Ask Derreck Dean about Rusty Whitt, he lights up. Ask Brad McGuire about Rusty Whitt, eyes grow wide. Ask Bernard Smith about Rusty Whitt, he just starts laughing.

Ask just about anyone with the UL football program about Whitt, the reaction is bound to be animated.

"That’s the man with the plan right there: Coach Whitt," said Dean, UL’s starting senior noseguard. "Everybody talks about ‘Coach Hud, Coach Hud.’ And Coach Hud (Mark Hudspeth, the Ragin’ Cajuns’ head coach) has been the man behind everything. He came and changed the whole attitude about this program.

"But nobody talks about Coach Whitt. And if I had to say anything, he’s the reason why this team is where we are right now. I mean, the stuff that man put us through "» "

Some deem it heartless.

Some call it crazy.

Some just laugh, and laugh, and laugh again, because if they weren’t laughing they’d be crying.

"He’s a firecracker," quarterback Blaine Gautier said. "He’s definitely a big part of why we’re having this success — because he put so much time in the offseason to getting us here, and he’s still doing it."

So who is this mystery man so many Cajuns credit for UL playing Saturday in their first postseason game — the New Orleans Bowl, against San Diego State — since 1970?

Who is this man who wails on a heavy bag while awaiting an interview?

Who is this man reading a nearly 1,000-page book on Patton — Gen. George S. — as the Cajuns fly to an away game?

Decorated warrior

Literally.

Taskmaster?

Undoubtedly.

He of no heart?

Stop right there.

"I try to put the guys in the position they’re gonna be when they play in a hostile environment — like going to Florida next year, Oklahoma State (this year). That environment has no heart. It has no compassion," said Whitt, UL’s head strength and conditioning coach and an Iraq war veteran.

"If guys aren’t ready for that, they’re gonna get hurt. I do care about the kids. Their welfare is paramount in my program. But in order to create that kind of environment, you have to somehow seem callous toward them a little bit.

"I know the kids’ names, I talk to their parents, I care about them," Whitt added. "But the workout environment has to be very intense. Because it’s just human nature to create a comfort zone. And (those) two hours (a) day they’re with me? We have to get them out of that comfort zone."

As he speaks, a buzzer sounds — signaling the start of a new Cajuns practice period.

"In the fourth quarter," Whitt just happens to say as the noise dies down, "when you’re tired and you’re down by 10, and you have a chance to win it — that comfort zone doesn’t exist."

‘Ambush’

How he does it has become the stuff of legend at UL.

Best-known: Players running stadium steps while carrying backpacks loaded with dead weight, part of an exercise called Protect the House.

Fifty pounds? Fifty-five? Seventy?

Depends who you ask.

Yet it doesn’t stop there, perhaps part of the reason UL successfully defended Cajun Field all five times it played there in 2011.

"Each time," Dean said, "he made it harder and harder."

"He calls it ‘ambush,’" H-back McGuire added. "He’s always throwing different things at us, and pushing us farther than you think you can go. And when you’re at the point of exhaustion, that point of ‘I’m done’ and ‘I can’t go any more,’ he gets it out of you."

So try adding another 45 pounds in plates, around the neck, with the loaded backpack already strapped on.

Try pushing a blocking sled hundreds and hundreds of yards — then dissembling it, carrying parts of it around a stadium, reassembling it as a group and pushing some more.

Try carrying a teammate up a hill with a teammate on your back.

"After a workout," McGuire said. "When you’re dead-tired."

Impossible?

"I thought we couldn’t do it," Dean said. "But that was his whole plan."

Training one to overcome what the body and mind insist you cannot is the method behind what some consider madness.

"He’s "» crazy," offensive lineman Kyle Plouhar said.

"Crazy," linebacker Lance Kelley added, "but a good crazy."

Combining military-combat instruction, mixed martial arts technique and an emphasis on old-fashioned teamwork, Whitt really does push players beyond supposed limits.

And if they don’t like it?

Too bad.

"I’m really passionate about what I do," Whitt said.

"When the kids come in, I just feel like I was meant for this. I just feel energetic and excited, and I can have an impact on their life. I just get energy from that. I guess they call that the ‘crazy’ part."

The payoff

Some days, crazy seems kind.

Just don’t call Whitt heartless. That appears to hurt. And he can hurt you. Bad.

Still, at times, some really do wonder.

Or at least they did — before going undefeated at home for the first time since 1987, before winning eight games for the first time 1993, before an 8-4 season that is UL’s first above .500 since 2005, before the 40-year bowl drought that seemed like it might never end.

"Sometimes I used to think he didn’t have no feelings on the inside. He didn’t have a heart," Dean said. "But it’s all worked out, and it’s all paid off."

A point in life

The buzzer sounds again.

Whitt is now leaning on the heavybag, not pummeling it.

"I was at a point in my life," he said, "where it was either do it, or you’re gonna get too old.

"I love being part of a team. And I was in a good shape. I wanted to see what else I could do — you know, one last good hurrah."

Spurred by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America, Whitt left his strength job at Sam Houston State University and served — starting in August 2003, about nine years after he graduated from Abilene Christian University — for five-and-a-half years in the U.S. Army.

The senior communication sergeant was deployed to Iraq twice, during Operation Iraqi Freedom V and VI, and implemented a comprehensive pre-deployment conditioning program for his 10th Special Forces team.

