Cajuns Football: A Slow Climb

[GeauxCajuns]

_ With our current budget, Nick Saban "MIGHT" be able to do that 1 out of every 4 or 5 years.

My point is that we MUST back off of the money games. Limit them to 1 per year, which means that our team would then have a fighting chance to win 11 of the games on its schedule. THEN, it would be realistic to demand 7 or 8 wins... and even 9 every few years. _

how then do we pay to play these other games in place of the money gams, much less find those oppenents, who we know most of which will not come to cajun field. and trying to find these teams would be a problem to, because you know what all those other teams are doing too.....playing money games of their own. you cant complain about having one of the lowest budgets in the country and then scrap money games, then the budgets even lower, and when we lose to these replaced money game teams, we can just blame it on the fact that our budget is even lower now because we arent playing any money games
i see it now, some one saying "well _____ if we're gonna lose anyway, it might as well be to a bcs school and we can get paid for it!"

[CajunRed]

_ how then do we pay to play these other games in place of the money gams, much less find those oppenents, who we know most of which will not come to cajun field. and trying to find these teams would be a problem to, because you know what all those other teams are doing too.....playing money games of their own. you cant complain about having one of the lowest budgets in the country and then scrap money games, then the budgets even lower, and when we lose to these replaced money game teams, we can just blame it on the fact that our budget is even lower now because we arent playing any money games
i see it now, some one saying "well _____ if we're gonna lose anyway, it might as well be to a bcs school and we can get paid for it!" _

Then you can't have it both ways. If 3 money games is fine with you, then a 6 and 6 record is really a 6 and 3 record considering the games where the administration (in putting together the schedule) put us in a position to win... which would be 9 of the 12.

[Turbine]

Personally (can't exactly prove it) I think money games have cost the program tens of millions of dollars in community support over the years.

[CajunRed]

_ Personally (can't exactly prove it) I think money games have cost the program tens of millions of dollars in community support over the years. _

I very strongly agree with you. They may have been needed in the past, but now they are hurting more than helping. Between the RCAF and other continued fundraising, it is imperative that we find the dollars to replace money games and limit them, at least while we attempt to contine to build the program, to "1" per year.

[Damon]

Let me put a reverse spin on the spin. Programs have joined (or hell, even started playing football) in DIV1 FBS and won bowl games faster than our slow climb (UCF, FAU).

Don't bring up money. W's and L's are all that I'm talking about. There's ways to get money that we did not source in the past outside of the missing RCAF. Money should never have been an excuse. Ever.

[J-Town Cajun]

_ There are only "2" programs in the country with lower budgets to work with than ours. In our conference, there is only 1. In spite of that, only Troy has more wins than us in the past 5 years. In the state, only LSU has more during the same 5 years.

We continue to hand our program 2 to 3 losses before they get started each year, then demand the team wins the 7 or 8 of the remaind 9 or so games. Is that realistic? _

Besides ULM, who is the other team with a lower budget?

[HoustonCajun]

_ You did not address my question concerning years like next year... which will include "3" very strong BCS programs. Will you expect us to win 7 of our last 9 games? And will that be expected of any future coaches we have? _

That's what Troy did this year, although they played 2 instead of 3 BCS teams. This lost an opening game to Bowling Green that they expected to win, then lost to Florida, and won all the rest of their games (8-0 in conference and a win over UAB) and lost to Arkansas, their 3rd to last game, to finish 9-3. We don't play all the BCS teams back to back to start the year next year. Ole Miss comes late in the year. So, we could start off 1-2 if we beat Ohio with a likely 3rd loss coming later at Ole Miss. It is the conference games that we need to win and go 6-2 or 7-1 giving us either 7 or 8 wins. I don't mind playing the big boys, in fact I'm glad we are. On paper, we should have a pretty salty team next year. It is time to take care of this conference and quit screwing around. We have flirted with 6-6 records for too long now. We play in the worse conference in the country. We should be picked in the top 3 next year. We wanna be 1A, then step our game up.

