Through three and a half football games, the University of Louisiana defense didn't record a quarterback sack.

Suddenly, in the third quarter last Saturday, the Ragin' Cajuns somehow morphed into a red version of the Purple People Eaters ... into a Doomsday Defense minus the silver star ... into a smaller-sized Steel Curtain.

Five ... count 'em, five ... quarterback sacks against Central Florida. Twice the Cajuns sacked Golden Knight quarterback Steven Moffett on consecutive plays.

"We had schemed them up pretty well to attack their protections," said UL defensive coordinator Brent Pry. "We talked to the South Florida coaches, and we put two new blitzes in and put a lot of emphasis on four pre-existing blitz packages."

Most of those involved getting big plays from the middle linebackers, and Mark Risher and Brenton Burkhalter didn't disappoint.

Risher, a sophomore from St. Thomas More, finished with seven solo tackles among his nine stops, and one of his two tackles for negative yardage was a 10-yard sack.

Burkhalter, a redshirt freshman from Parkview Baptist in Baton Rouge, had a pair of sacks totaling 24 yards among his career-high eight tackles.

"We knew we had to step up and play better as a group," Burkhalter said of Pry's linebacker corps. "We'd been struggling ... the linebackers are the core of the defense, and I really think we stepped up as a group."

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Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@theadvertiser.com