UL’s football team will continue its association with the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl for a second straight year — if they win their home finale Saturday — and the official announcement may come as early as Saturday night.
Multiple media reports on Wednesday indicated a repeat trip to the Crescent City is in the works for the Ragin’ Cajuns, who are 6-4 heading into their home finale Saturday against South Alabama at Cajun Field.
Meanwhile, a source with knowledge of the situation said that New Orleans Bowl officials have discussed the possibility of the official bid being awarded following Saturday’s 4 p.m. game, should the Cajuns defeat the Jaguars.
UL Athletics Director Scott Farmer will neither confirm nor deny that a bid is imminent, but then rolls out a scenario — one that was reportedly discussed in Tuesday meetings and phone conversations with UL President E. Joseph Savoie and Sun Belt Conference commissioner Karl Benson — that would have the Cajuns returning to the Crescent City for a second straight year. The R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl is scheduled for Dec. 22 at 11 a.m. in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.
“I’d love to talk to whoever’s ready to extend that bid,” Farmer jokes.
But Farmer did say he had responded affirmatively when Benson asked him about accepting a bowl bid without knowing the opponent — much like the Cajuns did last year when they were publicly invited to the New Orleans Bowl well before eventual opponent San Diego State. Farmer reportedly spoke with Benson about the possibility of announcing a bowl bid, presumably in New Orleans, on Monday of next week.
“We’d like to have as much time as possible to sell tickets,” Farmer says. “It takes time to physically sell 20,000 tickets, and having that extra week would be a big help with that.”
UL sold 18,862 tickets through the Cajuns’ ticket office for last year’s New Orleans Bowl, by far the highest total by any school in the game’s history. Last year’s game, which the Cajuns won 32-30 on Brett Baer’s 50-yard field goal at the final horn, drew 42,481 fans, topping the game’s previous attendance record by 12,253.
Last year, the bowl extended its official invitation to the Cajuns on the Monday before a season-ending Nov. 26 non-conference game at Arizona. This year, UL plays a conference road game to end the season, on Dec. 1 at Florida Atlantic after Saturday’s home finale.
Unless Troy upsets Middle Tennessee this Saturday, the Sun Belt champion will be determined on that same Dec. 1 date when Middle Tennessee travels to face Arkansas State. Both teams have one conference loss this year.
Farmer’s scenario — barring a Troy upset this week — has the MTSU-ASU winner going to the AutoZone Liberty Bowl against the contracted Conference USA champion, giving that game two conference champions. The Liberty is slotted for the No. 8 or 9 team from the SEC, but that spot will likely not be filled unless Ole Miss (5-6) beats Mississippi State in Saturday night’s Egg Bowl game.
“That’s two teams, one of them an hour and a half away and the other 3 1/2 hours away,” Farmer says of the Liberty Bowl inviting ASU or MTSU.
Farmer had the MTSU-ASU loser slotted into the Mobile-based GoDaddy.com Bowl, which has a contracted tie-in with the Sun Belt. “I think they’d take either one of those in a heartbeat,” he says.
That would seemingly open New Orleans for the Ragin’ Cajuns, just like last year when UL finished third in the Sun Belt race.
“We have to win first,” Farmer adds, “but that gets teams in bowls that fans could easily travel to. If that’s what happens, we’d certainly like as much time as possible to sell tickets.”
JUNE 19 Former Saint Steve Gleason, who is paralyzed by ALS, released a statement Tuesday in response to the Atlanta radio station's skit making fun of him and the disease, this Picayune post reports. What did he say? He said he'd accepted the apology of the DJs who did it, notes that at least the incident has got people talking about ALS, and asks anyone who is burning to take action about it to do so -- by helping him fight ALS.
JUNE 19 Blogger Ian McGibboney takes a look at the Gleason incident in this post. He makes a good argument about the difference between having free speech and being free from consequences for your speech (which none of us is). He also admits that many of us got upset before we listened to the skit -- but lets us know that the reality is far worse than we can imagine. It was the incredibly bad judgment, even more than the actual speech, that probably got those DJs fired, he opines.
JUNE 19 Washington Post blogger Aaron Blake writes about Sen. Guillory's switch to the GOP in this post. He writes what most political watchers in Louisiana know: Guillory was a Republican before he decided to run for the senate seat in a mostly-D St. Landry district, and has switched back now that he plans to run for Lt. Gov. in a mostly-R state. But how come Blake missed Guillory's appearance on a TLC pageant show? Now that is a video we'd like to see. (Again).
JUNE 19 Here's another Washington Post blog post about a Louisiana politician, and it's just plain scathing. Ezra Klein says Jindal's Politico post was "insulting" to the intelligence of voters, and adds that Jindal is personifying the "stupid" he's railed against, by being an "elite" who convinces GOP activists of "things that aren't true." Me-ow.
JUNE 19 Here's Gov. Jindal's post in Politico, in which he asks the GOP to get over losing to Obama (again) and stop "the bedwetting." (Uh, what?) He gives his Republican buddies what is probably a nerd's idea of a coach's motivational talk, which starts with a list of accomplishments that they can't seem to exploit and ending with an absurd description of liberals that sounds like a character treatment for a Fox "News" movie scripted by Gordon Liddy. Sure, he's preaching to the choir, but even the choir's not this gullible.
JUNE 19 Lamar Parmentel read Gov. Jindal's post on Politico, but thinks it was so dumb it probably was published in the wrong paper. This post by Lamar on the Daily Kingfish opines that possibly Jindal's post was destined for the Onion -- because the governor couldn't possibly be serious here. If you listen closely, you can hear the staff of the Kingfish giggling.
JUNE 19 Blogger Robert Mann posts from Turkey, a country he has visited several times in the past few years. Mann gives an interesting overview of the current political and societal climate of the country, which -- if you're living under a rock and don't know -- is experiencing protests and turmoil these days. Mann promises to post as much as he can during his trip, which should be fascinating reading.
JUNE 19 Blogger CB Forgotston says the legislature is keeping the vicious cycle going with its funding of new buildings for the community college/technical college system. Universities across the state need maintenance and improvement on existing buildings, and the solution is to build new buildings at other schools? By the time the bonds are paid off, those buildings will be falling down, too, CB says.
Most Read
in case you missed it
Subscribe to this comment's feed