries, we are very young! We have very little experienced "depth" anywhere. Defensive line has three seniors with true freshmen seeing action behind them. Same in O-line. Tough to be consistent.

Still believe there is room for improvement on the offensive and defensive schemes we are implementing, but with the given youth factor, they are having difficulties adjusting to the speed of the college game not to mention a new system where the guy next to them is also unfamiliar.

I know it is difficult to be understanding of the season but we had depth last year in the offensive and defensive lines. While we struggled at times (maybe this was why we changed coordinators!!), the seniors you see now were backing up last year's seniors in the line. We have only 14 juniors that play and a couple are strictly special teams. With the exception of Seth Adams and Erik Jones (TE), this group does not have lineman who play or provide depth.

Next year's team will still be young by today's standards due to the 14 only juniors. But, there will be 17 juniors to back that up including significant parts of your starting offensive and defensive lines.