Speaker 1: Is it championship or bus for Louisiana football in twenty
twenty six. We'll talk about it here on Raging Rundown.
What's good, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome into another episode
of Raging Rundown. All Cajuns all the time. I'm your Adgri.
Marcusis Patrack, but you know you can always call me
Fits And in today's episode, we will be putting a
bow on Louisiana. Talking at Sunbelt Football Media Days. In
a previous episode that is on the channel that you
can check out or listen to, we spoke with former
Ragon Cajun's head coach Billy Napier and him now being
the head football coach at James Madison in the Eastern Division.
The Western Division teams took center stage on Wednesday. I'm
this episode early on a Saturday morning, getting back traveling
that Wednesday afternoon or was it a Thursday? The Thursday afternoon.
I'm getting my days mixed up. It's been a long week,
but I'm recording this episode here on Saturday, recapping what
was discussed by head coach Michael Desermo. I got a
chance to go one on one with him and We're
gonna talk through some of the answers that he gave
and some of the particular questions that I have played
for you. I have three cutups that will go through,
will react and discuss all of those things. But I
have that full conversation. I'll link it down in the
description of this video that you can watch it. It was
a full seventeen minute conversation that you can check out.
The first thing is, you know, going into this season,
it was very clear that the Cajuns are still receiving
a ton of respect because the coach's poll, as we
said in last episode, had them picked to finish second
in the Sunbelt West, despite them going six and seven
last season, despite them you know, having a roller coaster instance,
there were a few moments that they had opportunities to
still potentially win one or two more games and the
season be completely different. And so because of that, the coaches,
like I said, voted Louisiana to finished second, proving how
much respect that they've gained up until this point. So
they go into the offseason and they have spring football,
and we have talked about in previous episodes all the
different storylines they came out of that zilond Piriy and
Bill Davis no longer being there. You're running back room,
needing to see guys step up. Your skill positions, the
receiver positions, you're young there. You know your linebackers, you're
having new starters once again like what you had last season.
You have some experience in the dB room and also
on the defensive line. Those are all the things that
we discussed. And I remember after spring football ended, one
of the things coach Diz talked about was he wasn't
sure what his team would be made of going into spring,
but coming out of spring, he knew that they would
be willing to fight and scrap because of the way
that they performed in the situations that they put in
front of him in front of the team during spring football.
So at media Days, I asked him, coming out of spring,
going through the offseason, now hitting into fall camp, what
had he seen differently about his team.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I've seen continued improvement, which is what
you're looking for. And you know, you're well aware of
the way that we do things, and you know, the
last two years we've signed, you know, twenty and twenty
one high school players, so we're a little bit young
by nature of the last two years we had big
senior classes. I think we have a really talented group,
you know, and I think we're young on the offensive
skill positions, but there's plenty of talent. We got to
grow them up. And what I've seen is I've seen
those guys take the advantage, take advantage of the opportunities
they have. I've seen constant study improvement. I've seen them
treat every day like it's just as important as the
last or just as important as the next one. And
I've seen continued progress, which is what you're looking for.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I tell them all the time like that, you know,
we're not going in the portal. There is no help coming,
Like it's this is you know, you came here, you
sign here, you're developing. It's time for you to go play,
even as a young player. So I'm excited about the
leadership I've seen on this team, the work ethic they've
continued at a high level. With what we've came out
of spring, the things we saw coming out of Spring,
I've seen it continue through the summer.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: But like I tell them, you know this, we haven't
even scratched the surface. You know this is you know,
we haven't even gotten in the fall camp, so there's
a lot of work left to be done. But I'm
excited about this group. And you know, as a coach,
I think that's what you have to do year after year.
You have to get really excited about figuring out who
this team is about, what this team is about, and
figuring out the way you can get the most out
of them. And I think if we can maximize what
this team is about, I think we have a chance
to have a really good football team.
