The Louisiana Ragin Cajuns, fresh off of a bye week, will look to kick things into high gear for the second half of the 2023 season.
Their first test? Marcus Carroll, Darren Grainger, and the Georgia State Panthers. The Panthers are off to their best start in program history at 5-1 and playing fundamentally great football while doing so. It’s no secret that Louisiana will have one of its toughest tests of the season when they celebrate Homecoming under the lights at Cajun Field in a nationally televised game.
PANTHERS RUNNING ATTACK
Georgia State will come into Cajun Field this Saturday night with one of the top rushing attacks in America. The Panthers rank 35th as a team in rushing offense, but Marcus Carroll is a top-10 running back with 742 yards on the season. Darren Grainger is largely viewed as a passer, but he has the ability to beat you with his legs when necessary. Louisiana struggles with strong rushing attacks as they sit 84th in the country at 153.5 rushing yards allowed per game. If the Cajuns can control Carroll and Grainger on the ground, this should be a very entertaining contest
RED ZONE OFFENSE
The Ragin Cajuns have had a strong start to the year offensively, especially under Zeon Chriss over the last few games. But one of their calling cards has been red zone offense. Currently, Louisiana is sixth in the Sun Belt with 15 red zone touchdowns and a 77% conversion rate. The biggest issue has been the Cajuns have committed four turnovers in the red zone (3 fumbles, 1 interception). However, Georgia State leads the SBC in red zone defense, only giving up nine touchdowns inside the 20 this season.
“When you get down in the red zone, they’re very multiple, the way they play coverages and things that they do,” head coach Michael Desormeaux said. “They’ll pressure sometimes and sometimes they don’t, so they keep you on your heels a little bit. We got to be really sound there because, with an offense like they have where they’re capable of putting up a lot of points, you really need to cash in when you get down there.”
EVERYBODY WANTS A WIN ON HOMECOMING
Homecoming is a special weekend for college football programs. It gives alumni the opportunity to come back to the school where memories were created, to see old classmates, and remember what people like to call “the good ole days”. But for Desormeaux’s team, their goal is to make this Saturday memorable.
“We play a big role in making the 2023 homecoming memorable,” Desormeaux said. “We take pride in playing for the players who played here before us, the people who graduated from the school and they come back and we know what they want to see on the field. I mean everybody wants to win on homecoming and we certainly have our hands full with that. We take great pride and getting to go out there and represent our university on the field and the game obviously is the most important part of this whole homecoming process. But for us, all the other stuff is for everybody else, and our guys will enjoy that when they come back and they’re done playing.”
Louisiana (4-2) will host Georgia State (5-1) this Saturday for the homecoming game on the 125th anniversary of the University’s founding. Kickoff is set for 7:00 p.m. on ESPNU.