Jay Walker: You've been on the job for a little bit under 2 months . . . Are you where you thought you would be 2 months into the job, are you ahead of the game, or are you behind trying to catch up?
Coach Cyp: I think we are probably a little bit behind, I thought in certain areas we would be ahead, for example scheduling. I didn't realize how difficult it is to schedule here, so in that aspect -in my mind- I feel we are a little behind. But to some here in the community or in the area, or in the department, it’s been that way. To me, I don't like finishing up a schedule in July or August. I don't feel comfortable doing that.
Jay Walker: Dude, July and August is like early . . . as a matter of fact if you look at last years schedule you will find out it was never finished. 
Coach Cyp: 
I understand, so from that standpoint I feel like we are a little behind, as far as that goes, but in other areas I think we're ahead. The one thing I said I wanted to do was kind of take my time in hiring staff members, and I have done that up to this point. It's an ongoing process, and I'm just prioritizing every day.
The one thing that has been great has been the community support, and people stepping up, and really wanting to help get things done. Jay I tell you, that’s been phenomenal to me, and it's really helped me out in a number of different areas
Jay Walker: You have announced that you have hired “a” coach. Now is that all you have sitting over there at the complex, is a coach?
Coach Cyprien: No we’re going to probably make another announcement the first of next week, on another coach, we’ll make two announcements next week on two other coaches.
Jay Walker: On two another coach, see because I got people calling here wanting to know why we don’t have all of these announcements, because everybody knows who your staff is going to be anyway.
Coach Cyprien: Well they have an idea . . . . Some things are not official with some of the other guys that I am trying to bring aboard, whether it’s from a financial standpoint or trying to work out some details or whether it’s with the university where they are coming from. Trust me if I could have hired them the day I got the job, and had everyone here with me, it would have been easier for me. I had to recruit them.
Jay Walker: You had a lot of interest though in the assistant coaches job, again there’s only 317 of these jobs available, and at the average of 2.5 assistants per, that means there are only about 800 of these jobs available in America. And you had openings, I’m sure you had a lot of calls from a lot of people.
Coach Cyprien: . . . Yeah in the span of 3 days I had 262 phone calls, now it was a combination of maybe 30 people saying congratulations, and the others calling about jobs. You would be surprised the people, former head coaches, guys that are older, just from all walk of life. Just yesterday I had a guy just show up at my office; I’ve had guys showing up at my office. It has been pretty interesting on people trying to get a job here. So that says a lot for the program, says a lot for what was done before me, and I have a great appreciation for that.
Jay Walker: You said scheduling is more difficult than you imagined it would be. In what regard? . . . You thought you had friends who were going to take care of you.
Coach Cyprien: That was part of it, but I think the other part is if I’m going to go on the road and play a game, I’d rather come to a place like the Cajundome. Especially if I’m in another league, if I want my team to get prepared for playing in a tough environment on the road, which is something I consider when I schedule. I schedule games based on, you want to play a competitive schedule you want to play a competitive road schedule. But you also want to try to go to some places where you have an opportunity to teach you team how to play through the crowd, or noisy environments, and that’s important. So in saying so, I would think –on the flip side- there would be some schools that would say ‘lets go play down at the Cajundome, tough environment, great facilities, and give us an opportunity to play a tough road game. And it hasn’t been that easy.
Jay Walker: You found out that there aren’t as many people that want to do that as you thought.
Coach Cyprien: That is exactly right. So we are still out there hunting home games. My goal is I want to get at least 14 home games every year, that is my goal.
Jay Walker: It’s got to be hard though, to do it this next year coming up -this your first season- because -you’re going to have 8 conference games at home- but you only have one school that owes you a visit, and that’s Rice University. Everybody else that you schedule, it’s like ‘OK guys I’ll play you home-and-home but we got to start at our place’ or its, ‘OK I’ll pay you $30,000’ which you ain’t got, to bring them in, so I got to think that trying to get 14 home games is going to be really tough this year.
Coach Cyprien: Yeah it’s going to be. But that is my goal, and I think we can get there, but we are going to have to be unique –in that- we may have to play one or two teams twice this year. For the sake of getting a home game –which I think is important- I don’t want to sacrifice our team from a mental standpoint just throwing them out there and say OK we are going to play 10 home games and play the rest on the road. I just don’t think we can afford to do that. And from a community stand point, I think we owe this community -we owe this city- a home schedule that they can be proud of at some point. Then they can come see their team and cheer on their team, and that is what I am looking to do.
Quote
Louisiana's New Coach Pledges Success
