The Book: 2004 FOOTBALL

[NewsCopy]

Louisiana can better 2004 win total with a win at UL Monroe

MONROE — There won’t be a winning season at stake for either team, but today’s 6:30 p.m. season finale at UL Monroe remains an important one for Louisiana’s Ragin’ Cajuns.

Both the Cajuns and Indians are 4-6 on the 2004 campaign, so a win provides momentum for the offseason and recruiting as well as getting the victorious program a step closer to climbing over .500.

“(Winning) five obviously sounds better than four,” Cajun defensive coordinator Brent Pry said. “We won three games the first year here and four last year, and you’d like to go ahead and keep climbing.

“But also, Monroe has beaten us two years in a row. We haven’t beaten them under coach (Rickey) Bustle and we’d like to do that.”

“You always want to finish on a high note, and obviously Monroe wants to do the same thing,” Bustle said. “We’ve been close and we’re tired of being close. It would be a positive thing to take into the offseason knowing that we played well down the stretch and that our seniors go out winning their last game.”

The 2003 Cajuns won four of their last five games to salvage pride in a 4-8 season. This year’s squad has lost back-to-back games at home to the Sun Belt Conference’s two best teams, North Texas (27-17) and Troy (13-10), and doesn’t want to go out losing three straight.

“It’s a rivalry game, and that helps your focus,” Pry said. “But, also, this is the seniors’ last game. We were able to put those other games behind us because this is the last one. The Troy game was forgotten awfully quickly.”

The Cajuns have improved defensively in recent weeks, and Pry wants to see more of that today.

“We want to continue building on some success we’ve had,” Pry said. “We will come together at some point and all be working on the right day. When that happens, we’ll be trouble for someone.

The rest of the story

Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com

[snote]

Originally posted by shof
Bil,Enjoyed today's show. Thanks for the archives!
Shof

thank you.. please remember if i do not get around to posting the specific link in the rage .. one can always go search the sportsnoteradio site for past shows.. i am the web (tee-hee)

ps. leaving in the 4 wheel plane w/jay and stinking stevie for monroe in hour or so .. please "click" in the game broadcast and listen

pss. then if so kind come back and give me some "corrective criticism".. i enjoy hearing how to become better.. thanks

[El Sidonio]

To our women's BB, congrats, and good luck in the Alaska tourney.

To our men's BB, congrats against Tech, and for a good effort against LSU (though I didn't see it, just heard about it). I will admit that at home, with some homecooked refs, LSU probably can do no harm, if you know what I mean, but in the end, that's no excuse, so learn the lesson, keep the momentum, and let's beat Rice!

To our men's FB, I dunno what the heck to think?!? We supposedly have good players and a good coach, and I understand our program has improved overall. But none of it will matter unless we put more wins on the record! in the end, isn't winning the point of all the effort? Without more wins, our program will sink sink sink back to where it was, and we'll lose whatever we might have gained this season. Let's start playing smarter football, and play all 60 minutes, and get the W's that our program sorely needs.

God Bless.

[NewsCopy]

LOUISIANA La. — The 2004 football season turned out to be one of those “coulda, shoulda, woulda” campaigns for Louisiana’s Ragin’ Cajuns.

They were highly competitive throughout, but still stumbled home with a 4-7 record.

Four of the seven defeats were the agonizing kind, with frustrating margins of 4, 3, 3 and 3 — the last two of those being 13-10 defeats in the final two contests of the season.

Despite that, or perhaps largely because of it, Carencro’s Bill Sampy is aiming to stick around another year if he can.

“I’m going to try to be a fifth-year senior,” said Sampy, who caught 8 passes for 104 yards and a touchdown in Saturday’s 13-10 loss at UL Monroe. “This is only my third year of college football, and I’d like to play another year.”

Sampy, who sat out the 2001 season to become academically eligible, can get that season back with an on-time graduation.

He may achieve that with summer school classes, and be avaliable when Jerry Babb and the rest of the Cajuns take another shot at a winning record in 2005.

The finale showed Sampy’s value to the Cajun aerial game as he scored the team’s lone touchdown with an acrobatic sideline catch in the end zone and had another score that would have won the game called back by penalty.

“North Texas and Troy both played us Cover-2 (zone),” Sampy said. “But tonight, UL Monroe played man-to-man, and that gave me a chance to get open a lot. If you play me ‘man,’ its going to be tough on you.”

For the year, Sampy finished with 57 catches for 776 yards and 6 touchdowns, all team highs.

He now has 126 catches for 1,589 yards and 9 scores at UL.

The rest of the story

Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com

[DaddyCajun]

Coach made a statement that he has 17 or so starters of the 22 that started this year coming back next year!! This is great! Is this including Sampy and any others that may get a year back?


