Louisiana UnLimited: Michael Desormeaux
Long before anyone in Acadiana had heard of Billy Napier, Michael Desormeaux had a mentor, a guide, an adviser who showed him what the coaching profession was and how rewarding it could be.
He already had the love of football. That was instilled at an early age when his father Bill would throw him passes in the living room and the young Mike would catch them, land on the couch and do the touchdown dances. Later, his dad took over as coach of an age 8-9 team just so Mike could play … at age 6.
But it was several years later, when UL's newly-named head football coach was a freshman at Catholic High in New Iberia, that he found his calling and saw it in person.
David Comeaux, who ironically served several years on UL's football staff during the early 1990's, was head football coach for the Panthers from 2000-07 and also taught Desormeaux's civics class.
"I absolutely loved Coach Comeaux, and everything he was about," Desormeaux said on Monday, only one day after he was announced as the new leader of the top-20-ranked Ragin' Cajun program.
"He treated everyone the right way, and I saw the effect he had on the school, not just the football team. I thought that it was pretty cool to be able to impact the whole school and the whole community."
That desire stuck with Desormeaux, so much so that after his first semester of trying out a business major when he arrived at UL, he switched his major to education.
"He was special," said Comeaux, one of Acadiana's football coaching veterans and now on the staff at Comeaux High. "Everybody knew that. I knew that, the rest of the coaches knew that, his teammates knew that. He's the best leader I've ever been around.
"He had the football smarts, that came from his upbringing and his father. He obviously had the football talent, but on top of that he was an incredible leader. He was the type player who made his teammates better."
Louisiana Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics Dr. Bryan Maggard often makes reference to how many "boxes" a prospective staffer checks, and in this case the biggest box was that leadership and his talents for connecting with others.
"It's his ability to build positive relationships, not only with his teammates but with his coaches, with people in the community, with high school coaches on the recruiting trail, it doesn't matter," Maggard said.
"I met with several of our football student-athletes, and to a man when asked about Mike Desormeaux the number one thing that every individual said, whether it was offense, defense, special teams, is he loves us. That was totally unscripted, a genuine answer from every single student-athlete that I met with. Certainly they love him as well, but they also know that he cares deeply about them as human beings."
It obviously takes more than communication and people skills to run a major college football program, especially one as successful as UL has been over the past decade. It's also a huge challenge to maintain a level of success previously unheard of for a Cajun team – 11-3, 10-1 and 12-1 over the past three seasons, not to mention taking a school-record 12-game winning streak into the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl against Marshall on Dec. 18.
That's where Desormeaux has admittedly been fortunate, with the chance to watch Napier assemble a program that has become nationally known and synonymous with success.
"Coach Napier's a true mentor, in every sense of the word," Desormeaux said. "He's the kind of person you really want to be like, to emulate. You could see why he's been so successful so quickly, because he's so meticulous about what's coming next. When I first started watching him, I immediately said to myself that I needed to pay attention to everything that's going on here."
Granted, it wasn't love at first sight. Desormeaux was the only coach retained from the previous Cajun football staff when Mark Hudspeth was fired at the end of the 5-7 2017 season, and Maggard tapped Desormeaux as interim head coach during the search that eventually brought Napier to Acadiana.
"When he first got here, I was the holdover guy," Desormeaux said. "I was really worried that was what he'd see me as, just the guy he had to keep around. That couldn't have been further from the truth. Right from the start, he was always really good about stopping to tell me why he was doing something on roster management, recruitment, whatever. He sees things a little bit differently, and he had a genuine interest in helping me get better as a coach. I can never thank him enough for that."
The respect was apparently mutual enough that Napier "went to bat" for Desormeaux over the last couple of weeks, and took a minute during his hugely-busy first day in Gainesville to reach out one more time.
"He called me after he'd accepted the Florida job," Desormeaux said, "and asked me if I wanted this job. We started talking about things, the way we'd done things here, what my plan was. Even on Sunday, which was pretty crazy between the announcement, the bowl invitation and our banquet, when we were on the way to the banquet he called and was just as good as ever. He said I could call him for advice, to be a sounding board, whatever I needed. That's the way he's been with me since he got here."
