2006: UL-6 FAU-0

[Cajunsmike]

what game were you watching? its hard to execute when the other team knows what play you're gonna run! they were so predictable it was laughable! i, for the vast majority of the time, like bustles play calling, but lets face it that was so vanilla! did like the way our defense played though. they looked like they wanted to be there.

VO knows more about football than just about anyone else on these forums. I would be respectful of his views. When you talk about play calling, you may not realize that we don't just call a Fenroy run off tackle. In the zone option offense the QB reads the defense at the line of scrimmage and has to make a split second decision while it is being executed. Last night he gave the ball to Fenroy at times when he should have kept the ball.

[Cajunsmike]

Some of us are realists. That was a sham of a football game. One of the worst I've ever witnessed I doubt if 1000 people across the nation were even watching at the end.

The Sun Belt ought to be embarrassed with the play, coaching and their own pitiful set up for replays. We really only scored 3 points if you take away the gimme first field goal.

I hope we got it out of our system because we won't win many more playing like we did last night. We really need to be grooming someone to take over at QB as Babb's decision making for the most part this year resembles the play of a Freshman or Sophomore player, not a senior.

Jerry did play poorly last night. However I think it is a stretch to say his play this year resembles that of a freshman. He only won conference player of the week three times in a row.

[Cajunrunner]

Guys, we won. Sometimes you have to win sloppy, and last night was one of those games. I don't care if we win the rest of our games 3-0, as long as we win them all.

Babb will be fine. Players have good games, they have bad games.

[Cajunrunner]

I understand the frustration, we won a very ugly game. VERY ugly game, we left roughly 35 points on the field, but its time for some sort of celebrating. Our guys pitched a shutout, and the least talked about unit we have (defense...yes even talked about less than our Special Teams in a positive light) won us a game. Here is a fact that most seem to not think about. If the cajuns won tonite 45-43 in a shootout, we WOULD NOT be harping on the defense like we are harping on the offense. There were 6 turnovers, but we also held them to about 250 yards total offense, 0 points, and 6 turnovers...thats what you call a butt whippen! Those 6 turnovers werent just flukes either, for instance, that pop we had on their running back could be the hardest hit I've seen all year long! They were deep in our territory, and legitimately, that took points off the board for them!

With that said, we need Brandon Cox healthy for our offense to run right, I was dissapointed at the end of the game as it seemed like we were gonna try to run out the clock when I thought we needed to get a first or 2 to insure the win. I do have to give some credit to FAU, they are NOT as bas as their 2-5 record, and I think that its possible that they win out, or win 5 of the last 6 for a 6-6/7-5 type record. Very good team defense and coached VERY well. They did beat ULM on the road , and we beat them on the road and road wins are just not easy to come by.

The bright side of all this is this...we have the best overall record in conference, we're one of 4 teams that are undefeated in conference, and we knocked off a team that was, we have the longest conference winning streat (6 games), and a decent sized non-bcs win streak (which is who we need to compare ourselves to) at 9 games now. We've won our last 4 conference road games, and only go on the road in conference 2 more times (Troy and FIU).

Final summation, we didnt show our our offense on the national scale...but we sure as hell showcased our Defense to the whole world by making FAU look like a junior high offense.

Like rex grossman said after Chicago beat Arizona, "Lets celebrate the win for right now...we'll have all week (for us, 10 days) to talk about how bad our offense played"

Tuffguy

Amen. We showed we are capable of winning ugly if we have to.

[Clutch0364]

I would like to know how many of you were about to crap your pants when FAU had the ball inside the 10 with 2 seconds left. I felt bad for UL cause I thought that FAU was going to score and add another comeback loss on top of last years collapse. But I am glad that #2 came through. He should have had that INT earlier in the same posession. But I am glad yall won.

Oh and to directly responde to your post, This is pretty much how I feel as an LSU fan when we played AU and Florida on TV. And everything you said can be applied there too.

I couldn't even look at the last play of the game it was because I was so scared but we won and I was able to catch my breath and move on. The ball that was almost int. wasn't #2 Michael Adams but was #26 Kyle Ward, and although he missed it he showed great closing speed to get back to the ball. He made a very similar play last year against ULM that he took back for a TD.

[Clutch0364]

In my opinion we had one quality win and that may prove to be not so big a deal either before the year is up. NC A & T and EMU???? Do you really count beating those two teams as a quality win???

Regardless of what Houston final record is I look at it as quality because if they do end up with a bad season I will contribute that to falling apart after an emotional loss to us.

[CajunShocker]

VO knows more about football than just about anyone else on these forums. I would be respectful of his views. When you talk about play calling, you may not realize that we don't just call a Fenroy run off tackle. In the zone option offense the QB reads the defense at the line of scrimmage and has to make a split second decision while it is being executed. Last night he gave the ball to Fenroy at times when he should have kept the ball.