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons that I think coach Dias
believes that this team could have some special players and
can be special as a as a whole is because
of the positions that they have experience in and where
they have leadership roles. Along the offensive line, you're returning
George Jackson for another season. You have Cooper Fordham, they're
the center position, Kaden Morrow, Jamari and Gooch returns. Y
Alexander is also an offensive tackle that was an all
preseason All Sun Belt member by Phil Steele. Jacobe Aisen
had some rotations there in the lineup. You went got
Jason Mitchell out of the transfer portal, so you're very
experienced on the offensive line, like what we talked about before.
On the defensive line, again, you've got guys like Fitzgerald
West and Maxie Bodwin and priest Ash, guys that you
can depend on that have snaps under their belt. Fitzgerald
and Maxie being the seniors of that group that are
going to be able to come in and steer the ship.
But the one position that I think that is very clear,
and it's the one that is always talked about the
most in football, is the quarterback position. Because you have
lunch wind field back and because you're in a position
that is a place that you haven't really been in
since Lee by Lewis. And you know, I brought that
up to coach Daz that this is the first time
that the Cajuns are entering fall camp with a starting
quarterback and not having a quarterback competition. Twenty twenty two,
Levy Lewis is gone. You have Chandler Fields and Ben Woolridge.
They battle it out. Chandler wins the job, twenty twenty three,
they battle again, Ben wins the job. Twenty twenty four,
Ben gets the job. They get to the championship game,
they have injuries across the board. Daniel Bill ends up
having to play in the championship game and they ultimately lose.
Twenty twenty five. Walker Howard transfers in. You have Daniel
Bill on the roster, Lunch Winfield is third string. Walker
Howard gets hurt Week one. Daniel Bill plays a couple
of games, you get there to the Marshall game. That's
when Lunch when Field comes in and never turns it
back over as the presumable starter. So now he is
entering yet another season as a raging Cajun, his first
full season that he now is going in knowing that
he is the starting quarterback, and coach Dez understands now
that having him in this position, knowing what you have
going in is going to be a true boost to
not just the offense, but the team as a whole.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I think that's kind of been the
difficult thing, right it is the last you know, this
is the fifth year, so the last four years, it's
you know, we were so used to having a quarterback
battle going and trying to figure out who it is.
You kind of forget how nice it is to have
a starter coming back, and you know what allows you
to do. I think allows everybody to settle in. He's
the guy, he's a starter. It allows you as a
staff to build things to his strength and start to,
you know, eliminate things that he doesn't like as much,
add things that he likes more, and kind of start
building it around him a little bit. So, you know,
it's when your quarterback is a nun position, there's some
value in that. You know, everyone knows who the voice is,
everyone knows who you know that guy is, and you
know Lunch has earned that. I mean the way he
played last year, you know he you know, when we
were on life support there in the middle of the year,
he gave us life and he brought this team back
to life. And certainly guys around him played extremely well.
But that happens when they believe in the quarterback, and
certainly everyone in our building, coaches, players, everybody believes in him.
Speaker 1: When the team was dead in the water, Lunch brought
them back to life. That's an amazing quote there by
Coach Diz. And it's true because, like we said in
the Marshall game, they were down. He brings them back
and they win in overtime. They're able to steer themselves
back to finishing the regular season six and six and
getting to a bowl game once again. You're talking about
being at one point, sitting at two and six on
the season and you're able to get it done and
lunch Winfield was a huge catalyst to be a part
of it. Like I said before, having your quarterbacks solidified
going in, you know who is the main voice that
you're going to be listening to. And now championship aspirations
feel even more important. And that's something that Coach Diz
also talked about, and we're going to get into that
and hear from him of what he said about the
Cajun's expectation to win the championship this season. We'll hear
when we return here on Rage and Rundown. Hey guys,
thank you so much for tuning into another episode of
Rage Rundown. We're going to get back into the action
in just a second, but before we do, if you
are watching this episode on YouTube, please do me a favor.