"I spoke with Coach Napier, there's no doubt that I wanted his insight," Maggard said, "to make sure he felt that Mike was ready, and he said he had no second thoughts and no doubts about him getting this opportunity."
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Michael Desormeaux
Louisiana UnLimited: Michael Desormeaux
Meet Louisiana's new head football coach
12/7/2021 10:25:00 AM
By: Dan McDonald, Louisiana Athletics Staff Writer
Story LinksLong before anyone in Acadiana had heard of Billy Napier, Michael Desormeaux had a mentor, a guide, an adviser who showed him what the coaching profession was and how rewarding it could be.
He already had the love of football. That was instilled at an early age when his father Bill would throw him passes in the living room and the young Mike would catch them, land on the couch and do the touchdown dances. Later, his dad took over as coach of an age 8-9 team just so Mike could play … at age 6.
But it was several years later, when UL's newly-named head football coach was a freshman at Catholic High in New Iberia, that he found his calling and saw it in person.
David Comeaux, who ironically served several years on UL's football staff during the early 1990's, was head football coach for the Panthers from 2000-07 and also taught Desormeaux's civics class.
"I absolutely loved Coach Comeaux, and everything he was about," Desormeaux said on Monday, only one day after he was announced as the new leader of the top-20-ranked Ragin' Cajun program.
"He treated everyone the right way, and I saw the effect he had on the school, not just the football team. I thought that it was pretty cool to be able to impact the whole school and the whole community."
That desire stuck with Desormeaux, so much so that after his first semester of trying out a business major when he arrived at UL, he switched his major to education.
"He was special," said Comeaux, one of Acadiana's football coaching veterans and now on the staff at Comeaux High. "Everybody knew that. I knew that, the rest of the coaches knew that, his teammates knew that. He's the best leader I've ever been around.
"He had the football smarts, that came from his upbringing and his father. He obviously had the football talent, but on top of that he was an incredible leader. He was the type player who made his teammates better."
Louisiana Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics Dr. Bryan Maggard often makes reference to how many "boxes" a prospective staffer checks, and in this case the biggest box was that leadership and his talents for connecting with others.
"It's his ability to build positive relationships, not only with his teammates but with his coaches, with people in the community, with high school coaches on the recruiting trail, it doesn't matter," Maggard said.
"I met with several of our football student-athletes, and to a man when asked about Mike Desormeaux the number one thing that every individual said, whether it was offense, defense, special teams, is he loves us. That was totally unscripted, a genuine answer from every single student-athlete that I met with. Certainly they love him as well, but they also know that he cares deeply about them as human beings."
It obviously takes more than communication and people skills to run a major college football program, especially one as successful as UL has been over the past decade. It's also a huge challenge to maintain a level of success previously unheard of for a Cajun team – 11-3, 10-1 and 12-1 over the past three seasons, not to mention taking a school-record 12-game winning streak into the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl against Marshall on Dec. 18.
That's where Desormeaux has admittedly been fortunate, with the chance to watch Napier assemble a program that has become nationally known and synonymous with success.
"Coach Napier's a true mentor, in every sense of the word," Desormeaux said. "He's the kind of person you really want to be like, to emulate. You could see why he's been so successful so quickly, because he's so meticulous about what's coming next. When I first started watching him, I immediately said to myself that I needed to pay attention to everything that's going on here."
Granted, it wasn't love at first sight. Desormeaux was the only coach retained from the previous Cajun football staff when Mark Hudspeth was fired at the end of the 5-7 2017 season, and Maggard tapped Desormeaux as interim head coach during the search that eventually brought Napier to Acadiana.
"When he first got here, I was the holdover guy," Desormeaux said. "I was really worried that was what he'd see me as, just the guy he had to keep around. That couldn't have been further from the truth. Right from the start, he was always really good about stopping to tell me why he was doing something on roster management, recruitment, whatever. He sees things a little bit differently, and he had a genuine interest in helping me get better as a coach. I can never thank him enough for that."
