Cajuns Seek To Redefine Themselves
BOBBY ARDOIN
St. Landry Now.com Editor
How much does one game define a football season?
The answer to that might come sooner than expected for the Louisiana football team.
Head coach Mike Desormeaux felt he had enough evidence to provide a reasonably accurate blueprint of his squad prior to the season-opening kickoff Saturday night at Our Lady Of Lourdes Stadium.
Over three hours later, it seemed ironic that Desormeaux was the coach seeking solutions for his team instead of a Rice University staff that was first introduced to their players only eight months before.
Offensively the Cajuns, Desormeaux said, couldn’t establish much continuity through four quarters of the 14-12 loss, while defensively, he said Louisiana allowed a Rice option-oriented offense, introduced for the initial time, to control tempo for nearly the entire first half.
“It was a nightmare offensively. We couldn’t establish field position,” Desormeaux said.
Defensively the Cajuns allowed the Owls, using their recently-implemented option scheme, to dominate time of possession until the early third quarter when Louisiana began shortening the length for the Owls’ offensive series.
Rice gained only 78 total offensive yards in the second half, after obtaining 180 in the initial two periods.
“We missed some tackles early. In the second half we kind of bowed our necks and made some tackles,” Desormeaux pointed out.
Containing the option, Desormeaux pointed out, requires successful one-on-one tackling, which was an evidentiary problem during the first two quarters.
“We weren’t getting off their blocks. In the second half, I thought our defense was outstanding, but you never should lose a game when you only give up 14,” said Desormeaux.
The Rice contest was the first for Louisiana junior transfer Walker Howard, who completed 10-of-22 passes for 88 yards. Howard threw an interception, lost a fumble and was removed from the game with 1:51 remaining.
Desormeaux said he couldn’t speculate on the injury to Howard less than an hour after it occurred..
The Cajuns’ running game netted only 151 yards and a Walker touchdown run.
Overall Desormeaux admitted, it was Rice who decided how the game would unfold.
The Owls had possession for almost 40 minutes of a 60-minute game.
“They (Rice) played a team game. They played their game. We were doing things that good teams don’t do. You don’t want to beat yourself and we did,” Desormeaux added.
The objective now Desormeaux said during his postgame press conference, is how does his team react to a game that was certainly winnable in the collective minds of the 22,148 who attended the first contest played in the newly-remodeled venue.
Desormeaux seemed to infer that the Cajuns’ performance, at least for him, was somewhat perplexing.
“I felt good about our team and it appeared they were ready to go. Sometimes when you get out there under the lights, it’s different,” Desormeaux said.
Up next for the Cajuns is a hosted-game with McNeese State, a former conference and annual geographical rival that dismantled Louisiana Christian University 54-9 in Lake Charles on Saturday night.
