Huge challenge: Motivated Cajuns Have Rugged Road Ahead theadvertiser/article/20130717/SPORTS0201/307170013/Huge-challenge?nclick_check=1 Written by Tim Buckley NEW ORLEANS — They open with back-to-back road games against bona fide major-conference opponents, Arkansas of the SEC and Kansas State of the Big 12. They have three midweek games, two back-to-back on the road on Tuesdays against two of the Sun Belt Conference’s higher-echelon teams, Western Kentucky and two-time defending league champ Arkansas State, and one at home on a Thursday night vs. Troy of the Sun Belt. They play only five home games in all, with just two of them coming before November. ********************************************* No wonder UL coach Mark Hudspeth calls the Ragin’ Cajuns’ 2013 slate of 12 regular-season games “the hardest schedule I’ve ever been a part of.” “It’s hard to win on the road in college football, anywhere,” Hudspeth said at Sun Belt Media Day on Monday here. “So that’s gonna make this season that much more challenging, especially coming out of the blocks with possibly two Top 25 football teams (in Arkansas and Kansas State) when the rankings come out.” ********************************************* “Because we love playing at home,” senior center Andre Huval added when asked at SBC Media Day. “We always get a good crowd (at Cajun Field), and they always get behind us. You know, we’ve only lost one home game in the last two years – which is just a tribute to our fans. We wish we could have more (than five), but you’ve got to play the hand you’re dealt.” Huval said the midweek games – “especially those Tuesday games” – “kind of throw you off the routine.” That was certainly evident for the Cajuns in 2012, when UL went 9-4 but lost back-to-back midweek conference games – both televised nationally on an ESPN network – at North Texas and at home against Arkansas State. ********************************************* “As a head coach who has to do a (planning and practice) schedule, it is a scheduling nightmare,” Hudspeth said. “Because it is not your Saturday-to-Saturday-to-Saturday routine that your players get used to doing. “The routine is going to change an awful lot, and that’s gonna be a huge challenge to try to keep these guys in a routine – because, to me, good teams are routine-oriented.” ********************************************* The midweek games stem from the Sun Belt’s television contract with ESPN, which guarantees midweek college-football programming possibilities for the network’s various outlets. UL’s October games at Western Kentucky and Arkansas State will televised by ESPN2, and its Nov. 7 game vs. Troy will be televised by ESPNU. “We’re at their (ESPN’s) mercy there,” Sun Belt commissioner Karl Benson said Monday. “What we do try to do,” Benson added, “(is) once we get those Tuesday or Thursday games, we try to balance the schedule around them to make a team does not get put at a disadvantage.” This year, for instance, the Cajuns do not play the Saturday before or the Saturday after their two Tuesday night games. Scheduling issues, meanwhile, was to have been a primary topic of conversation with Sun Belt officials and athletic directors of conference member schools, including UL athletic director, met Tuesday here in New Orleans. Benson said the talk would be about future non-conference scheduling, and “balancing the need for competitiveness, balancing the need for revenue” with “at the same time, being able to put the Sun Belt in a position to take advantage of the new postseason playoffs that goes into place next year.” That will require both planning and concessions from current and future SBC member programs, Benson suggested. What Benson seeks is a balance between scheduling so-called money games on the road against major-college powers that ensure a healthy guaranteed financial windfall, often at the price of likely loss, with the need for a quality schedule against respectable but beatable opponents in order to boost the case for a Sun Belt-champion team being a viable contender for a prime place in college football’s new postseason picture starting in 2014. Yet the SBC commissioner also realizes that circumstances and needs vary greatly for individual conference schools, and that no single strategy is likely to work for the league as a whole. “The athletic directors and coaches need to recognize where their programs are in terms of their maturity, and they need to be able to schedule to that,” Benson said. “Each has different financial demands. “But I think the one thing that’s clear that we want to get rid of is the three road games in September (against highly regarded major-conference programs) that just put a team so disadvantaged.” As the same time, Benson added, “In order for a league like the Sun Belt to really establish itself, there needs to be a team that can … have (perennial) success. With that success, it does breed down.” As an example he points to both the WAC, the conference of which he was commissioner before coming to the Sun Belt, and scheduling practices of Boise State in particular. The Broncos don’t often schedule over their heads, but they do often record wins against respectable higher-conference opponents. “Teams got better in the WAC because they were chasing Boise State or Fresno State or Hawaii,” Benson said. “That allowed the entire league to get better.” The key, Benson suggested, is to “reduce, limit and minimize” games that are bound to produce not only a big payday but also an almost-certain loss. Voicing the thoughts of Troy chancellor and Sun Belt president Jack Hawkins, Benson said “we cannot continue to be addicted to those million-dollar guarantee games.”
Posted on: Wed, 17 Jul 2013 17:05:12 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015