Do The Cajuns Have To Goods To Win The Sun Belt?

By Dan McDonald (Special for ESPN1420)

Many will say that UL’s Saturday night back-and-forth 34-31 win over Georgia State came at the expense of one of the Sun Belt Conference’s bottom feeders, and that the Ragin’ Cajuns have yet to prove themselves against a league contender.

Record-wise, they may be right about the visiting Panthers, who are 0-10 in their two Sun Belt seasons to date. But records in this case aren’t the only numbers that carry weight heading into the bulk of the league schedule.

The two numbers to watch right now, if you’re coming up with a scenario that has the Cajuns winning the Sun Belt, are (1) passing offense, and (2) Georgia Southern’s record.

The Cajuns can do a little bit about the first one, though it’s apparent they’re never going to be a defensive stalwart against a team that can throw the ball.

They can’t do anything about the second of those numbers.

First things first ... the Cajuns survived a Saturday night game against the number eight passing attack in the nation. Georgia State entered the game leading the Sun Belt by a wide margin in team passing (331.5 yards per game), and UL actually held the Panthers nearly 50 yards below their season average. While the Cajun defense is porous against the pass, sometimes you have to give credit to the other guys’ abilities and Georgia State pitches and catches as well as anybody in the league.

But on Saturday, the Cajuns also played pitch-and-catch and did it with striking efficiency. Terrance Broadway and Brooks Haack combined to go 24-of-30 passing for 266 yards and never came close to an interception. Three of the misfires were catchable balls, one was a throwaway and one was thrown at the feet of a receiver on a screen pass that never materialized.

Georgia State’s no defensive stalwart, either, but there are a lot of teams in the Sun Belt that feature the Swiss-cheese defense nearly halfway through the season.

The important thing is that Saturday’s game was among the worst matchups the Cajuns will have in league play all season in the aerial game, and they managed to gut out a win.

Only two teams in the Sun Belt are averaging 250 pass yards a game – Georgia State, whom the Cajuns beat Saturday, and Idaho, whom the Cajuns don’t play. Next-up Texas State is at 238 pass yards a game after throwing for only 76 yards against Idaho Saturday in a 35-30 win (granted, the argument that the Bobcats didn’t have to throw against Idaho’s horrendous defense is a valid one).

Texas State rushed for 390 yards against Idaho, and senior Terrance Franks had 284 by himself after entering the game with 124 on the season. But I’ll take a team that wants to try to run the ball on the Cajuns any day right now rather than a team that lives through the airways. TSU’s Tyler Jones is a serviceable quarterback but he’s not going to pick many teams apart just with his arm.

The four most dangerous Sun Belt games for the Cajuns this year are the just-completed GSU win, Arkansas State (at home), South Alabama (at home) .... and there may not be a fourth. Nobody else on the Cajuns’ schedule has shown the ability to consistently move up and down the field through the airways, and that’s the teams that are going to give UL trouble. A-State will be a battle and South appeared to get its throwing game in gear in a romp over Appalachian State on Saturday.

If the Cajuns can find a way to get through these next two Tuesday games – at Texas State and at home against Arkansas State – and follow that up with a Nov. 1 Homecoming win at home against USA, they’ll be past the biggest landmines on the schedule. The final four scheduled games come against teams with a combined 6-15 record, with two of those wins against non-FBS teams and two coming against each other.

It may sound odd, but UL can still run the table in its last seven league games if they play up to potential. The caveat to that is that the Cajuns may have to do that to take a second straight Sun Belt title.

Georgia Southern, one of the newcomers in the league, is 3-0 after rallying past New Mexico State on Saturday. Thanks to a quirk in the Sun Belt schedule (since there are 11 football-playing programs, there are two teams that each league squad doesn’t play), the Eagles don’t play the Cajuns and don’t play Arkansas State – the two teams that shared the league title last year and the teams picked 1-2 in this year’s preseason polls.

Georgia Southern’s remaining league schedule has Idaho, Troy and UL-Monroe at home and Texas State and bitter rival Georgia State on the road. The Eagles will likely be favored in all five games, and if they do that, the best the Cajuns, or Arkansas State, could do is tie for the championship.

The UL players can’t afford to do it – they’ve got enough to do these next two Tuesday nights – but Cajun fans looking at the long-term picture need to watch Georgia Southern the rest of the way and hope some other league team does them a favor and knocks the Eagles from the unbeaten ranks.