The Louisiana Ragin Cajuns are coming off their best defensive performance of the 2023 season when they controlled the line of scrimmage in a 33-20 victory over South Alabama in Mobile on Saturday, The Cajuns forced five turnovers, sacked Jaguars quarterback Carter Bradley five times, and scored a defensive touchdown in a complete effort while missing critical players.
However, the focus must now shift to a matchup this weekend with Arkansas State in Jonesboro. These two Sun Belt West teams certainly have no love lost for one another and the Cajuns have historically struggled in Centennial Bank Stadium.
Before that, Michael Desormeaux held his weekly press conference where he said he was proud of his team’s performance.
“I was really proud of our kids,” Desormeaux said Monday. “I thought we went out there and played really tough, physical football, which we pride ourselves on being that type of team. I’m also tremendously proud of our defense. We were missing five key players defensively and the guys that filled in for them or had to play more than normal really stepped up and played really well.”
DEFENSE STEPS UP DESPITE INJURIES
Louisiana’s defense had its best performance of the season Saturday night in Mobile despite giving up 500 yards of offense. As previously mentioned, the Cajuns had five turnovers, five sacks, and a defensive touchdown while holding a team that had scored 55 points in each of its previous two matchups to just 13 points when it mattered.
Louisiana did all of these despite missing Tyler Guidry, Kaelip Edwards, and Justin Agu. To add to that, key pieces in Courtline Flowers and K.C. Ossai went down during the game and missed the whole second half. Young players like Cameron Whitfield, Jalen Clark, and others made critical impacts in the game as the Cajuns were able to slow down one of the hottest offenses in the conference.
OFFENSE MADE BIG PLAYS
The first quarter was full of drives that ended in punts, but you could feel something was coming from the Cajuns’ offense. Then towards the end of a 12-play, 93-yard drive, Zeon Chriss had a 33-yard strike that landed perfectly in the hands of Jacon Bernard for the touchdown and the offense took off after that, scoring on their next four possessions.
Overall, Chriss had an efficient performance with his 13/17 line for 145 yards and two touchdowns, Jacob Kibodi went over 100 yards for the third time this season, and the Cajuns offense has raised their points per game number to 32.9 after this performance, good for 35th nationally.
CONTROL YOUR OWN DESTINY
With the victory on the road Saturday, Louisiana now controls its own path to the Sun Belt Conference Championship game on December 2. The Cajuns, sitting at 5-3, are in second place in the Sun Belt West division with wins over Texas State and South Alabama. The only team between them and that title game is the 6-2 Troy Trojans, who Louisiana still has a matchup with on November 18.
If the Cajuns can take of their next two opponents in Arkansas State and Southern Miss, Louisiana would be 7-3 going into that critical road matchup with Troy that would likely decide the West.