Football: ASU coach Anderson enjoyed time with Cajuns

Tim Buckley, The Advertiser, October 19, 2014

 

Blake Anderson

 

 

One season spent coaching at UL apparently left quite an impression on Blake Anderson, now the first-year head coach at Sun Belt Conference-rival Arkansas State.

“People were great. Fun place to be,” Anderson said when asked about his time in Lafayette during the Sun Belt’s Media Day last July in New Orleans.

“I’m excited for them,” he added, “in the fact that when we were there you know they were hungry for some things to develop, and I thought they brought in good administration and they’ve got a good vision and Mark (Cajuns head coach Mark Hudspeth) has done a good job.”

Anderson, whose 4-2 Red Wolves visit Cajun Field for an ESPN2-televised game Tuesday, was UL’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach under Rickey Bustle in 2007.

The Cajuns went 3-9 that season, and Anderson – an assistant coach at New Mexico from 1999-2001 and co-offensive coordinator at Middle Tennessee from 2002-04 – left after one year to become Southern Mississippi’s offensive coordinator from 2010-11.

After working as North Carolina’s offensive coordinator from 2012-13, he succeeded Bryan Harsin at Arkansas State.

“The people were great to us,” Anderson said. “I always kind of look at how they treat my family. And even though things weren’t going great on the field and we had an up-and-down year, you wouldn’t know it in the community.

“They were so supportive, and caring of my family. It’s just a good environment. Good people.”

Anderson suggested he wasn’t surprised at all to see that UL has won three straight New Orleans Bowl, or that Cajun Field has been and will continue to be expanded.

“I thought it was possible,” he said. “I thought some changes needed to be made along the way to get there, and I think they’ve kind of done that in different aspects.

“They’ve obviously committed themselves financially to do some things that need to be done, and it’s helped in recruiting.

“It was a unique environment,” Anderson added. “They had an opportunity to explode, and they’ve done a good job with it. … They’ve done a good job giving those guys what they needed to take the next step, and then they’ve taken advantage of it.”

Besides “the people,” Anderson said, what he misses most about Lafayette is “the food” – including, he recalled with a wide smile, sandwiches from Olde Tyme Grocery.