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Football: The next stepTim Buckley, The Advertiser, August 7, 2012 At Media Day for the UL football team one year ago, the talk was all about what the Ragin’ Cajuns could do. And they wound up doing a lot, winning all of their home games, winning 9-of-13 overall, winning the New Orleans Bowl. At Media Day this time around, however, the chatter centered much more so on one thing the Cajuns did not do in 2011: Win the Sun Belt Conference. Arkansas State, which visits Cajun Field on Oct. 23, took the title. "That’s been everybody’s goal," said starting center Andre Huval, a St. Thomas More High product and a Rimington Award Watch List member for 2012. "We want to surpass what we did last year, because last year we didn’t win the conference championship," Huval added. "We want to win it this year." Senior quarterback Blaine Gautier, for one, has no doubt that a conference crown is within reach. "We’re very capable," Gautier said Monday, days after he opened preseason training by saying the Cajuns are "gonna be a 10-plus win team." "With the group of guys we have coming back this year, and guys that stepped up in some positions this year, really, it’s almost like we have an unstoppable team in our eyes. "We know that we can do so much," Gautier added. "We can go so far with the experienced guys that we have on offense and on defense." The bar, then, is set high. And second-year Cajun head coach Mark Hudspeth would have it no other way. "Nobody will ever put any higher expectations on our team than I do, our coaches and our players," Hudspeth said in addressing about 20 media members at the UL Alumni Center. The Cajuns return nine of 11 starters on offense. They only return four starters on defense, but claim to be deeper on that side of the ball than a year ago. And they also return their star kicker, Brett Baer. But much must fall into place, Hudspeth suggested Monday, if what Gautier and Huval profess is to be realized. "For us to take that next stride this year," said Hudspeth, whose Cajuns open their season with a Sept. 1 non-conference home game against Lamar, "we’ve got to improve upon taking care of the football. It’s got to be consistently done.
"We’ve got to play better defense. (And) special teams have got to continue to be an advantage for us." The challenge is readily accepted by UL defensive coordinator Greg Stewart, who loves his unit’s depth despite the fact he has only four starters returning from a unit that yielded nearly 400 yards per game a season ago. Stewart said at Monday that his staff recently met and collectively decided "we’ve got 20, 21 guys that we can put on the field that we feel like we win can with." In 2011? "Fourteen," Stewart said. Meanwhile, UL offensive coordinator Jay Johnson said Monday that "the expectation of this offense is to go to a new level," and that better pass-run balance is critical to doing just that. UL averaged 394.6 total yards and 32.3 points in 2011; opponents, 399.9 and 29.8. Raising that aforementioned bar, then, seems to the real aspiration. "The big picture is going out, winning every home game, playing hard, and, really, getting that Sun Belt championship," fifth-year senior safety Rodney Gillis said. "That’s our main focus." "I think we’re capable of more than last year," added Huval, a junior. "We have a lot of talent. We’re all working hard. It’s just going to come down to whether we can make it happen, and I think we can, because we’ve worked really hard this summer."
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