2011 New Orleans Bowl: LOUISIANA (32) SDSU (30)

[Turbine]

5 Calendar years

5 Bowl appearances.

This is the one that started it all.

[Bandwagon King]

I don't know what stories like this are telling you guys, but they are painting a very clear picture for me. I have heard & read people on this site make fun of Wright Waters in the past & I have joined in myself. However, UL's previous disappointments have served to gain the SBC something that it is now in a position to take advantage of. Being the conference nobody wanted with the pretty much little brothers of the big powerhouse schools in the same states & having bowl agreements in locations close to our stomping grounds has given the SBC something many other conferences in college football wish for, but will never have. It gives the SBC stability.

Stability is a fertile breeding ground for young fan bases seeking to grow. What this conference needs is a leader. I have always maintained when others argued that the SBC wasn't "good enough" that UL had to be outright champions at least once to make that claim. Now UL can & in point of fact needs to start to take its rightful role as SBC leaders & show the rest of the country that a pretty mean brand of football can be played in Lafayette as well as anywhere in this country. If you can't have the SEC, & not everyone can, then why not go with the next best thing (SBC) SEC light? This sould give UL a major leg up on outside schools from other conferences trying to take players from our area ( which should rightfully stretch from East Texas across to the Florida panhandle) with a big emphasis on the Acadiana, River parishes, bayou country, & New Orleans. Let's face it. If you get the players with character & talent to go along with great coaching,organization, & dedication then you're gonna win. There is no magic formula. It just takes somebody with enough guts to say WE can do it & it CAN BE DONE HERE. This is what HUD has done. Not only can it be done, but it should be expected annually.

Almost 43,000 people with a school from 1400 miles away. Think about that people. The New Orleans bowl could be the 6th most attended bowl game this year & will almost certainly be in the top 12 of the bowl season. I don't know what this tells you, but it tells me & anyone else with eyes to see, that this could be the start of something very very BIG.

I wonder who wrote this so many years ago? The man reads like a prophet.

[Bandwagon King]

Thanks Turbine for bringing back some good memories. I feel inspired to start another thread. Like a good dump, I feel a 1420 ESPN Lafayette thread coming on.

[Turbine]

Tie-ins bring a lot of security for the lean 6-6 years, but they really lack for the teams having an epic season.

How cool would a 10-year anniversary rematch be?

12-1 vs 11-2

[Esqueleto]

Tie-ins bring a lot of security for the lean 6-6 years, but they really lack for the teams having an epic season.

How cool would a 10-year anniversary rematch be?

12-1 vs 11-2

Woulda been pretty damn cool.

[Grantvb]

Found this from 10 yrs ago… https://youtu.be/rBLzLqUfjt4

[NewsCopy]

A decade later, it still brings chills.

It's been a full decade, and Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns have had more than their share of big moments, bowl success and championship performances.

UL has made eight bowl appearances in that time, winning six of those, and is riding a string of four straight Sun Belt Conference West Division titles. The Cajuns added the league's overall crown and won their first-ever conference championship game only two weeks ago.

They've got some memorable wins, especially during the runaway success that has resulted in a 33-5 record over the past three seasons heading into Saturday's R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl. The Cajuns, who face Marshall at 8:15 p.m. in the Caesars Superdome, have won 29 times in the last 32 times they've taken the field.

But in all that time, and in the over 100 years that UL has played football prior to that, no one play and no one moment comes close to what happened exactly ten years ago today. Saturday, Dec. 17, 2011 at 11:52 p.m., on that same Superdome turf, on the Poydras Street end of the iconic stadium, one play stands as the most iconic, the seminal moment, the absolute first time that followers of the Cajun program realized that, yes, this could happen here.

The radio call from long-time UL broadcaster Jay Walker said it all as Brett Baer lined up behind the ball, the white No. 40 numerals on the back of his red jersey seemingly bigger than his 5-foot-11 and 180 pounds, stepping back from holder Brady Thomas and then two big steps to the left, watching deep snapper John Broussard steady himself.

"So this will be a 50 yard attempt. Mark Hudspeth, they just showed him on the sidelines, and he said it twice, he's going to make it. Let's see …

"Kick is on its way …. and the kick …. Is … GOOD! CAJUNS WIN! CAJUNS WIN! CAJUNS WIN! CAJUNS WIN! CAJUNS WIN! CAJUNS WIN! A 50-yard field goal as time expired by Brett Baer, and Louisiana has won the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl! Holy cow, can you believe it?"

It wasn't straight down the middle as the ball hooked toward the left upright – not the best of movements since Baer was kicking from the left hash mark – but it stayed well inside, landing on a large purple New Orleans Bowl banner that covered the exit tunnel just as the clock hit 0:00.

"I never saw it go through," Baer said later, "but I was glad it didn't hook out."

Most of the 42,481 fans in attendance felt the same, since it was a predominantly Cajun crowd that went into a frenzy even before the scoreboard reflected the 32-30 final score against a stunned San Diego State team that had scored what seemed like a winning touchdown only 32 seconds earlier.

