LAFAYETTE - Fans have been telling Louisiana-Lafayette head football coach Rickey Bustle since he arrived at the school in 2002 that they are ready to see their team go to a bowl game.

After two straight years of near misses, Bustle is as eager as any of them to see the Ragin' Cajuns play in their first bowl since the 1970 Grantland Rice Bowl.

The Cajuns won five straight games to end the 2005 season to earn a share of the Sun Belt Conference title but were edged out of the New Orleans Bowl by Arkansas State, which had beaten the Cajuns 39-36. UL-Lafayette went 3-3 in conference last year.

Advertisement

"There's no question everybody involved in this program wants to go to a bowl game," said Bustle at the school's football media day event held Sunday. "We have spent a lot of time as a staff talking about the chemistry of this team."

The coaches will have to develop that chemistry with a new pair of coordinators, as well as new starting quarterback Michael Desormeaux, a junior from Catholic High. Desormeaux was one of 10 players nationwide last year to play on offense, defense and special teams at the Division I level, seeing some time at QB but mainly playing receiver on offense as well as contributing to the punt and kickoff coverage teams and the defense as a safety.

This year he moves into the starting quarterback role with the departure of four-year starter Jerry Babb.

"We're going to do a lot with him," said Bustle of his new quarterback. "We're going to roll him out some. We're going to boot him some. We're going to naked him some. We're going to run him some."

And Desormeaux will be doing that in a new offensive system that will look to increase the tempo of the game.

"I'm excited about (starting)," said Desormeaux, who added that he enjoyed playing several positions the last two years. "It's awesome. It's like a dream to me. Playing football is being able to do a number of different things. To me, to play offense, defense and special teams was great."

Picking up the new system was not as hard for the players as it could have been, said new offensive coordinator Blake Anderson.

"It wasn't a tremendous challenge because they were already a no-huddle team," he said. "They've embraced everything we've done. We've thrown a ton of new things at them.

"If it's done correctly, hopefully we can eliminate some of the problems defenses throw at you. We want tempo of operation to be really crisp so that defenses have to prepare differently for us than any other spread offense they see."

Tailback Tyrell Fenroy is coming off back-to-back 1,000-yard rushing seasons, the first player in school history to top that mark twice, and should continue to get plenty of touches. But Anderson said the offense will be geared to getting him the ball more in open space rather than strictly I-formation handoffs.

"We're not going to take touches away from a great tailback," said Anderson. "We're just maybe going to give him his touches in different positions."

Having a versatile, athletic quarterback allows for a lot of different approaches to the game as well, he said.

"We want to throw to set up the run," said Anderson. "(Desormeaux's) passing ability has gotten better and better."

New defensive coordinator Kevin Fouquier, a Franklin native, plans an aggressive, diverse defensive attack.

"We like to set the tempo on defense, whether it's putting pressure or using different coverages to win ballgames," said Fouquier. "The kids did a good job from spring to now as far as retention. We're really stressing a lot of fundamentals right now. There are new calls, new coverages, new fronts, but it's all the same stuff as Knute Rockne did."

Though the defense will try be more aggressive in attacking the quarterback, stopping the run is still the priority, he said.

"If it's blitzing into it or stunting into it, we have to stop the run," said Fouquier. "Our kids, the class that Coach Bustle's put together here, are not only good players, they're smart players. They're good kids. They want to learn."

And they want to go to a bowl game.

"Winning the conference is our first goal," said redshirt freshman fullback Matthew Desormeaux, the quarterback's younger brother and another CHS graduate. "Then we want to make it to a bowl for the first time in a long time."