Please like it, share it, and leave a comment down below,
but most importantly, make sure you subscribe to the channel.
If you're listening, please follow the podcast feed to rate
the show and leave us a review, because that's going
to help us get in front of more raging Cajun fans,
just like yourself. So, like I said earlier in the episode,
Louisiana was picked to finish second in the sum Boat West,
You'll still pick them to win the sun Belt West.
So they are positioned to be in high regards by
media members myself included that believes that with the returners
that they have and the experience that they have in
the positions, that this team, if they're able to stay healthy,
has the opportunity to win the West and get to
the Sun Belt Championship. I asked Coach Deaz the plain
and simple question, what is it going to take for
this team to ultimately get to the Sun Belt Championship?
And he has an answer that's about a minute and
thirty seconds a long. I'm going to play it for
you in its entirety. And he said something in particular
at the end that really stood out to me because
the way I interpreted it was this is almost championship
or bus let's listen in what coach they said to say, we.
Speaker 2: Just got to get the most out of this group.
I do think it's a really good group.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It reminds me a little bit of our twenty three season.
You know, when I sat up here and I said, listen,
we're young, but we're talented. If we handle things with maturity,
we'll have a really good football team. And you know
we're sitting there at four and two. We were in
first place in the West, and we did not handle
things very well. We didn't handle success very well. Truthfully.
We have to learn from that and this group has
to be able to. You know, I was always worried
about not handling failure very well. Well. We handled that
when we didn't play well. We bounced back and played
really well, but we didn't handle the success very well.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: You know, that's a lesson learned. You know, this year,
we've got to be able to get this group to
play consistently. If we get the most out of this group,
we'll be right back in it. But that's the challenge
every year. And that's the thing you got to get
excited about, is you got to manage the ups and
downs with the new team with a young roster. Even
though they were a part of last year, a lot
of them didn't play a huge role in it. Now
you know they're gonna be in the spotlight. So that's
what we've got to do. We've got a good group.
We've got a great group of coaches and players, guys
that have worked really hard. And I think when you
have a group of good people that work really hard
for something, I think you can go get what you want.
And for us, you know, we know the expectations. And
in Louisiana it's it's to play in the conference championship
and to win it. And anything less than that is
is uh is sub par. So that's uh, that's the
standard has been there since the day I took this job,
and you know, that's that's what we're going for.
Speaker 1: As you heard there, Coach did said at the very
end that the standard at Louisiana is to play for
a conference championship and win it. And anything less than
that is sub par, subpar, poor, inferior, below par, missing
the mark, low grade, second rate, substandard, all of these
above average. Is not one of the things that you
would say that it goes along with it. All of
these different things are synonymous with what he's saying. So
to me, this that means that he knows and understands
that they have to put themselves in position to win
the Sunbelt West to get to the championship game and
not just get to it because they did that in
twenty twenty four, but then they've got to get there
and they've got to win it because you have pieces
and key positions, you have guys that are very talented,
like what he was talking about, and he referenced the
twenty twenty three teams. So I went back, and you know,
I've been here working in the Lafayette market since the
twenty twenty one season when they won that Sunbelt championship
in Billion Napier's last season. I've been in Lafayette for
Des' entire tenure as the head football coach of the
Raging Cages. So the twenty twenty two season, I remember that.
How you know, they had the thirteen game win streak,
the nation's longest standing win streak. They go to Rice,
they lose that game and it snaps that losing streak.
They end that season six and six and they lose
their bowl game. Twenty twenty three was the second year
that you had Ben Woolwich and Chandler Field's coming back,
but you had Xeon Chris coming into the mix as well. So,
as he mentioned, in that SoundBite, you were four and
two after your first six games, you were feeling really
good about yourself. But then after that, after the Texas
State victory that you had thirty four to thirty, you
lost to Georgia State at home by three. You beat
South Alabama, you lose by three scores to Arkansas State
on the road. You lose in overtime by a field
goal to Southern Miss. You lose by a touchdown to Troy,
and then you blow out Ulm to close out the
regular season. You round out the year six and six.
