College Football 2010 Rankings: No. 103 Louisiana

[Boomer]

Tempus Fugit-----Is this going to be year 2 or 3 AD---after des?????????

[cajunfan32]

_ Good to see you around these parts again.

I'd love to see Chris Masson take a major step forward from last season, and become an all conference QB. Of course I would. It's just hard for me to believe he can get the team to play as hard for him as B Mac does. Theres is something about McGuire, and MD had this quality, that fires up the troops. I think Brad learned a lot about being a leader and a football player first from Mike. As he gets older, those things are starting to show even more. For some reason, I'm just more confident with Brad in the huddle. JMO _

People seem to underrate Chris' performance last year. he passed for 2406 yds with 10 TDs and 8 Ints. Not the best performance but not that bad either. cut him some slack. It was his first year of real game action. This is the first true pocket passing QB that we've had in a while and I think he's the best option for us at QB. I love Brad and I do think we should implement him into the offense in some way (whether that is sharing time at QB or putting him in at H back). But I saw A LOT of potential out of chris last year. He's not the same type of run first QB that we always seem to have which is refreshing. Brad is a great athlete and can really help our team win some games but he's the same type of QB as Babb and MD. Dont get me wrong, they were good, but did they get us 7 wins? no. I believe in order to get 7 wins we have to be able to thow it more often and not have a run first QB. With Brad as our QB, I dont think we will have the passing attack that we need.

[Parrott]

That just means we owe him the money. That does not mean he gets to stay.

Turbine: This is the same one-year extension given a few months ago. Someone said it was a two-year deal, and I was just correcting them.

J1M: You're correct that he would be owed money. I never said anything about a guarantee that he would be here that long. As I've mentioned numerous times, the university would owe a significantly lower buyout to Bustle under this extension.

I have a copy of the extension and will go into further detail on the actual numbers soon on my blog.


igeaux.mobi

[ManAboutTown]

I'll take Graham Watson's synopsis - Louisiana Goes Bowling in 2010

[bigearl]

_ You are correct. _

Is this official?

[Just1More]

_ Turbine: This is the same one-year extension given a few months ago. Someone said it was a two-year deal, and I was just correcting them.

J1M: You're correct that he would be owed money. I never said anything about a guarantee that he would be here that long. As I've mentioned numerous times, the university would owe a significantly lower buyout to Bustle under this extension.

I have a copy of the extension and will go into further detail on the actual numbers soon on my blog.


igeaux.mobi _

10-4 Josh. I wasn't making the statement against yours. I was just making that comment. I want Bustle to succeed (bowling) this year and not be concerned over a buyout. But, I also don't want to hear people harping about the extension. I understand it was structured to not be as financially painful for UL if a coaching improvement has to be made. I look forward to your blog on it.

[bigearl]

_ Is this official? _

Sorry - is it official that Gauthier will be back?

[cajunfan32]

_ Sorry - is it official that Gauthier will be back? _

I havent heard an official annoucement or anything but it is very likely he will be back. could be suspended for some games or something but i'm pretty sure that he's not getting kicked off the team. But all of that is just my educated guess.

[cajun4life]

_ Sorry - is it official that Gauthier will be back? _

That is who should be our #1 QB! I am a big time B Mac guy but the upside to Blaine Gautier is much higher than anyone we have had since Jake. He has the arm strength and mobility plus he is not a run first QB from what I have seen of him. I know the game was out of reach against Troy but he picked them apart aside from the INTs in the endzone at the end of the game. He needs to be given the reigns.

[zephyr]

_ That is who should be our #1 QB! I am a big time B Mac guy but the upside to Blaine Gautier is much higher than anyone we have had since Jake. He has the arm strength and mobility plus he is not a run first QB from what I have seen of him. I know the game was out of reach against Troy but he picked them apart aside from the INTs in the endzone at the end of the game. He needs to be given the reigns. _

You are correct. Mcguire is a great leader, as is Masson and I'd love to see Mac on the field but I think the situation lends itself for some interesting developments, especially seeing Mac on the field at all times at the H-Back spot where he gives us some toughness, smarts and leadership and athleticism.

Gautier is the best fit in this offense. He's the best dual threat guy we have and that is what this offense is predicated on. If you ran a more traditional style like FAU, Masson would probably be a better choice.

Yes, its unofficial but unless something crazy happens Gautier, Lewis-Buchanon and the other players will likely be back soon.

[zephyr]

_ J1M, I don't necessarily disagree with any of what you say except for this: Forget what the coaches see in practice: The TEAM does not respect Masson and will not follow him. I don't know why that is, it just obviously IS. Our best chance to win THIS YEAR is with Brad. If our coaches can't watch what goes on in games and on the sidelines and see that Masson does not have the respect of the team, they need to be run off, anyway. We don't have enough talent to win 7-8 games with our schedule behind a QB that is not THE leader of his team. _

What is so apparent to you that Masson does not have the team's respect? Just curious because I doubt any of us truly know the inner workings of the team as we all hear things second hand.

[zephyr]

_ I'm with you on this. Everyone says these polls are meaningless. It is meaningless because we are rated so low. I suspect if we were rated #50, it would be a very big deal, at least to me it would. It would certainly say a lot about our program. Unfortunately, #103 also says a lot about our program, particularly the overall perception of our program. We are still rated among the worse programs in the country and one of the worse programs within the worse conference in the country. This has got to be a make it or break it year for us and certainly for this coaching staff, although Bustle just got a 2 year extension. The magazine rankings that appear to mean the most, however, are Phil Steele and Athlon College Football, so I'm curious as to where they will rank us. Phil Steel's magazine comes out on June 8. However, that said, if we are ranked in the middle of the pack of the worse conference in the country, where else can we be ranked but in the bottom 100. I think Troy and MT, given their recent success and bowl appearances, will likely make it into the 70s, which is where we need to strive for. _

There are two sides to the theory. You are right, if we were ranked much higher, you'd be getting a very positive reaction to the story if I'm not mistaken. However, the information that the writer uses to base his rankings makes no sense. He refers to Masson as the QB and while that is obviously assumable, we all know that he will face stiff competition in the preseason due to his struggles in the spring and Gautier's emergence at the end of last year. He doesn't know who we have coming in at RB as our talent level will be lightyears ahead of what we had last year. He also uses Hall Davis as great loss to our defense likely due to his drafting but he obviously doesn't know that Hall had a whopping 6.5 sacks his entire career. Not that impressive for such a force that we will miss greatly on defense and struggle to replace is it? Again, at the level of these rankings, there is likely very little that separates teams 100+ from many of the teams ranked in the 80's and even 70's and the small things that do separate those teams are likely unknown to a writer who has no inside information or working knowledge of those teams such as our upcoming RB situation.