This season has been a pretty wild ride for the face that runs the place at Cajun Field. The Cajuns themselves have had their issues as a team on the field, but as a head football coach at a university, especially a Sun Belt school, Mark Hudspeth’s 2016 has been a doozie. The amount of obstacles and decisions Hud has had to deal with are almost too numerous to count. In terms of severity, he hasn’t had to handle issues like what has gone down at Baylor or Minnesota, but he has had a bunch of little hurdles that a lot of coaches would trip over and fall flat on their face. The goal at the beginning of the year was to get back to a bowl game after missing out last year. I think Hud and the Cajuns achieving this goal is extremely impressive considering what they were up against all year.
All spring long the plan and expectations were that Louisiana would be going into the season with a sophomore quarterback with very little experience who would be learning on the fly. Mark Hudspeth was able to land a graduate transfer from LSU over the summer though, and the Cajuns changed offensive leaders right before the season began. The switch to Anthony Jennings was a a bit risky, but very necessary.
Then the season started and it started with Boise State stomping a mud hole into the Cajuns at Cajun Field! Hud had to make a tough decision and fire his good friend and buddy Melvin Smith as the defensive coordinator. The expectations and need for the defense to help out a green offense were too great to allow that kind of performance. Hud put personal relationships aside, fired his friend, and promoted Mike Lucas to defensive coordinator which might have been the move that saved the Cajuns’ season.
Then there was the hurdle that nearly caused the whole season to become an unmitigated disaster; the locker room video that leaked the week of the Presidential Election. The job of a college football coach involves so much politicking and many thought Hud handled this poorly, but I thought, given the Catch-22 scenario he was in, he did a good job of not rocking the boat more than it could have been rocked. Toeing the line of regulating what is moral within a locker room while at the same time defending the players you are assigned to teach and protect is a difficult task. When “Club Hud” got too raucous for some suits at the university and some donors, I though Mark Hudspeth did an excellent job of painting a realistic picture of exactly what the controversy was and how it should be dealt with for everyone.
After the locker room controversy, Hud dug in deep realizing the only way to win over donors who were offended was by winning. Hudspeth also used that moment to teach his players a lesson and to rally them towards a final bowl game push. It worked and now the Cajuns are back in a bowl game, better off than they were a year ago, and Hud has shown that he can handle some sticky situations. With a win in the New Orleans Bowl, I think Mark Hudspeth can be called one of the better coaches in all of football in 2016. That is, as long as he doesn’t let a video from inside the Superdome locker room leak out during the victory party!
