How badly did former UL football coach Mark Hudspeth want to secure Elijah McGuire as a Ragin' Cajun?

Bad enough that on a Friday night recruiting stop during the 2012 high school football season, Hudspeth landed next to the field where McGuire was playing in a helicopter.

"We knew if we could land him, that he would be a difference maker for our program," said Hudspeth, whose seven-year career with the Cajuns encompassed McGuire's 2013-16 career. "We were trying to make an impression on him and show him how important he was.

"I guess it worked. He turned down a lot of offers to come and be a Ragin' Cajun and make his mark in Lafayette."

That mark was a big one. Before he was done, the Houma native became UL's all-time leader in touchdowns (52) and points scored (318) and became the second-leading rusher in school history, not to mention ranking sixth on the state of Louisiana's all-time rushing list.

More importantly, he led the Cajuns to three bowl appearances – leading the team in rushing in all three of those games -- and two bowl victories in a career that saw him honored as All-Sun Belt Conference four straight years.

Because of that, McGuire is being inducted into the UL Athletic Hall of Fame on Friday as part of the university's Homecoming celebration, one day before UL meets Sun Belt rival Arkansas State in the annual Homecoming game. He will be inducted along with baseball players Eddie Mouton and Hunter Moody, softball's Stacie Gremillion, soccer's Yazmin Montoya Gutierrez and legendary track and field coach Bob Cole at the annual induction ceremony at the UL Student Union Ballroom on McKinley St.

McGuire finished his career with 4,312 rushing yards, trailing only UL and state of Louisiana all-time leader Tyrell Fenroy (himself a 2023 UL Athletic Hall of Fame inductee) and ahead of such former state standouts as Tulane's Matt Forte', McNeese's Buford Jordan and LSU's Dalton Hilliard, Charles Alexander and Leonard Fournette.

He rushed for over 1,000 yards and led the Cajuns in rushing each of his final three seasons after going for 863 yards as a freshman, averaging 6.1 yards per carry throughout his career – also second all-time.

But Hudspeth said McGuire didn't get enough credit for all the other things he did.

"He was so multi-purpose," Hudspeth said. "He was a great running back but he was also great out of the backfield and we utilized him there a lot. Jay Johnson (former offensive coordinator) did a great job of utilizing him and what he could do. We'd line him up at wide out or let him motion out and he was so effective doing that."

McGuire still holds school records for most receptions by a running back in a game (10, twice), in a season (45) and in a career (129), along with records for yards receiving by a running back in a game (125) and a career (1,383).

"You could really scheme up with him and find some mismatches," Hudspeth said. "And when the game was on the line, we dialed up his number."

That was obvious in the fourth game of his senior year in 2016, when UL played a four-overtime game at Tulane.

"Every one of the two-point plays we had pretty much went to him," Hudspeth said of that 41-39 loss. "We kept scoring and tying the game, but in the fourth overtime he got hurt, and the last play we had on the sheet was for him and we didn't have him."

More often than not, though, his efforts turned into Cajun wins – eight in a row in his freshman year and seven more as a sophomore when UL won the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl each season.

Hudspeth remembered one play in particular during one of those seasons in a Cajun win over Texas State.

"He had caught a swing pass out of the backfield and just threw on the brakes," he said. "Two guys just flew right past him, and he sprinted to the goal line and made another person miss there. It was like he had eyes on the side of his head."

McGuire shares the school record for touchdowns in a game (five against Northwestern State in 2015), and had the third-best single-game rushing outing in UL history with 265 yards on only 19 carries against Arkansas State in his 2014 sophomore season. He's the only running back in school history with two 200-yard rushing games, and also had 16 career 100-yard rushing games.

McGuire was the Sun Belt's Player of the Year and Offensive Player of the Year in 2014 after earning league Freshman of the Year honors along with Freshman All-America honors from the Football Writers Association of America one year earlier.

"He was one of the most talented athletes I've ever coached," Hudspeth said. "He made so many explosive plays. That happened so often and he made it look so easy that you took it for granted. He made the great plays look routine and not very many players can say that."