Ragin' Cajuns receiver/kick returner Darryl Surgent hauls in a pass during Saturday's 30-10 win over NTU.
The first Bowl Championship Series ranking of college football teams released Sunday has the UL Lafayette Ragin’ Cajuns ranked 32nd in the country among the 120 college football programs in the Football Bowl Subdivision, formerly known as Division I. The BCS ranking is a composite of national polls and computer rankings and determines the 10 teams that play in the five BCS bowl games, including the national championship game.
At 6-1 overall and 4-0 in Sun Belt Conference play, the Cajuns are the quintessential overachievers this season, picked to finish not only in the basement of the SBC but, according to one anonymous college football insider who clearly doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about, 120th among the 120 FBS schools. At No. 32, UL is ranked ahead of such traditional college football powerhouses as Florida, Florida State and Ohio State.
The BCS is dominated by the Southeastern and Big 12 conferences, with LSU and Alabama at Nos. 1 and 2, respectively, followed by Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. In descending order, Boise State, Wisconsin, Clemson, Stanford, Arkansas and Oregon round out the top 10.
Saturday’s 30-10 homecoming victory over North Texas vaulted the Cajuns into a two-game lead in the conference with four SBC games remaining on the schedule, and the Cajuns’ winning ways are rubbing off on a historically fair-weather fan base, which is packing the stands at Cajun Field again. And it’s rubbing off on alumni, too: During the video self-introduction portion near the beginning of NBC’s Sunday Night Football broadcast last night, former Ragin’ Cajun and current Chicago Bears cornerback Charles Tillman showed some alma-mater pride and introduced himself as “Charles Tillman, THE University of Louisiana.”
David Calhoun and Elizabeth “EB” Brooks are the first two employees of Lafayette Central Park Inc., the nonprofit charged with turning Lafayette Consolidated Government’s 100-acre Johnston Street Horse Farm property into a passive public park. Calhoun was named executive director, and Brooks is director of planning and design.
At Thursday's State of the Economy luncheon, LEDA President and CEO Gregg Gothreaux said PXP has already quietly hired 180 people for its Broussard expansion.
There will soon be a whole lot of shakin’ going on at Benny’s Sportshack Supplement Depot, a new concept by Opelousas native Benny Nele. Located at 2002 Johnston St., the supplement shop, smoothie bar and café, featuring hot off the press paninis and wraps, plans to open in late May.
This year’s Cool Town issue is all about people who are not native to South Louisiana but made a conscious decision to be here, to be among us, to participate in our culture and contribute to it.
A shelved ordinance transferring $200,000 from a northside drainage project to a south Lafayette development may not break any laws, but it stinks to high heaven.
An effort to restore a shuttered dancehall and document other vacant or razed honky-tonks could serve as a model for saving an endangered species of entertainment.
Lafayette’s gene pool has been host to a long line of eccentric characters who have blurred the lines between crazy, genius, disturbed and curiously entertaining.
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