Welcome everyone to the latest game preview of the Louisiana Ragin Cajuns. This week we look at the Cajuns matchup against the Tulsa Golden Hurricane!
Last Week: The Cajuns survived a 51-48 shootout last weekend when they took on Southeastern Louisiana thanks to a pair of kickoff returns from Raymond Calais to start off 1-0. The Golden Hurricane traveled over to Stillwater to open up the season and were dominated 59-24 by the Cowboys last Thursday.
Last Meeting: The last time these two faced off was back in 1992 and Tulsa came away with a 27-9 victory over the Cajuns. However, Louisiana does hold the all-time series lead 5-4 dating back to 1977.
Stories to Watch:
What’s Defense? If you’re expecting a low-scoring defensive battle, you might be disappointed this Saturday afternoon. Both of these teams don’t exactly have the best defenses based off of their respective performances. When you look at the Cajuns, they allowed around 500 total yards of offense against Southeastern Louisiana and quite a bit of that was from the run game.
Meanwhile, Tulsa got torn apart by the Cowboys offense with a total of 640 yards. That makes a lot of sense considering the level of talent that Oklahoma State has. All that being said, this could wind being another shootout that will come down to the final moments if the defense for both teams doesn’t hold up early on.
Will We See More of Hall’s New Offense? During the season opener, you’ll typically see a fairly vanilla offense to not give away too much of the bag of tricks. There wasn’t anything new when it comes to the Cajuns offense based off of last week, but perhaps we’ll see a little more of what offensive coordinator Will Hall will be using the rest of the way in his first year at the helm for the Cajuns.
The biggest thing for the Cajuns is how will Jordan Davis handle being on the road. His first game as the starter was a great showing, including a big gain on a 4th and 1 that turned into points. If that Davis shows up, the Cajuns may have the edge because of all the things that Davis can do on the field.
Expect the Run: Not only should you expect the run because of how much of a sieve the front seven has been for the Cajuns, but Tulsa is set up to primarily run the ball. In just one game, they ran the ball 60 times and threw it 38 times. That’s about a 60-40 balance in favor of running the ball. It did pay off though as the Golden Hurricane did get 244 net yards rushing.
The same can be said for the Cajuns and with the amount of talent they’ll trot out there, it’ll be hard for Tulsa to truly prepare for it because the guys they have all have a different set of skills. Get ready for quite a few players to run down the field on Saturday.
Louisiana Will Win If:
One of the big things for the Cajuns last week was coming out with the edge when it comes to the turnover differential. Last week, the Cajuns ended up with a +2 differential with an interception and a fumble recovery. One of the keys is that the Cajuns have to get points off turnovers.
After Acadiana High Product Bralen Trahan picked off Nunez, the Cajuns did get points, but it was that second turnover that could’ve been the deciding factor in terms of shutting down the Lions last weekend. If the defense can show improvement like they did in the second half, a surprising win is within reach.
Tulsa Will Win If:
The Golden Hurricane will need to keep it up-tempo and pound it with a run game if they want to win. Based off of what was shown last weekend, the Cajuns had a hard time wrapping up tackles and had a hard time stopping the run game. If that’s not in the gameplan, it will be after the first drive.
-Clint Domingue