With a combat infantry badge, two Iraqi campaign medals and an Army commendation medal with valor in hand, he returned to the world of athletic training at Rice University in 2009.

A year-and-half later, Bob Marlin — UL’s head basketball coach, an ex-colleague at Sam Houston State — called.

"He said, ‘Hey, Lafayette opened up,’" Whitt said.

By October of 2010 Whitt was at UL.

He arrived hungry — but with no appetite for losing.

"I had my approach, and my style," he said, "and it was abrasive with the kids initially — because they wanted to set the tone; they wanted to be in their cruise-control mode."

Whitt stuck to his guns.

"The kids have to know you’re confident," he said, "and you have to know your craft, or they’re gonna see right through it."

Whitt’s first season at UL ended at 3-9 and with coach Rickey Bustle getting fired.

Enter Hudspeth, whose personality matched Whitt’s like a long-lost cousin.

"Coach Hud came in with his hair on fire, with all the energy, and it meshed pretty well," Whitt said. "Because our workouts, it has to have total buy-in — or you just can’t do them."

Hudspeth was all for what Whitt was promoting.

"I think UL has had a history of great individual players," Whitt said, "but not great teams.

"(Hudspeth) and I (agreed) we were going to try to deemphasize individual achievement and work on team-building."

As the season progressed, something became apparent. The Cajuns weren’t just a tight team. They also were one with relatively few injuries.

"A lot of (that)," Hudspeth said, "has to do with our training, our preparation."

A conditioning coach’s ultimate compliment?

Whitt doesn’t take it that way.

"It’s what keep you employed," he said. "That’s got to be your main priority."

A ripple effect

Kelley, oft-injured in the past, is among many suggesting Whitt’s workouts are behind him being in such solid shape this season.

Before becoming fit, though, one must buy in.

"He goes by the motto of ‘ain’t no excuses for life,’ so he’s not going to help us make ’em," offensive lineman Leonardo Bates said. "I always believed if you work hard it will pay off. Eventually. It might not be when you want it want it to, or how you want it to, but it will pay off. So I bought in immediately. Some guys took longer."

Those who took too long left.

"It was almost like a ripple effect," Kelley said. "The starters and the seniors bought in, and then, after that, everybody followed — because there was no choice. It was get off the ship, or let’s ride."

Defensive end Smith rode, even if the waves sometimes were choppy. He calls his bond with Whitt "dysfunctional — but loving."

"That’s where they go, ‘I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I love you, I love you, I love you,’ " Smith said.

"Every time you want to walk away, you always give yourself 101 reasons why you can’t. "» He’ll do something that makes you say, ‘(Forget) it.’ Then he’ll do something that makes you say, ‘Man, this man, he can help me better myself.’ "

Inspiration trumps dark

Whitt draws from life experience.

What he doesn’t do, however, is dwell on the horrors he knows.

"I tried to explain to the kids initially — and they don’t get it," he said.

"This is such a wonderful place we live in here in the (United) States, and their lives are so privileged compared to what those people are going through in so many other countries.

"What I saw over there — I don’t think I can motivate the guys by telling about some of the dark things," Whitt added. "I try to tell to them about inspirational moments I saw, and human will — the power of a guy’s determination."

Whitt isn’t someone who overtly cringes when hearing the analogy between conflict and sports.

"Coaches always talk about ‘the battle.’ It’s gonna be ‘a war today.’ I kind of laugh. I smile inside," he said.

"But, at the same time, it is a conflict of cultures. When we go play Troy, there’s 25-, 35,000 people there against us that have their own set little culture there in Troy, Ala. We have ours.

"There are some similarities. "» Winning is paramount."

There are contrasts too.

"I’m sure there’s stuff he can’t tell us, but he relates it as well as possible to football," offensive lineman Plouhar said. "And it often does help. It makes us think we’re happy we’re here playing football, with all the stuff that’s gone on over there."

"I try to make the right correlations," Whitt added. "And at the end of the game, you have to shake their hands and treat them like brothers."

In football.

And sometimes even after war.

"It makes me see an American flag with a different state of mind," Whitt said. "A clear, beautiful day — it makes me appreciate things a lot more.

"I try to bring that into my work environment, to make these guys understand the chances they have. So many people — even the guys I served with — didn’t have the opportunity these guys have.

"But in the preparation — yeah, I try to get as intense as we did. Because I think we have a higher likelihood of walking off the field, and especially being victorious, if they have that higher intensity level."

The kids did it

Walk past Whitt another day, and he’s outside, near the corner of two building walls, jabbing at an imaginary foe.

Congratulate him on a bowl bid, and he mockingly, wildly, starts patting himself on the back.

That, he fears, is what too many Cajuns have been doing lately.

But there’s another game to play, another battle to fight. For that, UL players thank him.

Hearing that really does sit well, even for a man who hides his heart so well Dean is moved to say "sometimes you see it; most of the time, you don’t."

"It’s nice to know that," Whitt said. "But the kids did the work.

"They had some leadership that said, ‘Hey, we’re tired of losing; we want to go out better than we have in the past.’ "» The kids got us to the bowl game. Ladarius Green and Brad McGuire made that great play (recovering an onside kick, leading to a game-winning touchdown) against (UL) Monroe."

Down by 11, late in the fourth quarter.

"Those kids did that," Whitt said.

They did, yet they still feel as if Whitt stands tall among those they couldn’t have done it without.

"He puts you through hell," Dean said. "But it’s all for a good cause.’