Cajuns Football: A Slow Climb

[NewsCopy]

Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns Football: A slow climb back to respectability.
The rest of the story

[Turbine]

Just a note before the spin gets out of control.

When Bustle was hired "Bowl Eligible" meant a winning record. The bar has been lowered.


igeaux.mobi

[RCAJUN90]

_ _

More like a death march.

[anhil8tor]

_ Just a note before the spin gets out of control.

When Bustle was hired "Bowl Eligible" meant a winning record. The bar has been lowered.


igeaux.mobi _

What was the time frame between winning records for our football team?

[Clutch0364]

This article just shows me how much of a joke our athletic department is. 6-6 is exceptable and a change will not be made as long as he keeps up the status quo. Everything he said in this shows y a lot of people have given up on UL athletics. I cannot wait to see the ____ poor hire they make, thats if they even make a change in basketball.
igeaux.mobi

[Cajun90]

Just a note before the spin gets out of control.

When Bustle was hired "Bowl Eligible" meant a winning record. The bar has been lowered.


igeaux.mobi

I think Josh did a good job with this article. As the article pointed out there are a lot of factors in this equation. The head coach is just one of them. I understand wanting to replace Bustle and would have been fine had they fired him but I'm not convinced that changing head coaches right now is going to change the number of wins on the field.

If we all take the head coach issue out of the discussion for a moment and look at everything else that has happened since Baldwin you have to admit that the program as a whole has made tremendous strides. Question for all of us diehard fans though is where do we go from here? I fear, like some, that we might have stopped climbing and are at a plateau. What is it going to take to climb the next mountain and get us to 7 or 8 wins, a conference championship and a bowl game? Is Rickey the guy to do that?

[Turbine]

What was the time frame between winning records for our football team?

Was 9 years (8 if you factor in the Texas Tech forfeit) now it's back up to 4.
igeaux.mobi

[Clutch0364]

I think Josh did a good job with this article. As the article pointed out there are a lot of factors in this equation. The head coach is just one of them. I understand wanting to replace Bustle and would have been fine had they fired him but I'm not convinced that changing head coaches right now is going to change the number of wins on the field.

If we all take the head coach issue out the discussion for the moment and look at everything else that has happened since Baldwin you have to admit that the program as a whole has made tremendous strides. Question for all of us diehard fans though is where do we go from here? I fear like some that we might have stopped climbing are at a plateau. What is it going to take to climb the next mountain and get us to 7 or 8 wins, a conference championship and a bowl game? Is Rickey the guy to do that?

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

[gridiron]

Bustle has lead the slowest climb in the history of the NCAA. A worst record than Baldwin in year one. It took two years and three years to improve one game better than Baldwin. Back up in year one he had two NFL players on the team and did worse than Baldwin. It took 4 years to get 3 games better than Baldwin and after eight years he still has never been more than three games better than Baldwin. If its not the slowest climb in the history of the NCAA it real close. Bustle is only worth three wins, there is someone out there better than this for cheaper.

[Hammer58]

_ Bustle has lead the slowest climb in the history of the NCAA. A worst record than Baldwin in year one. It took two years and three years to improve one game better than Baldwin. Back up in year one he had two NFL players on the team and did worse than Baldwin. It took 4 years to get 3 games better than Baldwin and after eight years he still has never been more than three games better than Baldwin. If its not the slowest climb in the history of the NCAA it real close. Bustle is only worth three wins, there is someone out there better than this for cheaper. _

The Bataan Death March was quicker.

And probably less painful.

[KACajun]

I just thought of a joke that might be pertinent on the day were expecting snow:

What job can you be successful only 40% of the time and keep your position for 9 years?


Any guesses?


A meteorologist!!!! Thank you, Thank you...I'll be here all night, try the shrimp and don't forget to tip your servers.

Enjoy the SNOW people!!!

[DieHard1280]

_ Just a note before the spin gets out of control.

When Bustle was hired "Bowl Eligible" meant a winning record. The bar has been lowered.


igeaux.mobi _

I'm not interested in being "bowl eligible". I'm interested in being "bowl worthy"!

