The Louisiana Ragin' Cajun football team departs today for Denton, Texas, for its key Sun Belt Conference battle against North Texas. The departure time, though, is earlier than anticipated.
With the Cajuns making the trip by bus instead of a scheduled charter flight - one of the department's cost-cutting measures with the recent budget cuts - the squad will depart the UL Conference Center at 8:15 a.m.
"We didn't want to seem like we were rushing things," said Cajun coach Rickey Bustle. "We're going to make a nice day out of it."
The team will drive to Marshall, Texas, before having lunch, and is scheduled to arrive in Denton at 4:30 p.m. Bustle said the team will hold a walk-through at the hotel late this afternoon and hold its regular Friday-night meetings. "We'll watch some movies on the bus," Bustle said, "and get on our regular schedule Friday night."
One concession to the trip is a change in the team's Sunday schedule. The team's regular 3 p.m. meetings have been moved to 6 p.m. to be followed by a Sunday night practice.
"We explained to the kids what was going on," Bustle said of the switch from a charter flight to a bus trip. "Everybody has to do their part. The budget cuts have affected the whole university and the whole state, and all of our sports are going to get cut. This is part of what we can do."
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Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@theadvertiser.com