And, as for Bustle, I thought we needed a change, too. But, we have him for another year, so let's make the best of it. What really needs to happen is changes to the infrastructure that will equip either Bustle or his replacement after next year to win. In the absence of that, even a new coach would face the same impediments that Bustle has faced. We'd be excited for a year or two, then this starts all over again. Fix it internally first, then success will come.

[CajunRed]

_ Let me put a reverse spin on the spin. Programs have joined (or hell, even started playing football) in DIV1 FBS and won bowl games faster than our slow climb (UCF, FAU).

Don't bring up money. W's and L's are all that I'm talking about. There's ways to get money that we did not source in the past outside of the missing RCAF. Money should never have been an excuse. Ever. _

So I assume you have season tickets AND contribute a sizable amount to the athletic foundation.

[cmonman]

_ Recruiting recruiting recruiting...this coaching staff does not recruit well enough to get us over the hump. I appreciate what Bustle has done to get us out of the crapper but he has gotten us as far as he can. In the words of Bill Parcells "you are what your record says you are" and right now we are mediocre and have been mediocre for 5 years. Lets look at the fact that Bustle has only beaten one team that finished with a winning record in 8 years (houston). All the excuses about well we have won the most games in LA behind Lsu the last 4 or 5 years...seriously who is good in this state? At least it seems like Tech and ULM want to be better, I don't feel that from our guys. All i keep hearing from our admin and Bustle is how happy they are at 6-6...when will someone come out and say this is not good enough! If Bustle would come out anx say 6-6 is not good enough, i would gain more respect in him. Don't just feed us bull____ about were are improving and we had a good year.
igeaux.mobi _

I agree with you it is all about recruiting this week has been unbelievable. To keep Bustle another year is unheard of this really lets us know where Walker and Sav stand they dont care. If the cajuns got into a bowl game and made some money we would not even be having this talk. What is sad is I PERSONALLY know Joe Deforest wants the job but last time he could not even get an interview and our DC Kevin Fouq was basically hired because John Porche told Bustle to hire him watching athelete after athelete leave Lafayette to go to other schools is unbelievable Look at Ricky Johnson and Jordan James sign with Tulsa is an insult. Not to mention Cameron Dejuan going to Tulane along with Bullock the kid from CH of New Iberia Cooper Gerami goes to Northwestern I mean it just does not stop Bustle and his staff could not recruit cold weather out of a snow storm.I have watched for years it is unbelievable because i really believe the Cajuns could compete year end and year out NATIONALLY not just in the Sun Belt We have the atheletes we just have to recruit them it is pretty simple when you recruit a kid you go into his home and you tell him you are there for 3 reasons 1 Because he is a good person 2 Because he is a good student and you want to give him a chance to get a FREE education 3 You want to offer him a chance to play bigtime D1 football you win the parents over and continue to follow up. Hey if Early Doucet wants to play football and basketball let him encourage it and if Mahtook wants to play football and baseball let him.Our current staff thinks they are hot stuff and they are a joke and disgrace to the university I mean You have to have people skills and sell the university its that easy Do you really think our staff can do that NO.

[CajunRage]

At this point in the schools history we should be a ".500 program". By my definition, this means beating teams that are below .500, wining half of the games against other .500 teams, and losing to teams that are above .500. Let's take a look at this years schedule:

Southern 4 - 4
Kansas State 6 - 6
@ LSU 9 - 3
@ Nebraska 9 - 3
North Texas 2 - 10
@ Western Kentucky 0 - 12
Florida Atlantic 4 - 7
@ FIU 3 - 8
@ Arkansas State 4 - 8
@ Middle Tennessee 9 - 3
ULM 6 - 6
Troy 9 - 3

Southern is a win because of inferior division. Based on the above formula, we should have finished 7-5, but we won both games against .500 teams and therefore should have finished this season with an 8-4. Our expectations should have nothing to do with our final record, but how we fare based on our competition.

CajunRed, this takes into account your theory of us playing 3 bcs teams and losing. If we finish 6-6 beating the teams we should, I'm pretty sure people would be willing to accept that. BUT we lost to 2 teams with sub .500 records and that is unacceptable.