Football: Cajuns swarm all over Lamar in 40-0 shutout – game photo gallery included 9/2/12

Football: Cajuns swarm all over Lamar in 40-0 shutout – game photo gallery included 9/2/12

Tim Buckley, The Advertiser, September 2, 2012

Forty points by halftime. No first-half turnovers. Points produced off each of their eight opening-half drives.

The way quarterback Ragin’ Cajuns quarterback Blaine Gautier sees it, UL’s season-opening 40-0 victory over FCS Southland Conference-member Lamar on Saturday night marked a mission accomplished.

And he wasn’t alone."We just wanted to come out and show what we have, and that’s a good team overall — offensively, and defensively, and special teams also," Gautier said after the Cajuns recorded just their third season-opening win in 11 years.

Gautier wound up 7-of-18 for 142 yards and two touchdowns, one to tight end Jake Maxwell and one to receiver Javone Lawson, in front of 25,803 at a rather damp Cajun Field.The Cajuns also got running touchdowns from Alonzo Harris and Effrem Reed, four field goals (52, 40, 39 and 32 yards) and four PATs from Brett Baer, one Rodney Gillis interception, two Justin Hamilton forced fumbles and fumble recoveries by Gillis, Justin Anderson and Qyen Griffin.

"That was about the best first half of football I think I’ve seen as far as the first game of the year," said head coach Mark Hudspeth, whose Cajuns open Sun Belt Conference play Saturday night at Troy.

"A lot of times you’ve got a lot of those first-game-of-the-year mistakes in the kicking game and then as far as turnovers, things like that.

"We didn’t have any turnovers in the first half, we caused four (and) our specialty teams were absolutely, I thought, flawless there in the first half," Hudspeth added. "I was very pleased."Though Gautier and the Cajun offense didn’t exactly open 2012 showing the precision with which they ended 2011, Hudspeth really did sound happy.His only hangup was that they weren’t able to come up with touchdowns on three drives that stalled between the 15 and 23, and instead ultimately ended with field goals by Baer."The thing I did see we’ve got top improve upon is red-zone (scoring)," Hudspeth said.

To that point, Gautier spoke of season-opening jitters — even for an offense returning nine of 11 starters.

The Cajuns, he said, were "kind of getting our feet wet.

"First game, there was lot of electricity and a lot of excitement," he added. "That’s probably what it was."Whatever it was, it ultimately was not a cause for too much concern among the Cajuns.

"You know," Baer said, "any time you score 40 points in the first half and you don’t allow them to score the whole game — you know you’re doing something right, offense and defense."UL’s opening five-play, 23-yard drive ended with a career-long 52-yard field goal by Baer, who picked up where he left off last season — with a then-career-best 50-yarder to beat San Diego State in the New Orleans Bowl.

Lamar’s initial drive did not go nearly as well.It was halted when noseguard Hamilton sacked and stripped quarterback Ryan Mossakowski, whose fumble was recovered by linebacker Anderson at the Lamar 29.

Six plays later, Gautier found Maxwell in the back of the end zone with a 2-yard touchdown pass. Baer converted the PAT, making it 10-0 Cajuns.Lamar’s second drive ended with a Hamilton-forced fumble as well, this time when he jarred it free from former Oklahoma State running back Hershel Sims.

Linebacker Griffin scooped up the loose ball, setting up a Cajun drive that started at the Lamar 25 and ended with a 40-yard field goal by Baer that put UL up 13-0.Lawson’s 27-yard punt return set up the Cajuns’ fourth scoring drive, a seven-play, 28-yarder capped by a Harris 1-yard TD run on the opening play of the second quarter. Baer tacked on the PAT again, making it 20-0.The Cajuns made it straight five drives ending with points when Reed ran in from 2 yards out with 11 minutes and 24 seconds remaining in the opening half, a touchdown set up by Jamal Robinson’s 86-yard catch-and-run to the 3 — the longest non-touchdown pass completion in UL history.

"That was huge, to get us down there," Gautier said of the play by Robinson, a sophomore who played as a true freshman last season. "He got a lot of yards of that. We were hoping he was gonna get a touchdown, but it was great for us to have that."

It wasn’t all UL would get when it came to big plays.

After cornerback Melvin White forced yet another Lamar fumble and Gillis made the recovery, Baer kicked a 39-yard field that gave UL a 30-0 advantage.

Gillis then intercepted Lamar backup quarterback Caleb Berry one drive later, and after the turnover Baer had a 32-yard field to made it 33-0.That kick by Baer was his fourth of the game and his 15th straight field goal dating back to last season, breaking Mike Shafer’s 1994 school record.

It wasn’t even halftime yet, and UL still wasn’t done.Twelve seconds before the break came, Gautier would find Lawson with a 2-yard TD pass and Baer’s PAT would give UL a 40-0 lead.

That made it 8-for-8 on first-half drives for the Cajuns.The second half, however, ended the run for UL.The Cajuns’ first drive of the third quarter ended by a fumble by Reed, and their second led to UL’s first punt of the game — a 50-yarder by Baer.With backup and reserves playing much of the rest of the way, UL’s focus shifted — and that mission was accomplished too.The Cajuns had only one thing in mind throughout that second half, something they’d been pondering for quite some time.

"Oh, we wanted the shutout," Gillis said. "We talked about that all week."

Athletic Network Footnote:  Click here for game photo gallery.