Louisiana Football: 3 takeaways from First Responder Bowl win
By Dante Pryor
In one of the more entertaining games of the day, the Louisiana football team defeated the UTSA Road Runners 31-24 in the Servpro First Responders Bowl.
Louisiana football head coach Billy Napier has the Ragin’ Cajuns’ program trending in the right direction. Napier has taken the Cajuns from a mid-tier Group of Five program to one of the best programs in the Group of Five. With its 31-24 victory today against the UTSA Roadrunners gives Louisiana 10-wins for the second consecutive season, a program first.
The Cajuns dominated the most of the game leading 24-7 in the third quarter. The Roadrunners would not go quietly into that good night. The Cajuns, usually stout defensively in the third quarter gave up 14 points to allow the Roadrunners to get the game close in the second half. The Roadrunners would kick a field goal early in the fourth quarter to tie the game.
Roadrunners’ quarterback Frank Wilson struggled early but found rhythm throwing the football in the second half. The game would remain tied until late in the fourth quarter when Louisiana football running back Trey Ragas scored the go-ahead touchdown with 7:16 left in the fourth quarter to put the Ragin Cajuns ahead for good.
Despite the loss, first-year head coach Jeff Traylor led the Roadrunners to their second bowl game in school history.
Here are three more takeaways from todays’ game.
3. It is the little things:
Anytime you have a game this close, wins and losses come down to the little things during the run of a game. For UTSA, they dug a hole early and had trouble throwing the football. Roadrunners’ quarterback Frank Harris had his struggles early throwing the football and that allowed the Cajuns to load the box against both Harris and running back Sincere McCormick.
When the Roadrunners got a rhythm throwing, it opened the running game. What the Roadrunners had issues with all game was stopping the run all game today. When the Cajuns scored the go-ahead touchdown and stopped the Roadrunners on their subsequent drive, UTSA could not stop the Cajuns running game during their four-minute drill and were unable to get the ball back.