With as many bowls as there are now, we are STILL waiting for our first bowl since 1970. That's FORTY YEARS!!

[CajunRed]

I'm just trying to get a feel for things.

Next year we will play 3 BCS teams, all of which have football budgets anywhere from 3 to 10 times ours. We will probably start the season 0 and 3.

Question... if we then do not win 7 of the remaining 9 games, should this current staff or a staff we have in the future facing the same schedule be considered failures and let go? This is the kind of question we need to answer for ourselves REGARDLESS of who is coaching... Coach Bustle and his staff or his replacement if it comes to that.

My thought is that pressure needs to be put on the AD's department, which includes David Walker, as well as fan-favorite Scott Farmer, to play only "1" true money game against an overwhelming opponent on the road. Until we do that, 6 and 6 cannot necessarily be considered a failing grade.

[CajunRage]

_ I'm just trying to get a feel for things.

Next year we will play 3 BCS teams, all of which have football budgets anywhere from 3 to 10 times ours. We will probably start the season 0 and 3.

Question... if we then do not win 7 of the remaining 9 games, should this current staff or a staff we have in the future facing the same schedule be considered failures and let go? This is the kind of question we need to answer for ourselves REGARDLESS of who is coaching... Coach Bustle and his staff or his replacement if it comes to that.

My thought is that pressure needs to be put on the AD's department, which includes David Walker, as well as fan-favorite Scott Farmer, to play only "1" true money game against an overwhelming opponent on the road. Until we do that, 6 and 6 cannot necessarily be considered a failing grade. _

Everyone needs to stop looking at just the record. We lay eggs with Bustle and his staff. We start out 1-0 against Southern. We beat K-State to go 2-0. Big time win. A couple bounces go our way and we are in the game against LSU but that doesn't happen. 2-1. We get stomped by Nebraska. Although we weren't expected to win, a little disheartening. 2-2 going into conference. Better than the 1-3 record expected. We start out 2-0 in conference over NT and WKU going into homecoming against a 1 win FAU. We get our @$$es handed to us. Ok, we are 2-1 in conference and 4-3 overall. And the skid of horrible 2nd half play has begun. We lose to another 1 win team in FIU. 4-4. We then go to stAte and knock them off which we weren't supposed to do. 5-4. Go to MT and lead at half only to make no adjustments and mark down the L. 5-5. We beat ULM as we should and get beat by Troy to finish 6-6.

We won 2 games that we were not expected to win. Big seasons for programs like us consist of ALWAYS winning the games you should and then some. Beating K-State and stAte means nothing when we lose to other bottomfeeders like FIU and FAU. With those 2 wins, our 6-6 expectations were immediately escalated to 8-4 expectations. Bustle and his staff did not meet expectations and therefore are not doing their job.

[CajunRed]

_ Everyone needs to stop looking at just the record. We lay eggs with Bustle and his staff. We start out 1-0 against Southern. We beat K-State to go 2-0. Big time win. A couple bounces go our way and we are in the game against LSU but that doesn't happen. 2-1. We get stomped by Nebraska. Although we weren't expected to win, a little disheartening. 2-2 going into conference. Better than the 1-3 record expected. We start out 2-0 in conference over NT and WKU going into homecoming against a 1 win FAU. We get our @$$es handed to us. Ok, we are 2-1 in conference and 4-3 overall. And the skid of horrible 2nd half play has begun. We lose to another 1 win team in FIU. 4-4. We then go to stAte and knock them off which we weren't supposed to do. 5-4. Go to MT and lead at half only to make no adjustments and mark down the L. 5-5. We beat ULM as we should and get beat by Troy to finish 6-6.

We won 2 games that we were not expected to win. Big seasons for programs like us consist of ALWAYS winning the games you should and then some. Beating K-State and stAte means nothing when we lose to other bottomfeeders like FIU and FAU. With those 2 wins, our 6-6 expectations were immediately escalated to 8-4 expectations. Bustle and his staff did not meet expectations and therefore are not doing their job. _

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?