You lose in the New Orleans Bowl to excuse me,
Jacksonville State by a field goal in overtime. Obviously injuries
were a factor in this, But like he mentioned, as
much talent as this roster had, and I'll go back
and look look at some of those guys so we
can get a perspective of what he's meaning by some
of the talent that they had, because there's been some
time that I've been away to have seen this roster.
But in twenty twenty three, Zion Chris at the quarterback position,
the Jacob Cabodi was one of your running backs. Harvey
brus Or was a true freshman as a receiver, You're
a tyree skipper. Bill Davis was a true freshman KCOSI
was a linebacker for you. You had Neil Johnson at
the tight end position. Like I said, Ben Woolrich was
your quarterback going into the year. You had Lance LeJean
at a receiver position. Charles Robertson was another receiver for you.
Lunch Winfield was on the roster at this time. Chandler Fields,
like I said, was also in the mix as well. DREYLN.
Washington was on this roster, as Island Perry was on
this roster. Keon Martin, who is now in the NFL,
was on this roster. So the list goes on and
on of multiple guys that I'm naming off where you
had key positions. Peter LeBlanc another guy. You had a
lot of talented guys across the board in different positions,
but ultimately, as they got to a successful point in
the year, they weren't able to sustain that level of success,
and ultimately it caused them to finish the season six
and seven. And what coach does has made it clear
is that they have to be able to learn from
those past mistakes. To not let history repeat itself, to
not go with those trends. So I mentioned that a
guy like Lunch Winfield was on that team, even though
he was not contributing and playing, he was a part
of that and he experienced that. So again, if you
know that you have a solidified starting quarterback knowing that
he's there, and he is a guy that was a
part of the last team that you felt like was
young talented. You weren't sure how cohesive they would come together,
but you knew that they were young and talented because
he was a part of their team. He knows, Hey, guys,
we can't come in have stepping We got to put
our best foot forward. We have to bring our a
game and if we do that, because of the guys
that we have around us, this team can be really,
really good. So, like I said, full conversation with coach
Dez was about seventeen minutes. I'm linking that down in
the description for you. That's what I think is going
to be needed to win a Sunbelt title. These guys
have to be able to hone in and focus. They
have to be able to take care of the little things.
Lunch Winfield, this team will go as he goes, if
he is able to expand his game as a thrower
of the football and continuing to be able to use
his legs in the moments that he has to protecting
himself and staying healthy, and if they as a whole
as a team can stay healthy, then they have a
chance to be special. Coaching staff has to do their
job to elevate these guys and bring the best out
of them in their best possible situations. Which is something
that I asked Coach Dez about. You check that out
in the full interview. How do you bring the best
out of guys that may be younger and trying to
come along into their own They're going to be responsible
for doing that, But then these guys have to go
out and execute it on the field. One final thing
I forget to put it in the rundown there on
the side. Louisiana received another commit in their twenty twenty
seven class, now bringing their commitments up to sixteen in
the twenty twenty seven class, as Lafayette Renaissance outside linebacker
and Sineo Charles committed to the Raging Kangins. He is
at my day job at KATC. He is a part
of our Super sixteen, which is what we feel like
is some of the best athletes rising seniors in the
area with the upcoming football season. He was a name
that was a part of that list because of how
freakishly athletic he is. And so I'll tell you about
him in a quick snapshot. He's six foot five, two
hundred and twenty pounds and he plays that outside linebacker
jack position. A comparable that I heard was Andre Jones.
Andre Jones is obviously in the NFL, but that's the
comparable that we're looking at that outside linebacker position that
can stand up and drop it and to coverage, but
they can also put their hand in the ground and
rush the passer. And he has all the makeup, the
physical makeup to be able to be a really elite player.
