Football: Is playing on national TV worth it? Another Saturday with no football for UL

Tim Buckley, Daily Advertiser, October 11, 2013

It’s a Saturday, and the UL Ragin’ Cajuns are not playing football.

Again.

They’re off on a Saturday for the second time in three weekends, in fact – with only last Saturday’s 48-24 home win over Texas State squeezed in between.

Get used it, too.

The Cajuns won’t be playing next Saturday, either, or the Saturday after that.

That’s because they instead have two Tuesday-night road games coming up, the first at Western Kentucky, the following one at Arkansas State.

Both will be televised by ESPN2, begging the question: Is the tradeoff – national exposure, but no Saturday tailgating in which to partake and no UL football to watch – worth it?

Cajuns coach Mark Hudspeth, his club 3-2 and on a three-game win streak as it prepares for it’s toughest two-game stretch of the season, wonders.

“That part’s a positive – just to continue to get our brand out there,” he said of the exposure. “We’re still working on trying to get our name out there nationally. But, you know what? I still like playing games on Saturdays.

“In the past, maybe when we (were) trying to get our program kick-started, I might have been in favor of all the Tuesday games. Just to get our name out there,” added Hudspeth, who is practicing his team today. “But we’ve played on TV before now. This is not our first time on TV. I like playing in front of our fans on Saturdays at Cajun Field, too.”

Hudspeth’s Cajuns played twice on ESPN2 last season, losing at North Texas and to Arkansas State.

They’ve won back-to-back New Orleans Bowls on ESPN.

They had a nationally televised loss at Kansas State on the newly launched FOX Sports 1 network last month, and a handful of other games seen around the country since Hudspeth arrived at UL before the start of the 2011 season.

Today, though, he’d much rather be playing than preparing for the first of two straight Tuesday games that are on tap only because the ESPN planners picked the Cajuns as part of a contractual agreement with the Sun Belt Conference.

UL also has one Thursday-night home this season, Nov. 7 vs. Troy, a game that will be played on five days’ rest, that will be televised nationally on ESPNU and that is part of the same network-conference deal.

With only five home games for the Cajuns this season, that leaves them with limited opportunities to play in front of fans at a stadium where they are 12-1 since Hudspeth arrived.

“I like giving our fans more chances to come to Cajun Field,” the Cajun coach said. “We only have four Saturday games at Cajun Field this year, and we need to have six in the future, if not seven. But the exposure is nice. So that will be good.”

Hudspeth is not alone in his preference for Saturday games.

Speaking to multiple reporters in Virginia last month, Virginia Tech defensive coordinator Bud Foster lashed out at having to play two games with just five days in between.

The Hokies had a Thursday-night win at Georgia Tech preceded by a Saturday win over Marshall, and Foster called it “totally absurd, ludicrous.”

Western Kentucky coach Bobby Petrino, meanwhile, seems much less bothered by the whole midweek thing.

His 4-2 Hilltoppers are coming off an Oct. 3, Thursday-night win at UL Monroe that was cable-televised on ESPNU, given them ample practice time before their Tuesday-night game with the Cajuns.

“I think I’ve played every night of the week but Monday, when we were up at Louisville,” the ex-Arkansas and former Louisville coach said during his weekly press conference earlier this week.

Petrino especially likes the bounce that comes playing when most others are not.

“I like doing it,” he said. “I think it’s a great thing for recruiting. I think it helps us a lot. You know, all the recruits watch the midweek games.

“Last week, when we played on Thursday (at ULM), we met as a staff Wednesday night and made a bunch of phone calls, got a ton of kids on the phone, and reminded them we were playing the next night. I think it’s great to help us build our program.”

For at least a couple current Cajuns, however, the opinion on midweek games seems to be one of relative ambivalence.

In their minds, football is football – Saturday or not.

“It’s really doesn’t matter,” running back Alonzo Harris said. “When my guys are ready to go, when the team is ready to go, it (doesn’t) matter what day of the week you choose us to play. We’re gonna go out and play to win.”

“What I see is just another game in the season,” defensive lineman Justin Hamilton added. “It’s just a different day.”