The Louisiana Ragin Cajuns aren’t going to be resting on their laurels in their final two games, especially with the Troy Trojans matchup looming large on Saturday. Don’t let their 5-5 record fool you, Chip Lindsey’s Trojans are just as dangerous as some of the previous teams, but in a different way.
Throughout the Neal Brown era, the Trojans were always in the top three in the conference in total defense. Now that Brown has moved on to a Power-Five job with the West Virginia Mountaineers, Chip Lindsey has changed things virtually overnight, ranked second behind the Ragin’ Cajuns in total offense, averaging 477 yards per game and a lot of that is due to the phenomenal performance from Kaleb Barker. Through 10 games, the senior has thrown for over 3,000 yards and 30 TDs.
The key is without a doubt going to be the secondary for the Cajuns against Troy’s skill players.
“This is a matchup game all the way.” Cajuns head coach Billy Napier said during his time with the media on Monday. “Very much like Arkansas State, there’s going to be some big-time matchups. Outside and even in the slot, they’ve got some matchup issues. They play in four-wide forty percent of the time.”
With that in mind, one key player potentially returning is Michael Jacquet. He’s been one of the better players in the secondary and could be huge in what many expect to be a high-scoring affair. Jacquet was held back in Saturday’s 37-27 victory over South Alabama after suffering an injury in the team’s win over Coastal Carolina a couple of weeks ago. It wasn’t all positive though for the Cajuns defense with Zi’Yon Hill being ruled as doubtful on Monday after exiting Saturday’s game with a shoulder injury.
“It will be one that’s gonna take some time,” Napier said, “and it’s gonna be a couple of days to get an idea of where he’s at, how stable is it, those types of things.”
The New Iberia product had been having a great year after undergoing shoulder surgery last season with 40 total tackles and 1.5 sacks.
While in the status of Jacquet and Hill is almost confirmed at this point, Robert Hunt’s status is still in question with Napier mentioning that the right tackle for the Cajuns is day-to-day with a groin injury that has caused him to miss out on the last three contests.