Football: Another duty for Nixon – Reserve QB to fill role in kicking game

Tim Buckley, August 19, 2013

UL quarterback Jalen Nixon will be playing a special teams role for the Cajuns this season. / Leslie Westbrook/lwestbrook@theadvertiser.com

Brad McGuire did it for Brett Baer in 2011, Brady Thomas for Baer in 2012.

Serve as personal protector on the UL football team’s punt unit, that is.

It’s no coincidence that McGuire also was a quarterback for the Ragin’ Cajuns, and that Thomas was too.

Nor is it coincidence that the protector for new Cajuns punter Daniel Cadona in 2013 is Jalen Nixon – also a quarterback.

In fact, it’s by design.

Third-year Cajuns coach Mark Hudspeth, it seems, really likes having the option of some trickery when his punt team is on the field.

“I think that helps you keep defenses honest,” he said. “It gives you that ability to execute some really good fakes if needed.”

Hudspeth, however, doesn’t just talk a good game.

He lends credibility by actually turning to trick plays.

Last season, for instance, Thomas extended on a key drive in a Cajun win over South Alabama by completing a 25-yard pass to cornerback Melvin White on a fake punt. In UL’s 2011 New Orleans Bowl win over San Diego, McGuire completed a 22-yard pass to now-NFL cornerback Bill Bentley on a fake-punt play.

Now Nixon hopes to continue the tradition for the Cajuns, whose 2013 season-opener comes Aug. 31 at Arkansas.

“When I come in the game,” he said, “it’s like you have to worry about what different things we can do with the ball with me being on punt team, or whether they’re gonna snap it to me or not.

“It kind of makes the defense have to be alert of what possibly could happen.”

Nixon spent much of preseason training camp watching fellow redshirt freshmen D’Shaie Landor and Brooks Haack fight for the No. 2 quarterback job behind starter Terrance Broadway.

The Carencro High product fought with those two in the spring, and got some reps at QB in fall camp too.

But Hudspeth also has been searching for all sorts of ways to get the athletic Nixon on the field, lining up the strong runner at H-back at times and penciling him in on special teams too.

“I love it,” Nixon said of his new punt-protection responsibility. “It’s fun for me, because I Iike contact.

“So I feel like if I’m back there I’m gonna do my best, give 100 percent effort at whatever it is all the time. Never take a play off. Just always plays hard. So it’s no problem with me. I like doing it.”

He’s especially appreciates it knowing, based on the history of recent predecessors, just what the possibilities are.

“The first time there’s a trick play I look forward to going to the end zone, run in for my six,” Nixon said. “That’s my intention. Always high intentions on what I’ve got to do.”

STILL INVOLVED

Thomas, the Cajuns’ No. 3 quarterback and No. 1 holder last season, is working with the program this season as an administrative intern.

Former UL defensive lineman Aaron Thibodeaux, whose playing career was cut short in 2011 by life-threatening staph bacteria, is working this season as a student assistant in the Cajun weight room.

BIG FINE

According to a Florida Times-Union report out of Jacksonville, the NFL last Friday fined undrafted Miami Dolphins defensive end Emeka Onyenekwu $10,000 for his late hit earlier this month on Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Matt Scott. Onyenekwu played on UL’s 2011 and 2012 New Orleans Bowl-winning teams

DAY OFF

After scrimmaging Saturday and formally breaking camp, Hudspeth made Sunday a day off from practice for the Cajuns.

They’re back at it today, though.