The Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns football team started their 2019 campaign with two rough starts in each of their first two games, but Saturday’s performance against Texas Southern was the perfect response.
Louisiana entered their matchup against Texas Southern 1-1. They remained competitive in a 38-28 loss to Mississippi State and shook off a shaky start against Liberty to win 35-14.
This Saturday’s 77-6 victory over Texas Southern was want you want to see from the Ragin’ Cajuns.
No rough starts. Louisiana started fast out of the gate and did not look back. They ended the first half with a 56-6 lead.
Both teams even agreed to shorten the third and fourth quarters to 10 minutes each. That was something that I have never heard of before tonight.
Upon further review, here is what the NCAA rule states:
“Any time during the game, the playing time of any remaining period or periods and the intermission between halves may be shortened by mutual agreement of the opposing head coaches and the referee.”
Upon an even further review, another example of this happening was in Clemson’s 59-0 win over South Carolina State in 2016. They reduced the second half to two 12-minute quarters.
Louisiana went on to score a modern era program record 77 points.
So after two shaky starts, it was unsure exactly how they would come out against Texas Southern. They put any questions to bed early on. Their first drive lasted under two minutes to take a 7-0 lead as they continued to score 28 points in the first and second quarters.
It’s easy to praise the offensive performance in this game. Louisiana’s offense totaled 748 yards, with 440 coming on the ground.
However, their defense played with a lot of confidence. You can say that the defense felt no pressure to succeed since they were playing with a lead the entire game, but I still liked what I saw on that side of the ball.
Louisiana held Texas Southern to 238 total yards. They only allowed Texas Southern to record 3-0f-16 on third down conversions. Oh, and they kept the Tigers out of the endzone all night. The only points Louisiana gave up were a 44-yard and 42-yard field goal.
The Ragin’ Cajuns showed they can play a complete, dominant performance in a game they are expected to win. There was no rough start. They met the expectation, and then some.
This is what you would want to see, especially since Louisiana is about to begin a tough four-game stretch.
Here are the next four games:
At Ohio – Sept. 21
At Georgia Southern – Sept. 28
Home for Appalachian State – Oct. 9
At Arkansas State – Oct. 17