Like I said, sixty five, two hundred and twenty pounds,
he has an eighty inch wingspan and his hand size
is nine and three eight inches, and he also plays
basketball for the Tigers as well. So super athletic kid.
When I did my story on him, I get out
there and he was as vocal as anyone, you know,
encouraging his teammates, coaching them up whenever they were doing
their drills, doing bagworks and all those things like that.
So that's the type of player that you're adding to
this class. Someone that can get after the quarterback, that
can bend the hoop really well. That's athletic that has
length and has the ability to disrupt offensive schemes and
be able to get quarterbacks off their spots, make tackles
for losses and all of those great things like that.
So now, like I said, your class is up to
sixteen players. I'll rattle them off for you as I
always do. Shadow Creek tight end Bryce Coleman, a Oyls
defensive lineman, Kobe Smith, Faraday wide receiver, Rob Taylor, Westbrook
quarterback Tam Anderson, Angleton offensive lineman Noah Ernz, Blackman wide
receiver John Walker, You Lab defensive lineman Mason Smith, the
same time as more safety Land and Ordy Summer Creek
dB Caleb White, Art Bishop Ramo dB, Gavin Cooper, junior
Wiley athlete Jabryron Blake, Eastview offensive lineman Adarius Hines, Crawford
linebacker Cameron Alakija Elkins outside linebacker Aya Mara, Vanderbilt Catholic
offensive lineman Phillips Sanak, I think that's how I pronounced
it correctly, and then finally laughy at Renaissance outside linebacker
and Seneo Charles. So it breaks down to three offensive linemen,
two d lineman, a tight end, two receivers, four dbs,
three linebackers and a quarterback, Partridge and a paratrie all
of those great things. From what I've been told this
could be their class is they probably will be done
with the number of guys they'll be taking because of
the fifth or the five years five seasons rule that
the NTAA has has gone by the eligibility rule, so
there may be a couple more roster spots held up
because of that, and so you may have a little
bit smaller class than what you would have normally had.
How does he fit in into this outside linebacker room?
Right right now? At the jack position, you have guys
like Preston Malbrew, A J. Spencer, Lester Jones, Notrri Brown,
and Ashley Williams. Ashley Williams and Preston Malbrew are your
most experienced players in terms of years played at the
collegiate level. So he's going to be able to come
in and he'll probably you know, get some special teams
reps to start off, and then maybe in that second
season he'll be able to work his way in and
become an effective pass rusher for you and eventually, like
coach Desimo you know, mentioned to me at at media Days,
he could potentially be someone that could be really really
talented further down the line, you know, in his in
his career. So kudos to the young man on making
his decision. He also chose the Cajuns over the like
of likes of Louisiana Tech, Mississippi State, and I believe Tulane.
He had offers from Tech, Arkansas State, Texas State, Houston, Tulane, Syracuse, Gramblin, mcnice,
and Lamar. The Cajuns offered him back in February, and
now he makes his decision here in July. I did
an interview with him at my day job ATKTC. You
can go and check that out, and essentially he said
that the reason behind making his decision was that they
said that they would offer him as a very early
on in their twenty twenty seven class, and they stay
true to their word. They put on the full court
press to make sure that they could get him to commit.
They land the commitment and now he is a part
of that class. So kudos to the young man and
shout out to the Cajuns for being able to get
a hometown kid being able to keep him home. That's
going to wrap up this episode of Rage and Rundown.
If you made it to this point in the episode,
thank you so much. If you're watching on YouTube, please
do me a favor. Like the video, share it and
leave a comment down below, but most importantly, make sure
you're subscribed to the channel. If you're listening, please follow
the podcast feed, rate the show, and leave us a review,
because that's going to help us get in front of
more raging Cajun fans. Just like yourself. I'm your Gudja
Marcus Fitzpatrick. We'll see you guys next time.