I am certainly not claiming to know more about football than everyone here, but I do know a little. Did you notice on the last series, when Babb lined up "under center", for probably the 1st time the whole game. We still didn't get the 1st down, but at least it looked like we were trying to throw them off by attempting something different. When plan A did not work, it didn't seen as though we had a plan B. It looked to me like we were trying to run the clock down, with a 6 pt. lead and 20 minutes left in the game. I don't think we gave the defense a lot of help. Luckily, they didn't need any help.

There was also a 3rd and 2 in FAU territory, where we ran the same read option, Babb handed it off, and we got stopped for a loss. The slot receiver had no one within 6 yds from him. The DB was cheating in just outside the DE and he ended up blitzing. Seems like Babb should have seen that and changed something up. I don't know how much freedom Babb has to change the play, but I was praying that he would hit the slot on a little slant or something. No, ran it for a loss and punted. Hell, run a QB sneak on 3rd down when they are not in a goal line set-up. If you get half of it, we are in 4 down territory, so do it again. Babb weighs 230 lbs. and is hard to stuff for no gain. He'll get the first 90% of the time.

I don't think our scheme is the problem. I just think they stuck with it too long "last night" before trying something different.

To Astrocajun:
You are correct. I did not give the Defense the credit they deserved. They played a good game and are the reason we are 4-2. But as for the embarrassing thing, I call it as I see it. I am embarrassed that I talked all of my co-workers, who are fans of "the other team", into watching the Cajuns last night. They were laughing at me this morning when I got to work. It doesn't make me less of a fan, but it is a little embarrassing.

[VObserver]

I am certainly not claiming to know more about football than everyone here, but I do know a little. Did you notice on the last series, when Babb lined up "under center", for probably the 1st time the whole game. We still didn't get the 1st down, but at least it looked like we were trying to throw them off by attempting something different. When plan A did not work, it didn't seen as though we had a plan B. It looked to me like we were trying to run the clock down, with a 6 pt. lead and 20 minutes left in the game. I don't think we gave the defense a lot of help. Luckily, they didn't need any help.

There was also a 3rd and 2 in FAU territory, where we ran the same read option, Babb handed it off, and we got stopped for a loss. The slot receiver had no one within 6 yds from him. The DB was cheating in just outside the DE and he ended up blitzing. Seems like Babb should have seen that and changed something up. I don't know how much freedom Babb has to change the play, but I was praying that he would hit the slot on a little slant or something. No, ran it for a loss and punted. Hell, run a QB sneak on 3rd down when they are not in a goal line set-up. If you get half of it, we are in 4 down territory, so do it again. Babb weighs 230 lbs. and is hard to stuff for no gain. He'll get the first 90% of the time.

I don't think our scheme is the problem. I just think they stuck with it too long "last night" before trying something different.

To Astrocajun:
You are correct. I did not give the Defense the credit they deserved. They played a good game and are the reason we are 4-2. But as for the embarrassing thing, I call it as I see it. I am embarrassed that I talked all of my co-workers, who are fans of "the other team", into watching the Cajuns last night. They were laughing at me this morning when I got to work. It doesn't make me less of a fan, but it is a little embarrassing.

I know how you feel. I told my friends who bet on such things to take the Cajuns as 8 point favorites and the Over at 47.

[Just1More]

Regardless of what Houston final record is I look at it as quality because if they do end up with a bad season I will contribute that to falling apart after an emotional loss to us.

Absostinkinglutely. We popped their bubble. I think they still can be a dangerous team in CUSA.

[mikebagger]

We can have Tech send over some of their blue tarps

Does anyone have pictures of said tarps?

[Ewhite]

Hey Bil, we're 4-2...right?

Z.

Don't ask Bil hard questions like that.... His head will hurt.....

[MiamiCajun32]

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.

FAU came in at 1-0 in the sunbelt, having won on the road. It was a very big game for them and cajuns survived.

4-2, 1-0 in conference. For this program it is all about making the New Orleans Bowl and it does not matter how ugly or pretty the road is to getting there as long as it happens. If Cajuns get to New Orleans then it is a great success and record will likely be 9-3 or better.

Last night the offense reminded me of watching the Saints under Haslett the past few years. Talent mismatch at skill positions, but every time a decent play happened, there was a penalty and play calling was very predictable, playing not to lose instead of to win.

blow out wins or 6-0 wins are pretty much the same in long run. Cajuns don't have to worry about bcs and polls that is for sure. Just win the sunbelt, that is the ultimate goal. Beating Houston was great, got a little bit of national attention and will help in the marketing of the New Orleans Bowl if Cajuns are there, but really the New Orleans Bowl is the only award the cajuns can accomplish that will push forward the program.

I think some of the dissapointment from fans last night is from perhaps betting on Cajuns at -9... ;-) I admit I did so and my wallet is lighter today.