Football: Griffin adjusting to game + Baer, Peoples honored by the SBC 10/2/12

Football: Griffin adjusting to game � Baer, Peoples honored by the SBC 10/2/12

Tim Buckley, Daily Advertiser, Oct. 2, 2012

UL linebacker Qyen Griffin (6) joins Brandon McCray (96) and Justin Anderson (34) on a gang tackle against FIU on Saturday.

With a team-high 10 total tackles, including five solo stops, in a 48-20 win over Florida International last Saturday night, backup linebacker Qyen Griffin wound up on the receiving end of some high praise Monday.

"I thought (he) had his best game as a Ragin’ Cajun," UL head coach Mark Hudspeth said.

For that, Griffin credits a practice week in which Cajun coaches — especially defensive coordinator Greg Stewart — put extra emphasis on the need to communicate.And he didn’t mean via email, Twitter or even Instagram — but instead actual human interaction in which real words are exchanged.

Conversing, that is, the old-fashioned way."We were really focused, and we did all the little things to make it count," Griffin said. "And we were "» being vocal, and talking out there.

"As the week went on, Coach kept stressing about us communicating out there and getting in formation," he added. "We took that over to Saturday, and it helped us out."Griffin — a sophomore from South Panola High in Batesville, Miss. — played extensively against FIU partly because starting inside linebacker Jake Molbert was hobbled by a hip stinger.

Molbert could have returned if needed.But Griffin, who played most of last season at backup running back before being moved to linebacker, is getting more comfy playing the position that was his primary one for much of his high school career.

UL’s other starting inside linebacker next to Molbert, Justin Anderson, has a team-high 34 total tackles in 2012. But Griffin has led the 3-1 Cajuns in tackles twice this season now, including six in a season-opening win over Lamar."I’m just picking up where I left off," he said.

Gautier at safety

When Hudspeth told Blaine Gautier on Sunday night that he’d like to play him at safety as soon as he’s ready to return from the broken hand he sustained last Saturday, the starting quarterback — a fifth-year senior playing his final season with the Cajuns — didn’t say much.

"He just looked at me like, ‘Serious, Coach?’ " Hudspeth said with a laugh Monday. "I went, ‘Dead serious.’

"And I think he was genuinely excited. Obviously, a football player wants to play football, if you’re a competitor. And he’ll play left tackle if we need him to play left tackle. That’s the way he rolls."

Gautier is not expected to be able throw the ball until late in the season, if at all this year.

But Hudspeth is convinced Gautier — sometime after he undergoes pin-insertion surgery to repair two broken bones — can contribute on defense, and special teams too."Being a quarterback, he understands coverages," the Cajun coach said. "He understands reading the quarterback’s body language, reading the quarterback’s eyes.

"He’s a great athlete, and he’s not scared. He’s a physical kid."So, who knows? If (safety) doesn’t work, we’ll try him somewhere else," Hudspeth added. "But this kid is too special. "» He’s done too much for this football team and this university."

Gautier set UL single-season records for passing yards and passing touchdowns, among others, last season.He also was named MVP of the 2011 New Orleans Bowl after throwing for 470 yards and 3 TDs.

"We’re not gonna shelve him here," Hudspeth said Monday, "with (eight) games left."Cheap shot?

Hudspeth’s team went into Saturday’s game l especially anxious to win because Florida International, in some Cajun minds, seemed not to respect UL’s upset win over the Panthers last season.But they really wanted the victory after feeling the hit by FIU defensive tackle Andre Pound that broke Gautier’s hand, though not called a penalty, came quite late.

"You never want to see your quarterback take a cheap shot, or a shot of that nature," UL starting offensive tackle Jaron Odom said. "That was just more fuel to the fire."

Delhomme’s commentary

Alongside play-by-play man Jeff Palermo, ex-UL and NFL quarterback Jake Delhomme will work as the analyst/color commentator for the Ragin’ Cajuns Network’s television broadcast of Saturday’s game vs. Tulane.

She said it

UL volleyball coach Heather Mazeitis-Fontenot, on Cajun football players watching her team play Western Kentucky last Friday night: "They made it so fun and so loud."