Louisiana-Lafayette at Southern Miss
Monday’s line: USM -10.5
First meeting: 1923 in Lafayette
Last meeting: 2003 in Hattiesburg (USM won 48-3)
Southern Miss leads the series 37-11-1
Saturday’s season opener features an opponent long familiar to the Golden Eagles. Even though the match-up has been more sporadic in recent years, USM has played more football games vs. UL-L than any opponent other than Memphis, and until either Ole Miss grows a pair or a long-forgotten opponent like the Gulf Coast Military Academy re-opens and joins Division I (which is about as likely), the Ragin’ Cajuns own the distinction of being the Golden Eagles’ (as well as the Normalites’, Yellow Jackets’, Confederates’, and Southerners’) longest-running active opponent.
A member of the Sun Belt, hard times have fallen on the Ragin’ Cajuns in recent years. From 2000-2004, UL-L managed no more than 4 wins per season. A couple of consecutive 6-win seasons in ’05 and ’06–including an ’05 Sun Belt 3-way-Co-Championship (Arkansas State thwarted ULL’s shot at playing a bowl game at home by claiming the New Orleans Bowl berth vs. Southern Miss via tie-breakers)–brought optimism, but that came crashing down under the weight of inexperience and a 3-9 campaign last year. What appeared to be an encouraging 28-14 loss at South Carolina in the season opener turned out to merely be the start of a 5-game losing streak to begin the season, including a humbling 38-17 loss to FCS neighbor McNeese. The Ragin’ Cajuns did manage 2 wins in their final 3 games (the loss being by a mere 6 points to in-state rival and Tide-roller Louisiana-Monroe), however, and hope to build upon that in 2008.
UL-L will bring one of the highest-ranked running games in college football to The Rock on Saturday. The 2007 Ragin’ Cajuns were 7th in the nation in total yards on the ground and featured two of the Top 40 rushers nationally, both of whom are back in 2008: senior QB Michael Desormeaux (1,141 yards in ‘07) and senior RB Tyrell Fenroy (1,021 yards in ’07; 3,271 in 3 seasons).
One phase of the game does not a team make, however, and all that running success went largely for naught when paired with a passing game ranked 115th in total yards and a total defense ranked 104th. The Ragin’ Cajuns also ranked an unsightly 88th in turnover margin on the year (more on that later).
On defense, the consensus is that the Ragin’ Cajuns strength is the linebacking corp of senior Antwyne Zanders (93 tackles, 7 for loss, 54 solo), sophomore Grant Fleming (71 tackles, 40 solo), and senior Brent Burkhalter (65 tackles, 42 solo). Things are shaky both in front of and behind that threesome, though, as the Cajun D-line helped allow over 228 yards rushing per game in ’07 (good for 113th in the nation), and as alluded to above regarding turnover margin, the defense as a whole didn’t even crack double-digits in interceptions (9) in 2007. UL-L’s pass defense gave up a quite respectable average of 218 yards per game (43rd in the nation), but the failure to stop the run combined with a penchant for giving up big plays negated that.
Looking towards 2008, there’s no reason to think the Ragin’ Cajuns’ running game will miss a beat, as the two main cogs are returning seniors and all but one of their offensive linemen are returning starters. The defense should be improved, as they were young last year and return with a great deal of experience, but considering the starting point, even a huge improvement there will only result in mediocrity.
Obviously, the key to the game for Southern Miss will be to stop Desormeaux and Fenroy on the ground. That may be tough since UL-L’s experienced O-line matches up well with the inexperienced USM D-line (zero returning starters). If the Golden Eagles can pull it off, the game should be a blowout. Even if they can’t, the USM offense with own its arsenal of weapons should be able to more than keep pace. Louisiana-Lafayette has just too many things to improve upon for me to be concerned about this one.
