Football: Instant Success

Tim Buckley, The Advertiser, January 20, 2012

His hire came in December 2010, and UL head football coach Mark Hudspeth didn’t assemble his first Ragin’ Cajun coaching staff until January 2011.

The program had only three commitments when he arrived. Initial contact with, and talent evaluation of, some prospects didn’t begin until less than a month before teams across the country would be signing kids they’d been pursuing for countless hours, days, weeks, months and, in some cases, even beyond that. UL, for all practical purposes, was starting from scratch.

Talk about a recruiting nightmare.

Somehow, though, the Cajuns came away with a dream crop anyway.

And as he prepares to unveil his third class when the NCAA’s national signing period opens Feb. 6, Hudspeth still can’t believe what an operation overseen by recruiting coordinator Reed Stringer was able to do in such a short time.

"I’m just really proud of that class," Hudspeth said. "It’s pretty special. I thought our staff did a great job of evaluating kids.

"If you think about it, that class was evaluated and signed, really, from January on. It wasn’t like we’d been recruiting them for the entire year, or even knowing about (all of) them when they were juniors.

"We got in here, obviously, behind the eight ball in recruiting," he added, "and to be able to land such an outstanding class says a lot about our staff and how well they did in quickly identifying players that we needed (and) filling the voids that we needed to at the time."

The collection of 29 players that Hudspeth initially brought in produced Alabaman Alonzo Harris, the Cajuns’ primary starting running back in back-to-back 9-4 seasons both capped by New Orleans Bowl wins.

Harris, the Sun Belt Conference’s Freshman of the Year in 2011, ran for 120 yards and two touchdowns in the second of those bowls, last December’s win at the Superdome over East Carolina.

It produced UL’s other top two running backs at the start of 2012, a pair of Louisianans, first-game starter Montrel Carter, who sustained a season-ending knee injury in the opener against Lamar, and season-long backup Effrem Reed.

It produced UL’s starting noseguard for most of the season, Christian Ringo, along with starting defensive tackle Justin Hamilton, both from Mississippi.

It produced starting offensive guard Mykhael Quave, another Mississippian and the only newcomer to a unit whose other four older starters did not miss a start in all of 2011 and 2012.

It produced reserve receiver Jamal Robinson, whose average of 24.2 yards per catch last season — including six grabs for 116 yards in the New Orleans Bowl — was a team-high for the Louisianan.

And it produced 2012 New Orleans Bowl starting linebacker Trae Johnson, another Mississippian.

Add in the fact that prolific starting quarterback Terrance Broadway also arrived in 2011 as a transfer from the University of Houston, and — all in all — that’s quite a bit of production.

"A lot of times you see some guys maybe contributing a little bit their second year," Hudspeth said "but not starting and definitely not playing the roles that these guys played."

And that doesn’t even address the production of two of the class’s only four junior college transfers, starting slot receiver Harry Peoples and starting defensive back Jemarlous Moten.

By the time Hudspeth left his job as passing-game coordinator at Mississippi State to succeed the fired Rickey Bustle at UL, most of the region’s highly regarded junior-college recruits had already signed elsewhere as mid-year additions.

The Cajuns essentially were picking from leftovers who would not arrive until the summer.

Yet they still came up with Peoples, who merely had 122 catches in his two seasons as UL’s starting slot receiver, and Moten, who had a combined seven interceptions while starting in 2011 at safety and 2012 at cornerback.

Peoples and Moten both played at Mississippi junior colleges, and that’s no small coincidence.

Four of UL’s new 29 in 2011 were from Mississippi, a nod to Hudspeth’s longstanding recruiting roots and connections with high school and juco coaches in the state where he was raised and played his own college football at Delta State.

In fact, Ringo, Hamilton and Alabaman Harris all were among the prospects Hudspeth was familiar with because of his days working for Mississippi State.

"There’s a reason we signed so many Mississippi guys that year — because, obviously, I had been recruiting Mississippi and knew about all those guys," he said.

The Cajuns continue to recruit Mississippi quite heavily.

Already for 2013 they’ve signed two juco additions from the state, Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College kicker Stephen Brauchle and East Central Community College offensive tackle Johnny Kight, and have a verbal commitment from another, Holmes Community College cornerback Cedric Tillman.

As he looks back, though, Hudspeth still can’t believe how so much fell into place so soon as a result of 2011.

Only one of the three existing commitments, kicker Carlos Alvarez, wound up signing with UL, meaning the new staff got the other 25 on its own.

Some have been lost along the way, as is the case with any recruiting class.

In this instance, nine of the original 29 — not including outgoing seniors — are no longer with the program.

Hudspeth calls its "normal attrition."

What he cares about much more is the extraordinary early success the class has enjoyed, and how it’s helped the Cajuns — a program whose cupboard was somewhat bare as Bustle exited — go 18-8 with two bowl wins in two years.

Typically, college coaches prefer not to evaluate a recruiting year until after a full five seasons. In this instance, however, Hudspeth doesn’t hesitate to toot UL’s own horn.

"We were able to hit on some guys," the Cajun coach said in trying to explain how it happened, "and sometimes some of the guys end up being, sometimes, maybe even better than you anticipate.

"We’ve just been very fortunate, and done a really good job of evaluating kids."