Athens, Ohio- It was a gorgeous Saturday in Central Ohio and the first true road trip for the Cajuns. It was a business trip for the Vermilion and White, and the client was the Ohio Bobcats. The goal was simple: leave no doubt. After four quarters, there was no doubt as Louisiana forced five Ohio turnovers and came home victorious 45-25.
The Cajuns did what they’ve done all season long and that’s dominate the run game. Elijah Mitchell had 143 yards on the ground along with 3 TDs. His partner in crime, Trey Ragas, added 129 yards and a score as well. Levi Lewis was shaky at times, but his performance on paper was solid, going 19/29 for 188 yards and 2 TDs as leader of the Cajuns offense.
Postgame, head coach Billy Napier was asked about the win: “We had two touchdowns called back, turned it over in the short field early in the second half, and we had our backup center in the game. You’d like it to be a little cleaner, but I tell you what, the fight that our kids showed, and, certainly, the halftime adjustments we made as a staff. That’s a well-coached team (Ohio), and we have tons of respect for how those kids compete, how tough they are and how fundamentally sound they are. I have a lot of respect for Coach Solich and what he’s built here. They gave us some issues, especially their defense against our offense in the first half. We had to adjust to what they were doing, and our staff did a tremendous job. I thought our players competed and made plays in the passing game when we needed to. We were plus-three in the turnover margin. You’d like to have a handful less penalties, but we certainly made plays when we needed to and when we needed to compete and fight. We knew it was going to be difficult and it certainly was.”
Napier also had this to say about how his team can overcome adversity: “That’s what impressed me most about our team. There’s a lot of reason that we could have short circuit and lost our poise throughout the day. There’s a lot of things that didn’t go our way, but we hung in there. That’s what we talked to our team about the entire week. We knew they’d be a well-prepared team. We knew that they had explosive players. They were going to have success at times. The mental toughness, responding in adverse situations was going to be very important, and we played through that. We kept a really good competitive spirit. You could hear the conversations between the players throughout the game. That’s what I like about our team. I think we have a lot of fight in us. We’ve got lots of things to improve on, and I’m excited about how good we can become over time here if we continue to work hard as a team to get better and improve.”
You can find more of these postgame quotes at https://www.ohiobobcats.com/sports/fball/2019-20/releases/20190921tceu66.
Louisiana (3-1) will open up Sun Belt Conference play this Saturday in Statesboro, GA as they play Georgia Southern. Kickoff is scheduled for 5pm on ESPN+. As always, you can listen to Jay Walker, Chris Lanaux, and Cody Junot on ESPN1420 all season long for Cajuns games.
For more great Ragin Cajuns content, head over to soundcloud.com/ragincajunarmy and tune into Ragin Cajun Army, my Cajuns podcast. You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at @RaginCajunArmy.
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