The rest is a blur for Baer, the Mississippi native who remains one of the most accurate kickers in both Cajun and NCAA history. He barely realized that he broke into a helter-skelter run around the field, with Thomas and many of his teammates making chase. Perhaps the memory of being at the bottom of a game-ending scrum a couple of months earlier after his final-play game-winner against Florida Atlantic gave him the adrenaline rush to surpass his less-than-stellar 40-yard-dash speed.

"Brady was trying to take me to the ground," he said. "Everybody had piled on top of me at the end of that one (FAU), and the bottom of that's definitely not fun. It takes those big guys a while to get off of you. I didn't know where I was going, but it was fun."

UL had never been to a true Division I bowl game prior to that year (the 1970 Grantland Rice Bowl was essentially a college-division playoff), but in Mark Hudspeth's first year as head coach the Cajuns had won eight of their first 10 games and had all but locked up a bowl invitation more than a month earlier when they scored two touchdowns in the final 2:05 in a comeback 36-35 win over state and Sun Belt rival ULM.

UL lost its last two games in the regular season at Arkansas State and Arizona, but even that couldn't take the luster off a public announcement one day after the season finale. New Orleans Bowl officials came to Lafayette and formally extended an invitation in front of a cheering crowd, with an oversized ticket at the end of the "rope" that Hudsepth had turned into a "Don't let go of the rope" rallying cry.

The Cajuns traveled the two hours to the Crescent City on Tuesday of bowl week, and the five days were a whirlwind of activity. Since UL had never experienced bowl pageantry and celebration, the players and staff soaked it up with fervor. After all that the week had to offer, some questioned whether the game and its result had become irrelevant.

Nothing could have been further from the truth of what happened on that Saturday night ten years ago today.

After spotting the Aztecs an opening-drive field goal, UL took control on Blaine Gautier's touchdown pass to Javone Lawson in the final minute of the first quarter and Darryl Surgent's 87-yard punt return score – still the second-longest in UL history – less than two minutes later. The Cajuns led until the final moments, with Baer's chip-shot field goal with 2:09 left providing a 29-24 lead.

However, future NFL regular Ryan Lindley led a late San Diego State drive that ended with his 12-yard TD pass to Colin Lockett with 35 seconds left, giving the Aztecs a 32-30 lead. An apparent two-point conversion pass to Lockett was completed, but officials ruled that Lockett had stepped out of the end zone and then came back in bounds, nullifying the catch and keeping the two-point difference.

Baer remembers looking at the scoreboard with dread. The remarkably-reliable junior had an earlier PAT attempt blocked and missed a second.

"I was on the sideline thinking those two extra points were losing the game for us," he said. "Everyone was coming up to me and saying we're going to have a chance and we're going to need you at the end. To be honest, I used to think in that situation that the game was over … but with everything that had happened to us during the year, and what happened after that, made me a believer."

Surgent's kickoff return went only to the 18, but New Orleans Bowl Outstanding Player Blaine Gautier fought the clock and found Harry Peoples on a slant for 13 yards and Lawson on a crossing pattern for 26. The second of those moved the ball to the SDSU 43, and after Gautier spiked a snap to stop the clock with seven seconds left, he had the last of his bowl-record 470 passing yards on a 5-yard out to Peoples with :03 left.

Out came Baer for what would be a career-long 55-yard field goal, but just before the snap, flags flew.

"I thought it was a false start and we were going to back up five more," he said, "but I saw (offensive linemen Daniel) Quave and (Jaron) Odom both clapping."

San Diego State had drawn the penalty for "stemming" when the defensive line flinched to simulate the snap, moving the ball five yards closer.

"It wasn't like a change in mindset, it happened so fast," Baer said. "It's not that it wasn't makeable at 55, but I knew from 50 we had a chance."

The distance was there, and that extra five yards made sure the ball didn't hook outside the left upright, setting off a wild scene on the Superdome turf that went on for nearly an hour.

"We didn't leave there until around 1 a.m., and I remember best getting back to the hotel and seeing the flood of fans at the Marriott," Baer said. "So many people there that were just so happy and there was so much excitement. It was like a big family atmosphere."

Baer led the Cajuns in scoring each of his last two years and remains the all-time No. 2 kick scorer in Cajun history. He had three more field goals, including a 50-yarder with no time remaining at the end of the third quarter, and punted for a 42.4 average in the following year's 43-34 New Orleans Bowl win over East Carolina in his final college game. He had four game-winners in his three years, but the others paled in comparison to that iconic bowl moment.

"It's still the most exciting football moment ever," Walker said, and most Cajun fans would agree

Louisiana Athletics
RaginCajuns.com
PRESS RELEASE

[Turbine]

Good memories exactly 10 years apart.

[ColoradoCajun]

Good memories exactly 10 years apart.

I cannot believe that was 10 years ago already! I still remember going to the game! Glad we could get another NOLA win this year! GEAUX CAJUNS

[DieHard 1280]

Holy time warp, Batman!! 10 YEARS ago already?

Next thing you're gonna tell me is that our CWS run was 21 years ago.

[ColoradoCajun]

Holy time warp, Batman!! 10 YEARS ago already?

Time flies lol!

[ColoradoCajun]

Next thing you're gonna tell me is that our CWS run was 21 years ago.

Our CWS run was 21 years ago. Oh wow you were right, that really was the next thing I told you! lmao