He also said that he was able to redshirt some nice looking Freshmen!!

DADDYCAJUN!

[NewsCopy]

LOUISIANA La. — To Rickey Bustle, the numbers do not tell the entire story.

His Louisiana Ragin’ Cajun football squad won four games this season, the same number it did in last year’s 4-8 campaign.

And while this year’s 4-7 final mark isn’t a big step from the previous year, or even from the 3-9 record of his first year in 2002, Bustle said that isn’t a true indication of where the Cajun program stands.

“The wins and losses don’t show the improvement we’ve made,” Bustle said Monday, two days after a disappointing 13-10 road loss to UL Monroe that wrapped up his third season. “Obviously, we take responsibility for that record, and I have to find the silver lining in all of this.

“But this team believes we’re better than we were last year. The players know that, the people that watched us on a regular basis know that. That’s something that we can build on.”

The Cajuns lost four games by four or fewer points, including 13-10 losses in each of their last two games. That’s a 13-point swing from 4-7 to 8-3.

But the UL squad also finished 2-5 in Sun Belt Conference play after going 4-3 one year earlier. One year ago, the Cajuns tied for second in the league race. This year, they were in a three-way tie for seventh, eighth and ninth in a nine-team league.

“I’m a positive person,” Bustle said, “but I’m also a realist. We have to learn how to win. And that will come. If you don’t have the heart and desire, you’re never going to win, but we have that.

“I honestly felt going into the season that we’d win more than we lost. Our defense played a lot better toward the end of the season, but then our offense struggled. Our guys never stopped playing hard, even on Saturday, and I was glad we did that. We just have to find a way to get around that corner.”

The rest of the story

Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@lafayette.gannett.com

[NewsCopy]

Bizarre coach searches in men's hoops, and softball success top UL list in 2004

A year that began with one former Ragin' Cajun leading his team to the Super Bowl and ended with another having a hand in NFL history can't be all bad, and the University of Louisiana had its share of athletic highlights in 2004.

When Jake Delhomme left the New Orleans Saints in 2003 to join the Carolina Panthers, he was seeking a chance to be a starting quarterback in the NFL. He and the Panthers caught fire and rode that momentum all the way to a Super Bowl appearance against New England, losing a classic 32-29.

Wide receiver Brandon Stokley, who for two years caught passes from Delhomme with the Ragin' Cajuns, sought a new horizon of his own when he went from Baltimore to Indianapolis in 2003. By the time the 2004 season arrived, Stokley was a big part of a record-setting Colts offense led by Peyton Manning.

It was Stokley who caught Manning's NFL-record 49th touchdown pass of the season the day after Christmas, carving his name into the record books with his quarterback.

There were other positives, such as a return to NCAA Tournament play in men's basketball, newfound success in women's basketball, 60 victories in softball, major steps forward in facilities improvements and booming attendance in football.

But, sadly, one of the year's major stories revolved around controversy involving the basketball program.

CAJUNS UP, DOWN, UP IN BASKETBALL

Jessie Evans' final UL team posted a 20-9 record that included a second Sun Belt Conference championship and a berth in the NCAA Tournament to go with the one his Cajuns posted in the 1999-2000 campaign.

Such on-the-court success came despite repeated shortcomings in the classroom, as Cajun athletes faced frequent loss of early-season action while they got their academics in order.

Still, Evans was courted by the University of San Francisco and left to lead that program _ prompting a coaching search for the Cajuns.

Oklahoma State assistant coach Glynn Cyprien was the eventual choice, and came to town preaching academic progress and accountability. Then after two months on the job, inaccuracies were discovered in Cyprien's resume' and he was fired by Athletic Director Nelson Schexnayder.

By year's end, Cyprien had filed suit against the university over the firing.

Nine-year staff veteran Robert Lee, who had served as an assistant under both Marty Fletcher and Evans, was retained by Cyprien after being a finalist in the selection process.

It was Lee who was chosen to take over the Cajuns in July after Cyprien's firing, and Lee immediately set to work to change the image of the program. By the time the fall semester was complete, the Cajuns had produced the best classroom performance by the men's basketball program in 20 years.

On the court, the Cajuns battled through a brutal early schedule and an injury to point guard Orien Greene, following newcomer Tiras Wade to a 5-5 mark that had them eager for more success in the Sun Belt Conference chase.

SOFTBALL WINS 60

Louisiana was handed a difficult assignment in the 2004 NCAA Softball Tournament, assigned a No. 5 seed and sent westward to a regional hosted by Arizona, the No. 1 team in the nation.

The rest of the story

Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com