Football: Finishing Strong–Cajuns surge late for road win over Zips

Tim Buckley, Daily Advertiser, September 22, 2013

AKRON, OHIO — Up by four points with just less than four minutes left Saturday night at Akron, Ragin’ Cajuns coach Mark Hudspeth went to his ace in the hole.

He called for an onsides kick.

It worked.

Hunter Stover recovered his squib, UL scored on the drive that resulted and the Cajuns went on to a 35-30 win over the Zips in front of 18,809 at InfoCision Stadium here.

“It was gutsy. But Coach Hud is gutsy,” UL quarterback Terrance Broadway said. “He could have been easily like, ‘I’m not gonna take that chance, but he did.’ ”

The win evened the Cajuns’ record at 2-2 on the season going into an open date on Saturday, while Akron fell to 1-3. UL returns to Cajun Field on Oct. 5 against Texas State.

“It was really was (gutsy),” Stover said. “I was talking to (an assistant coach) about it and said, ‘Do you think coach Hud would do that?’ I mean, if we wouldn’t have gotten it, been offsides or if I would have kicked it bad, they would have had the ball in the middle of the field.”

Tied 14-14 coming out of the first half, UL and Akron traded third-quarter punts until Robert Stein’s career-long 49-yard field goal with 4:45 left in the period put the Zips up by three.

The Cajuns went back ahead, though, when Broadway found Jamal Robinson for the pair’s second TD play of the night.

Broadway lofted a 27-yard pass to Robinson, who came down on his back with the ball in his hands. Robinson finished the game with eight receptions for 124 yards and the two touchdowns.

It was called a touchdown on the field, and the catch – capping a nine-play, 86-yard drive that lasted three minutes and 42 seconds – withstood video review with 57 seconds remaining in third quarter.

With that and a Stephen Brauchle PAT, the Cajuns went into the fourth up 21-17.

The back-and-forth continued as Akron went up 24-21 on a critical play early in the fourth quarter.

Zips quarterback Kyle Pohl threw a bubble pass to freshman Fransohn Bickley and fourth-and-3 with 13:51 to go, and Bickley outran the Cajuns along the right side for a 37-yard TD.

Broadway responded with a 13-yard TD run that helped make it 28-24.

It was the second scoring run of the game for Broadway, who despite being hobbled by an ankle sprain in the second half finished 25-of-37 for a 305 yards and three touchdowns through the air – all season-highs for attempts, completions, yards and TDs – and with another 68 yards and the two TDs on the ground.

After the onsides kick, Broadway hit Darryl Surgent on a 14-yard throw to the end that helped the Cajuns go up 35-24 with 6:19 left.

Akron scored a late-game touchdown with a 28-yard pass from Pohl to Bickley, but it didn’t make a difference as the Zips also missed two late-game field goals.

“Boy, I’ll tell you: to be on the road for the third time in four games, coming in here up against a team that had a ton of confidence after the way they played Michigan (losing 28-24) last week, sky high, I thought they (the Cajuns) played well,” Hudspeth said.

“I thought we played well at times on both sides of the ball … but you know what I thought we did some really good things.”

The Cajuns were in the red zone four times in the first half and came up dry twice.

UL intercepted Pohl on the Zips’ first two drives of the game.

T.J. Worthy got the first, but the Cajuns got nothing out of it as Brauchle missed a 40-yard field-goal attempt wide left.

They made the most of the second, though.

Sixth-year senior Rodney Gillis picked an errant Pohl pass and returned it 28 yards to the Akron 13.

Two plays later, Broadway found Robinson with a 9-yard touchdown pass. Robinson pulled in the throw along the left sideline, and took one step into the end zone.

Brauchle made the PAT to put UL up 7-0, and the first quarter ended that way.

After a series of a series of traded punts, Broadway’s 15-yard touchdown run capped a nine-play, 80-yard drive and Brauchle’s second extra point made it 14-0.

Broadway faked a handoff, then ran up the middle and scored standing up for his third rushing TD of the season and 12th of his two-year UL career.

The Zips tied the game in the second quarter, though, despite never actually getting into the red zone before halftime.

Akron answered Broadway’s run with a 77-yard TD pass play between Kohl and Zach D’Orazio. Kohl threw a short pass over the middle to D’Orazio, who beat Cajun coverage and ran in untouched.

The Zips tied it at 14 after a 22-yard TD run by Jawon Chisholm, who got into open field and scored after a cut to the right that distanced himself from Gillis.

UL drove to the Akron 14 late in the first half, but running back Alonzo Harris was stopped for a 1-yard loss on third-and-5 and the Cajuns called a timeout with 36 seconds to go before the break.

Brauchle came out for what would have been a 32-yard field-goal attempt, but UL faked it as Harris ran left-to-right out of protection, took a flip from holder Jake Guidry and was tackled by Nick Rossi 1 yard behind the line of scrimmage.

“I’m very proud,” Hudspeth said. “We made some mistakes, but when we did we overcame them.”

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