ULL Preparing For North Texas

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ULL preparing for North Texas

By GLENN QUEBEDEAUX

Special to The Advocate

LAFAYETTE -- After a streak of three weeks in which they saw everything go against them, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns are finally seeing things fall their way for a change.

Two weeks ago, the Cajuns scored late to pull off a stunning 13-10 upset at Middle Tennessee. And Saturday night, after blowing a 20-0 lead and being taken into overtime by the Troy Trojans, they managed to pull off another three-point victory, 31-28.

Earlier this year -- certainly during the first 15 days of October when they lost three straight, two by three points -- both of those games almost certainly would have ended differently.

So what is the sudden difference?

"I think we're a team that's learning how to win," redshirt freshman Michael Desormeaux said after the Cajuns' latest victory. "It might be a little too late, but we still have a chance to have a heckuva season and it can be great for us, great for our program.

"We've got three games left … I think we go to North Texas next week and hopefully we can continue to find a way to win. I don't care what the score is as long as we get it done."

The Cajuns (3-5, 2-2 Sun Belt Conference) stands 1‰ games behind league-leading Louisiana-Monroe, a team the Cajuns play Nov. 26 in Monroe.

The Indians still must play defending champion North Texas and at Middle Tennessee.

ULL, meanwhile, must face North Texas this week and last-place Florida International before its date with the Indians (3-4, 3-0).

Arkansas State, the only other SBC team (4-3, 3-1) with one loss still must face Middle Tennessee, Troy and North Texas.

"Every one of them (games) is huge now," ULL coach Rickey Bustle said. "It's a matter of us taking care of our business a day at a time.

"That's the way we started this approach two weeks ago: we have a chance to maybe win (conference). We said that a couple of weeks ago and people probably saw that and thought I was crazy.

"I just felt like if we did the right things and kept playing hard that we might get ourselves in the thick of it.

"We'll see."

The Cajuns certainly did the right things and kept playing hard Saturday after squandering leads of 20 and 14 points in the second half.

Sean Comiskey, who had missed a field goal and extra point and also botched a kickoff, booted a 40-yard field goal on the fourth play of overtime to give the Cajuns the victory. It was the third game-winning field goal of Comiskey's ULL career.

And the ULL defense also did its part in overtime, stopping the Trojans on three straight plays and forcing a field goal. That field goal attempt sailed wide left, ending a two-game winning streak for Troy (3-5, 2-2).

The Cajuns had led 14-0 after one quarter, 20-0 in the third and 28-14 in the final quarter.

"We just didn't put them away," Bustle said.

The game marked the return of ULL quarterback Jerry Babb, who missed almost a month of action with a shoulder injury. He entered the game on the Cajuns third offensive series after Desormeaux had led the team to two touchdowns on the first two drives.

Babb completed his first three passes but then missed his next seven. He finished 3 of 10 for 48 yards and had two rushes for four yards.

"We were going to play Jerry on the second or third series," said Bustle. "And Jerry did OK. We had really good field position at times, we just couldn't get any points out it.

"Jerry's a little rusty throwing the football and on a couple of reads. We just tried to play through it and got Mike back in there in the second half and (we) said 'we'll see what happens.' ''

Bustle said he had considered holding off making the switch in the first quarter, given Desormeaux's success running the team. But he decided against it.

"We had talked about it and we were going to go with it because we needed to open it up a little bit. But we didn't do it."

Both quarterbacks are expected to see action this week as well.

Desormeaux finished Saturday's game completing 6 of 10 passes for 86 yards. He also rushed 13 times for 64 yards and scored one touchdown.

Freshman running back Tyrell Venroy led the Cajuns with 156 yards and three touchdowns on 27 carries. It was Venroy's second 100-yard rushing game of the season.