UL’s Darryl Surgent celebrates after scoring a touchdown against Texas State. / Leslie Westbrook/The Advertiser
Tim Buckley, Daily Advertiser, December 13, 2013
He arrived with return skills he had to sell to former Ragin’ Cajun coaches, with a voice begging to break out into song and with a faith that’s kept him grounded throughout his 3 ½ years at UL.
He will exit harboring hopes of taking his game to the NFL and having touched those who remain behind.
Darryl Surgent will go out having left his mark, too — right after he goes into UL’s New Orleans Bowl game against Tulane on Saturday night as the Cajuns’ No. 10 all-time receiver and their No. 1 kickoff return man.
“Not only is he an outstanding player, but he is a guy of such high character,” UL coach Mark Hudspeth said. “He is a Christian young man who is a great influence on this team.
“He has developed into a playmaker for us. Great ball skills. Great quickness. Then he has the top speed that really gives him a lot of advantages,” Hudspeth added. “He’ll have a chance to play at the next level. He’s getting a lot of looks.”
He may not get drafted, but Surgent does at least seem bound next year for an NFL training camp somewhere.
It’s what he wanted when he came to UL from Alexandria Senior High in 2010.
Fellow Cajuns starting receiver James Butler recalls how what has become a recurring topic of conversation was something the two talked about shortly after they met on a recruiting trip to Lafayette.
“Our ultimate goal was to get to the next level,” said Butler, a redshirt junior from Hahnville High who sat out one season because of ACL knee surgery.
“Now he realizes that he has the opportunity, he has that shot. He’s ready for it. He’s ready for a new challenge.”
Is he ever, UL receivers coach George Munoz suggests.
One game shy of four full seasons, Surgent heads into his third-straight New Orleans Bowl with 98 career catches for 1,640 yards and 14 touchdowns, including 29 grabs for 398 yards and five TDs after moving from wideout to slot receiver this season.
A three-year starter, he’s playing on a team that has won 26 games and lost just 12 the last three years.
He’s brought back 129 kicks for 2,744 yards, including a 97-yard touchdown as a freshman against then-No. 22 Oklahoma State and a 100-yarder this season at Kansas State, and averages 21.3 yards per return.
He’s returned 51 punts for 453 yards, including an 87-yarder for a touchdown in UL’s 2011 New Orleans Bowl win over San Diego State and a 67-yarder for a TD this season in a November win over Troy.
With a 2011 rushing touchdown at Middle Tennessee, he is one of just three active NCAA FBS players with at least one career TD running, receiving, on a kick return and on a punt return.
Surgent became UL’s all-time career kickoff-return leader in his final game at Cajun Field, when against UL Monroe he surpassed Joe Redding’s 1985-88 record of 2,642, and he’s No. 2 in all-time all-purpose yards, trailing only Tyrell Fenroy.
For someone who had to go to Cajun coaches when he was a freshman, remind them that he was a return man at Alexandria Senior and ask them if he could be the same at UL, it’s quite a resume.
“Surg is in a great place now and, I think, is ready,” Munoz said. “He’s probably ready for this college life to be over, and to get an opportunity, hopefully, at the next level.
“We think he’ll get that opportunity, because of his speed, his size (6-foot, 185 pounds) that he has and what he’s done here.”
Surgent’s best on-field attributes, Hudspeth said, are that he has “big hands,” is a “tough kid” and that he “plays banged up.”
But he has plenty off the field to brag about, too.
Butler and current Cajun linebacker Boris Anyama roomed together as freshman, and Surgent was their next-door neighbor in the dorm.
Butler remembers hearing Surgent loud and clear in the hallway one day.
“He just busted out a tune,” Butler said, “and we were like, ‘Man, this dude can sing.’”
Before anyone knew it, as Butler recalls, the three were playfully serenading girls on campus.
As if having a football jersey weren’t enough.
Butler and Anyama were back vocals. Surgent took the lead.
“They would just look at me and shake their head,” Surgent said.
Shai’s “If I Ever Fall in Love Again” was the song of choice back then.
“In all honesty, we weren’t doing anything,” Butler said. “It was basically Surg on his own, and we were just leading him on. … He would just steal the show away.
He’s returned 51 punts for 453 yards, including an 87-yarder for a touchdown in UL’s 2011 New Orleans Bowl win over San Diego State and a 67-yarder for a TD this season in a November win over Troy.
With a 2011 rushing touchdown at Middle Tennessee, he is one of just three active NCAA FBS players with at least one career TD running, receiving, on a kick return and on a punt return.
Surgent became UL’s all-time career kickoff-return leader in his final game at Cajun Field, when against UL Monroe he surpassed Joe Redding’s 1985-88 record of 2,642, and he’s No. 2 in all-time all-purpose yards, trailing only Tyrell Fenroy.
For someone who had to go to Cajun coaches when he was a freshman, remind them that he was a return man at Alexandria Senior and ask them if he could be the same at UL, it’s quite a resume.
“Surg is in a great place now and, I think, is ready,” Munoz said. “He’s probably ready for this college life to be over, and to get an opportunity, hopefully, at the next level.
“We think he’ll get that opportunity, because of his speed, his size (6-foot, 185 pounds) that he has and what he’s done here.”
Surgent’s best on-field attributes, Hudspeth said, are that he has “big hands,” is a “tough kid” and that he “plays banged up.”
But he has plenty off the field to brag about, too.
Butler and current Cajun linebacker Boris Anyama roomed together as freshman, and Surgent was their next-door neighbor in the dorm.
Butler remembers hearing Surgent loud and clear in the hallway one day.
