Football 1996

[NewsCopy]

Cody Romero only provided one offensive yard to his USL football team 10 years ago this week, but it was a big yard. The Loreauville product and senior tight end caught a one-yard pass from Jake Delhomme midway through the second quarter against Texas A&M on that Sept. 14, 1996 night in Cajun Field. It was the Cajuns' only offensive touchdown in what turned into the most notable victory in the program's history. "It was like it didn't hit me until later, what we had done," Romero said of the 29-22 win over the 25th-ranked Aggies. "Years later, it still hits you. When we realized that we'd beaten A&M ..." The rest of the story Dan McDonald dmcdonald@theadvertiser.com

[NewsCopy]

Football teams take their que from the quarterback, and Jake Delhomme never saw a game he didn't think he could win. So when the Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns prepared for their second game of the 1996 season against No. 25 Texas A&M, they saw a senior leader who was ready to make history. "Our confidence level was extremely high," said Delhomme, who took a break from his Carolina Panthers playbook this week to revisit that moment in time. "We had lost to Florida (55-21) in the opener, but they won the national championship that year. They just demolished people. We played pretty well, but naturally they wore us down at the end." Delhomme threw two touchdowns at Florida, but the Gators also returned four UL miscues for touchdowns to make the win easier. Two weeks later, the tables turned as the Cajuns forced eight turnovers (four fumbles, four interceptions) and ran back three of those for scores in a momentous 29-22 upset before 38,783 fans at Cajun Field. "We had a lot of confidence," Delhomme said. "We were going to try to wear them out. We were going to get after them. We felt we matched up with them well. The rest of the story Bruce Brown bbrown@theadvertiser.com