Football: Stout defense carries Cajuns 12/23/12

Football: Stout defense carries Cajuns 12/23/12

NEW ORLEANS – In the eyes of the defense anyway, Saturday’s 43-34 victory for the UL Ragin’ Cajuns in the R�L Car­riers New Orleans Bowl couldn’t have ended any better. Of course, that’s with all due apologies to Brett Baer’s game-winning, 50­yard field goal last year.

For weeks now, the de­fensive coaches have been hammering their pupils on how well East Caro­lina quarterback Shane Carden extends the play.

Fittingly, there was the defense – obviously tir­ing and trying to hang on for the program’s second consecutive bowl victory – and there was Carden double- and triple-pump­ing as he rolled to the right sideline. It was fourth down. There was just over 2:30 left to play in the game and the Cajuns were clinging to a 40-34 lead at the time. After a quick start where the Cajun defense forced a trio of three-and­outs, it had yielded 24 first downs and 421 total yards to that point. And no more.

Carden’s roll to the right with Cordian Hagans in hot pursuit finally end­ed when a pass attempt to Andrew Bodenheimer ini­tially looked successful, but a huge hit by Melvin White dislodged the ball to force the Pirates to turn it over on downs with 2:32 left to play and no time­outs .

“I was thinking that I was going to do whatever I had to do on that play,” White said. The most memorable play of the career of a se­nior cornerback coming off successive nine-win seasons? “Of course,” White said with a smile. For White and his de­fensive teammates, how­ever, it truly was a special feeling. Since mid-Octo­ber, it’s been a turbulent roller coaster ride for the defense loaded with plenty of ups and a lot of downs. There was the great ef­forts against Florida and then the debacle at home against Arkansas State … with a whole lot of yards allowed in between.

On this day, though, it was the defense the de­livered the finishing blow … again with apologies to Baer’s 39-yard field goal that finalized the scoring with 10 seconds left.

“I feel like this feeling is even more special (than 2011 N.O. Bowl win),” White said, “because it was the defense that made the play. I feel that made it even more special.” After weeks of pre­paring for Carden’s play­making ability, it was especially gratifying for the defense to end the day with an A-plus in that area on such a crucial down.

“It was extremely dif­ficult, because you had to get your man first and then be able to recognize when one of their receiv­ers was filling a hole,” White said.

“I was very proud of the way the guys handled that,” UL safeties coach Tim Rebowe said. “It was tough. We talked all week about how good he (Carden) was at extending the play. We had a couple breakdowns, but I really think we did a decent job in coverage. We didn’t give up a lot of big plays.” In the two possessions prior to that memorable last stand, it was corner­back Jermarlous Moten coming through in a big way. The first one came two plays after a UL in­terception at the Cajun 34 with the Cajuns only lead­ing 37-34.

After a five-yard run, Moten picked off Carden at the UL 21.

“All season long, we had been struggling with the post, so I kind of knew they were going to try to throw that on us,” Moten said. “I had no safety help on that play and I kind of baited him.” On ECU’s next posses­sion, a Moten pass break­up on third-and-three from the Pirates’ 35 ended that possession and set up an 11-play, 77-yard drive that ended with a Baer 25­yard field goal and a 40 -34 UL lead with 3:11 left.

“They did a good job of changing coverages from the start of the game,” said Carden, who finished 25-of-42 for 278 yards and two TDs and one intercep­tion. “They changed some things up a little more than we thought they would.” Those final three stops for UL’s defense served as a dramatic bookend to the start of the game when the defense delivered three consecutive three­and-outs to play a huge role in UL jumping out to a 28-7 lead.

“We came out hot and making plays,” said defen­sive tackle Justin Hamil­ton, who finished with four tackles and one for a loss. “We really got after them. When things started to change, we knew we just had to keep fighting. We just had to keep believ­ing in each other and keep fighting.” Hamilton was referring to the eight possessions in the middle in which ECU posted four touchdowns, two field goals and punted twice.

“It’s just a game of mo­mentum,” Rebowe said. “We’re doing a great job and then they hit one big play (45-yard pass to Gi­bril Solomon) and then they get the momentum. And then we had the turn­over. It’s just a game of momentum, but I thought our kids kept fighting and kept making plays.” After UL dominated the time of possession in the first half, the Cajuns’ defense spent much of the second half on the field, limiting UL’s final lead in time of possession to 32:43-27:17.

“I was never worried about our defense getting fatigued,” senior defen­sive end Emeka Onyene­kwu said. “We were still playing hard. I was con­fident that the defense would bounce back. He was a good quarterback. You had to take the right angle on him.

“It really feels great for the defense to come through at the end. It’s a special feeling, knowing we had a lot to do with it.”