Football: Cajun QB Broadway motivated by 2013 All-Sun Belt snub – Broadway’s Bright Lights

Tim Buckley, The Advertiser, July 24, 2014

NEW ORLEANS – First came the perceived snub. Then came a suggestion of anticipated success.

In between, UL quarterback Terrance Broadway stewed – with Ragin’ Cajuns coach Mark Hudspeth largely stirring the pot.

The snub, as Broadway and the Cajuns see it?

Troy’s Corey Robinson was named 2013 first team All-Sun Belt quarterback. South Alabama’s Ross Metheny was named 2013 second team All-Sun Belt QB. And at the end of an injury-hampered 2013 season, UL Monroe’s Kolton Browning earned All-Sun Belt honorable mention.

Broadway?

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Not so much as a mention, despite completing 62.4 percent of his passes for 2,419 yards and 19 touchdowns while also running for another 442 yards and eight TDs as UL went 9-4 and beat Tulane in the New Orleans Bowl.

All this, incidentally, despite a persistent ankle injury that proved problematic throughout the season and a broken forearm that caused the then-junior from Baton Rouge’s Capitol High to miss a key late-season loss at South Alabama that cost Sun Belt co-champ UL an outright conference championship.

The failure to get even a nod after 2013 energizes Broadway now, just as Hudspeth hoped it would.

"I stoked that fire a little bit with him," the Cajun coach said during Sun Belt Media Day on Tuesday at the Superdome.

"But there were a lot of good quarterbacks in this league. It would be hard to get them all all-conference. … But he felt like he was deserving to be up in mention with the rest of those guys, and that was just good motivation, which you’re always trying to find."

Never mind that earlier this week Broadway was named Sun Belt Preseason Offensive Player of the Week, and never mind that he’s been named Sun Belt Preseason MVP by Lindy’s college football preview magazine and Sun Belt Preseason Offensive Player of the Year by Sporting News preview magazine.

It’s what wasn’t that he’s latched onto.

"They lit a fire in me that they’re not gonna be able to put out," Broadway said while in New Orleans along with Hudspeth for the conference’s Media Day.

"It’s still not done driving me," he added with reference to that 2013 postseason honor team. "Because I feel like I was the only one of all those guys to even make it to the bowl game and have a winning season."

Troy, South Alabama and ULM all finished last season 6-6.

"But it is what it is," Broadway said. "When I think about it now, it’s like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me that I’m voted Preseason (Offensive) Player of the Year.’ "

Broadway doesn’t buy the notion that voters – conference coaches and select media members who cover the conference – were simply paying respect to a trio of outgoing seniors.

"It’s the game of football," he said.

"Russell Wilson didn’t pay respect to Peyton Manning by letting him win that game – the Super Bowl – just because he (Manning) was older than him and had been there longer than him.

"If that’s what they were doing, then I don’t want them to do the same for me. I want to earn everything. I never want nothing given to me," added Broadway, who is headed into his third season at UL after transferring from the University of Houston. "I’m not saying that it was ‘given’ to those guys, but my senior year I want to earn all my accolades, all my accomplishments."

That’s precisely the approach Hudspeth was hoping Broadway would take when, by the coach’s own admission, he reached for the stir stick.

"I think he’s hopefully out to prove," Hudspeth said, "he is an all-conference caliber quarterback, and to prove by being voted Preseason (Offensive) Player of the Year that he’s worthy of those expectations.

"He (Broadway) had a great year (last season); there were a lot of really talented quarterbacks in the league last year that were seniors, and they were deserving also," he added. "But now he’s a senior. He’s a team leader. Hopefully, if he can stay healthy, he’ll be set for a really good season."

Broadway’s Bright Lights

• Holds school record for completion percentage at .642.

• Holds school record for passing yards per game at 210.4.

• Holds school record for total offense per game at 258.9.

• Holds school record for 300-yard passing game with 6.

• Fourth in school history with 36 passing touchdowns.

• Fifth in school history with 5,261 passing yards and total offense 6,472.

• Sixth in school history with 372 completions.

• One of three players to throw for over 5,000 yards and rush for over 1,000.