Football: Riding a Wave – Homecoming Photo Galleries Included 10/7/12

Football: Riding a Wave – Homecoming Photo Galleries Included 10/7/12

Tulane threw UL for a bit of a loop early on, coming out in a defensive scheme nothing like the man-to-man for which the Ragin’ Cajuns had spent all week prepping.

But the Cajuns did some throwing of their own Saturday. They did a whole lot of running, too. They even got some points from their defense, this time linebacker Justin Anderson, for the second time this season.

And they ultimately had no trouble rolling over the Green Wave, winning the non-conference homecoming game 41-13 and snapping Tulane’s four-game series win streak in front of 29,758 fans and threeGoDaddy.com Bowl representatives at Cajun Field.

It was the first victory over Tulane in three tries at Cajun Field for UL, which improved to 4-1 overall with eight straight home wins under second-year head coach Mark Hudspeth.Tulane — paying its first visit to Lafayette to face the Cajuns since 2000 — fell to 0-5 and lost for the nation-worst 15th consecutive time, a futility run dating to 2011.

"Their first (four) games they played strictly 100 percent, almost, man coverage,"

Hudspeth said. "And they came out (Saturday) and played a couple different zones on us that we really hadn’t prepared for."Once we made some adjustments," the Cajun coach added, "I thought we ended up executing pretty good."UL got 9-of-22 passing for 150 yards and a pair of touchdown throws, both to Javone Lawson on the left side of the end zone, from redshirt sophomore quarterback Terrance Broadway, the Baton Rouge-Capitol High product and University of Houston transfer who was making his first start as a Cajun.Opening in place of the injured Blaine Gautier, who broke two bones in his throwing hand one week earlier against Florida International, Broadway also ran nine times for 36 yards, including a 10-yard touchdown that helped make it 24-7 with one minute and 45 seconds remaining in the first half.

That was part of a 294-yard rushing day for the Cajuns, who also got 123 yards including a 1-yard TD from Alonzo Harris and 85 yards from Effrem Reed.

It was the third time over 100 yards in two seasons for Harris, the Sun Belt Conference’s Freshman of the Year in 2011.

"That’s great," Broadway said of the effort by Harris and Reed, "because we had a totally different game-plan."With injured Ryan Griffin and Devin Powell both not playing, Tulane of Conference USA did muster 226 yards in total offense behind usual No. 3 quarterback D.J. Ponder — 71 of them coming on a touchdown throw to Justyn Shackleford that made it 17-7 with just more than five minutes to go in the second quarter.

And after Broadway’s running touchdown, Tulane got a 40-yard field goal from Cairo Santos with nine seconds to go before the break.But the Green Wave was out of it after UL stretched its 24-10 halftime lead to 38-10 with the second of Lawson’s two touchdowns and Harris’ one in the third quarter.

Lawson went high over a defender to pull down a 20-yard Broadway throw just in-bounds, and the early third-quarter catch withstood video review."I knew it was a touchdown," Lawson said. "I felt like I got my feet in. That’s all I can say about it."

What the Cajuns did address in detail was how they had to respond to the unexpected looks they got from Tulane’s defense.But even that was cause for verbal pause.

"They threw a curveball at us," said Broadway, who was intercepted once, "and there’s nothing we can really say about it."I’m real proud of the offense to make that adjustment, but I feel I could have played better"I really wasn’t nervous. I just was trying to get in the groove of things, since we had a totally different game-plan that what we executed out there," Broadway added. "I mean, we just went back to fundamental things we hadn’t even run since (preseason) camp."UL led just 3-0 after one quarter, on a 46-yard Brett Baer field that capped an opening drive boosted by a 48-yard gain up the middle by surprise starting running back Effrem Reed.

Baer wound up 2-of-4 on field-goal attempts, with a miss from 41 yards, a 27-yarder that got blocked and a 31-yarder that closed the scoring midway through the fourth quarter.

The Cajuns struck again early in the second quarter, when Broadway found Lawson in the front corner of the end zone — he again went high to make the catch — on a toss from 23 yards out.

Less than six minutes later, Anderson picked off Ponder at the Green Wave 38-yard line.That was one of two turnovers UL recovered on the day, with safety Rodney Gillis also getting an interception — he now has three on the season — and defensive lineman Cordian Hagans claiming a late-game fumble.Anderson wound up with UL’s second defensive touchdown of 2012.The Cajuns also had a fumble returned for a TD by cornerback Jemarlous Moten in a Sept. 8 Sun Belt win at Troy."Every defense in the country wants to score touchdowns, and that’s one of our goals, is to get turnovers," Anderson said. "And once you get a turnover, you try to capitalize as much possible and try to get into the end zone.

"Once realized I was trying to make it to the end zone, I just tried to run as fast as I could, just trying to get there," the junior from Foley, Ala., added. "I turned it on. I had to run as fast I can. I mean, that’s what I got, right there."