2014 New Orleans Bowl Score Prediction Thread

[MelRock]

Well after I stopped predicting game scores the team went 8-1. If I would have predicted a score it would have been 69-3. Geaux Cajuns and I will never predict another score again.

[zephyr]

This game made me perhaps the proudest I've ever been to be a cajun fan. NEVER did I think we would hold that offense to 3 points and really, that was a concession considering it came on the heels of the shanked punt by our all conference punter who never does that. This defense covered guys for the first time all season and we showed our team speed covering sideline to sideline all game. I still think the coaches could have attacked the seams of that defense a bit more but they ultimately pushed the right buttons and our strength and speed on offense were just as apparent and dominating as that on defense.

Hud and staff always seem to pull out their coaching hats and do a great job in the bowl games. The only thing that is somewhat head scratching is why is this not done as much during the season? This defense that showed up this past Saturday would have shut down or stalled just about any offense in the SBC and would have led us to victory over Tech. Fajardo had guys downfield but even if he'd been on his mark more, they were covered very well which we can't say for the regular season. I truly don't get it.

Nonetheless, this game should make us all very proud to be cajun fans and thankful for the recent 4 year stint we've been able to enjoy and experience together. I'm looking forward to a great recruiting class coming in which has gone largely overlooked thus far but will likely be the best we've ever had at this university when judging by the rankings.

[Just1More]

I have no doubt that our regular season defensive backfield will play focused man coverage next year. Not only did we have the purest example in the Troy game... of a team eating our lunch in the first half... as we played "don't dare give up the big play soft coverage"... that resulted in big play after big play... but we did the most obvious second half reversal in our coaching history... played man coverage the entire second half... and ate Troy's lunch. The coaching staff fed off of that intelligence... and played man coverage against Nevada. If anything, I was expecting to see us play the "let the offense win this for us... and let's just not let Fajardo carve us up 'too bad'." It wasn't just that Fajardo had a bad day. We gave him a bad day.

If our staff didn't learn its lesson... there's no teaching this staff. This defense was ripe for playing athletically all year long. We screwed the pooch with soft cover schemes. The players admitted they were lost. If you go back and watch the replay of the bowl, you'll see the tightest man cover we've perhaps played since Hud's been here. It worked. It worked like a charm. We had the athletes on defense all along. Give those young men cover assignments, tell them to go after the ball, and get out of their way.