“He just busted out a tune,” Butler said, “and we were like, ‘Man, this dude can sing.’”
Before anyone knew it, as Butler recalls, the three were playfully serenading girls on campus.
As if having a football jersey weren’t enough.
Butler and Anyama were back vocals. Surgent took the lead.
“They would just look at me and shake their head,” Surgent said.
Shai’s “If I Ever Fall in Love Again” was the song of choice back then.
“In all honesty, we weren’t doing anything,” Butler said. “It was basically Surg on his own, and we were just leading him on. … He would just steal the show away.
“We say now we broke up because Surg took all the fans.”
It’s not just love songs, though, that are in Surgent’s wheelhouse.
He doesn’t make anyone cringe on their birthday and can belt out “The Star-Spangled Banner” too.
Falling back on his musical roots in the church, he also sang a stirring rendition of “Amazing Grace” during a water-baptism ceremony for teammates last season.
So whether it’s evidenced by a dance step or two during a break in practice, or epitomized by the spirituals that Butler said can be heard coming out of his close friend’s headphones prior to a game, it’s apparent Surgent been blessed not just with on-field football skills.
“He’s quiet, but at times he can show out,” said Butler, Surgent’s usual roomie on the road. “Sing. Crack jokes. He’s just a cool, calm, collected guy. He’s a God-fearing man, and I love him like a brother.”
It is Surgent’s faith that seems to be the primary source of his low-key, even-keeled demeanor.
Take the time earlier this season that he was publicly declared UL’s career kick-return leader, only to learn that because of a record-keeper’s miscalculation he still actually trailed Redding by 107 yards.
When it was suggested he’d simply have to break a couple more returns and surpass the mark again, Surgent quietly laughed — then went out and did just that.
“He’s a calm spirit,” Munoz said. “He’s never a guy that’s emotional. His highs aren’t that high; his lows aren’t that low. He’s pretty steady … and that’s been a joy to have in our (receivers’) room.
“When you’ve got a room with some guys that are always jokesters and all that … the calmness that he brings and the leadership just from that standpoint is what we’re gonna miss a bunch.
“He’s human, obviously, and things will bother him — if he’s had a bad practice or had a bad game. And you can tell a little bit,” Munoz added. “But he’s not gonna wear it on his sleeve.”
He will, however, discuss it — and how he manages that.
It is that very human factor, Surgent suggests, that prompts him to turn to his faith in the first place — whether it is what happened yesterday, what will happen today or what’s going to happen tomorrow.
“With everything,” said Surgent, an exercise science major, “I try to make sure I keep a level head, keep a humble characteristic about myself, and I just believe and have faith in God just knowing that whatever he has planned for me is what it’s gonna be.
“I just try to do everything to the best of my ability, whether it’s in school, whether it’s on the field, whether it’s music.”
The way Surgent sees things, it really isn’t up to him if he plays in the NFL one day, if his voice some day takes him places or if he ultimately falls back on his education.
Whatever is meant to happen, he trusts, will happen.
“However long this football career is gonna go,” he said, “then that’s how long it’s gonna go.”
Never too high. Never too low.
“I believe God has a plan for everybody,” Surgent said, “and the only way that plan will happen is if you believe it and you live out your life as if it’s gonna happen, as if it’s already happened.
“So when things go rough and don’t go my way, I try not to let myself get down. Or if I do get down, because we’re all human, I just remind myself, ‘Hey, God has a plan. Everything happens for a reason.’”
One reason Surgent may have a shot at making it to the NFL like former UL teammates Ladarius Green, Bill Bentley and Melvin White is how he carries himself.
Hudspeth thinks that. Butler, too.
“He is probably one of the best I’ve seen in time management,” the Cajuns coach said. “He doesn’t waste a minute of his time. … He’s a very solid, good student and just a good person. He’s just one of the best ambassadors for our university that we can have.”
“He’s just determined. Surg is just a determined person,” Butler added. “He’s very focused. Very focused. … He knows what he has to do, and he just goes out and does it.”
Already on the Senior Bowl watch list of NFL prospects, playing as a pro is something Surgent very much wants to do.
He may not shout from the hilltop about it, but he does make that as clear as those songs that used to be heard in the hall.
“It would mean a lot,” Surgent said, “because that’s something I always saw myself being and doing as a little kid. And even now because I felt like I was blessed with gifts and talents, and I’m just gonna use those talents as far it can go and to do it for (God).”
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No. 87 … BY THE NUMBERS
A few fun facts about No. 87 UL receiver Darryl Surgent, heading into Saturday’s New Orleans Bowl:
• UL’s all-time leader in kickoff-return yards (2,744) and kickoff returns (129)
• No. 2 on UL’s career all-purpose yards list with 4,886, trailing only Tyrell Fenroy’s 5,231; No. 2 this season with 1,129 (94.1 per game), trailing freshman running back Elijah McGuire’s 1,150
• No. 3 in all-time UL all-purpose yards by average at 101.8 per game
• No. 6 on UL’s list of all-time TD catches with 14; needs one to tie Javone Lawson for fifth
• No. 6 on UL’s career punt-return yards leaders list with 453; needs 14 for fifth place
• No. 10 in career receiving yards with 1,640; can move into ninth place with 61 yards and into eighth with 103
• Had three catches for 93 yards and returned a punt 87 yards for a touchdown in UL’s 2011 New Orleans Bowl win over San Diego State
• Had 151 all-purpose yards, including one catch for 10 yards and seven kick returns for 129 yards in UL’s 2012 New Orleans Bowl win over East Carolina
• One of just a handful of college players this season to score a touchdown on both a kick return and a punt return