The respect was apparently mutual enough that Napier "went to bat" for Desormeaux over the last couple of weeks, and took a minute during his hugely-busy first day in Gainesville to reach out one more time.
"He called me after he'd accepted the Florida job," Desormeaux said, "and asked me if I wanted this job. We started talking about things, the way we'd done things here, what my plan was. Even on Sunday, which was pretty crazy between the announcement, the bowl invitation and our banquet, when we were on the way to the banquet he called and was just as good as ever. He said I could call him for advice, to be a sounding board, whatever I needed. That's the way he's been with me since he got here."
"I spoke with Coach Napier, there's no doubt that I wanted his insight," Maggard said, "to make sure he felt that Mike was ready, and he said he had no second thoughts and no doubts about him getting this opportunity."
There's no doubt that Napier would have loved Mike Desormeaux the football player and Cajun quarterback. The athletic chops were already there, with 16 high school letters in football, basketball, track and field and baseball at Catholic High while leading his football team to three straight district titles and earning All-State honors two straight years – the last one an All-State selection on offense and defense.
"That's pretty amazing since the only time I put him in on defense was when the ball got past the 50-yard line," said Comeaux, who dropped Desormeaux into the starting quarterback position halfway through his freshman season.
At Louisiana he threw for 3,893 yards and 23 scores and ran for 2,843 yards and 16 more touchdowns on his way to three All-Sun Belt Conference honors. He was the league's Offensive Player of the Year in 2008 when he became the eighth quarterback in NCAA Division I-A history with back-to-back 1,000-yard rushing seasons.
More than the numbers, it was his toughness that earned the respect of his teammates and coaches. He unfortunately played before there was such a thing as "yards after contact," a statistic where he might have led the nation's quarterbacks in his final two collegiate seasons.
How tough was he as a player?
"We had a spring game against Vandebilt Catholic, they were one of the top teams in Class 4A and we were supposed to be one of the top teams in 3A," Comeaux said. "On the first play he took a snap, dropped back, saw daylight and took off running. He ran for about 70 yards before two guys hit him right before he scored, and he stayed down for a while. We called time out to see if he was OK, he said yeah and he finished the game."
Catholic High ended up winning that spring game by three touchdowns. It wasn't until later that day that Desormeaux was diagnosed with a punctured lung.
"I coached Elijah Mitchell, who was a great talent," Comeaux said of the ex-Erath and Cajun standout now with the San Francisco 49ers. "But Mike was the most complete, the best football player I ever coached. He certainly was the toughest."
Desormeaux brought that toughness to his chosen profession, serving as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Catholic High before a successful three years at Ascension Episcopal in Youngsville. The Blue Gators went from 0-9 the year before his arrival to a five-win season, an eight-win season and an 11-2 record and the state semifinals in his final year, before beginning his six-year run on the Cajun staff that culminated in the weekend announcement as the 27th head coach in UL history.
"It all sped up so quickly," said Desormeaux, who interviewed with Maggard on the Tuesday night of the Sun Belt Conference championship game week. "There wasn't a lot of prep time since we first talked on Monday, but I felt comfortable doing it, and then he (Maggard) texted me Friday morning to see if I could come by if I had a break in our schedule.
"We talked a little and he talked about how good the interview had gone, and I'm thinking, uh oh, here comes the 'but'," Desormeaux said. "I'm getting myself ready, and he said he really had only one follow-up question, and it was would you become the head coach here. I guess I had a funny look on my face because he smiled and nodded and said I'm asking you to be the head coach."
"Candidly, we looked internally and externally," Maggard said. "Every time, it just came back to Coach Desormeaux. If there's more of a true son of UL than Mike Desormeaux, I don't know who it might be. I promise you this, there's not a coach in America who wants to be here at the University of Louisiana more than Mike Desormeaux."
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Re: Louisiana UnLimited: Michael Desormeaux
Originally Posted by CharlieK
