Before the latest college football season comes to a close with Monday night’s national-championship game between Oregon and Ohio State, a look back at a few memorable moments from UL’s 2014 New Orleans Bowl win over Nevada:
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It’s the Wednesday before the bowl game, and the Ragin’ Cajuns have just finished their first practice at the Superdome.
UL coach Mark Hudspeth’s 5-year-old son, Major Hudspeth, is playing throw-and-catch, tossing a football with a reporter.
Just joking, another reporter challenges Major – the kid who can name every NFL starting quarterback without having to do any homework – to kick a field goal.
So he does, in his own unique way.
Lil’ Hudspeth’s field goal actually was a punt, and it came from a step inside the goal line. But it went straight over the crossbar – surely good for three points by any rulebook.
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Practice is done, and Cajun players are going to the New Orleans Bowl gift suite to pick which personal prizes they’ll take home.
Some opt for electronics, others outdoors gear.
Linebacker Jake Molbert is asked if he’ll go for the recliner.
He says no, pointing out that he does not yet have a house of his own. Ergo, nowhere to put a recliner. Good point.
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It’s Friday before the game, and the New Orleans Bowl’s annual luncheon is about to get under way at the Canal Street Marriott.
Some UL band members are in a Marriott hallway, waiting for the luncheon, at which they’ll perform, to start.
Hudspeth happens to wander by, and he can’t help but to coach up the band guys.
You better bring it, he tells them, because he just heard someone from Nevada’s band say they were going to blow the Cajuns away.
Who knows if Hudspeth really heard what he said or not? Odds are he did not. But it doesn’t matter. He’s all about motivating.
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It’s Tuesday, and the Cajuns are bussing from Lafayette to New Orleans.
En route, senior cornerback Corey Trim learns his fiancé has gone into labor in his hometown of Baton Rouge. The Cajuns detour, and drop Trim off with his father so he could be on hand for the birth. He rejoins the team the next day for practice, plays in the bowl and finishes the season as UL’s leading tackler.
After the game, Cajuns senior quarterback Terrance Broadway is named MVP of the bowl for a second time. In Broadway’s arms on the presentation stage is his young son. It’s the same T.J. – just a larger version – that Broadway also held those his arms when he won MVP bowl honors the first time around, after beating East Carolina in 2012.
Postgame interviews continue on the Superdome turf, and senior running back Alonzo Harris holds a little boy in his arms too. The youngster grabs for a television reporter’s microphone, and it’s not long before the jokes come about a broadcaster in the making.
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It’s shortly after the Saturday game has ended, and many are hugging.
UL has won 16-13, claiming its fourth straight New Orleans Bowl win and finishing 9-4 for a fourth consecutive season.
Hudspeth quietly gives senior James Butler – who has caught eight passes for 53 yards, one of the best games of his Cajun career – a bear-hug behind the trophy-presentation stage.
Jeff Mitchell, a Louisiana state trooper who played for the Cajuns and now is Hudspeth’s personal protector at all UL games, is hugging senior defensive lineman Christian Ringo, who has just broken the UL single-season sack record that shared and tied Mitchell’s Cajun career sacks record.
What Mitchell told Ringo can’t be repeated, but suffice it to say the trooper was quite happy.
And UL senior kicker Hunter Stover?
He celebrated with teammates, but in the madness of it all isn’t seen hugging anyone in particular. Stover, is spotted, however, as he bends forward, untying the lace on his kicking shoe one last time.
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