There were a lot of reasons the UL Ragin' Cajuns were able to rebound from a disappointing road loss to Louisiana Tech with such an encouraging 33-6 victory over reigning Sun Belt West champion Troy on Saturday.
On Monday, coach Michael Desormeaux didn't want to leave out the most behind-the-scenes reason of all β his coaching staff.
There was a lot of negativity and complaining about the program after the 32-31 loss in Ruston. Desormeaux saw his coaches keep the players' confidence level up despite the gut-punch ending to that game.
"Our staff did a phenomenal job of keeping our players' confidence really high," said Desormeaux, whose Cajuns (5-2, 2-1 Sun Belt) play Southern Miss at 4 p.m. Saturday in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. "That's what you worry about ... you've got a game that should be locked up and you come back and you end up losing the game. You worry about guys being shaken a little bit."
The staff's strategy was to keep "the issues the issues." In other words, it wasn't just a bunch of yelling from angry coaches.
Desormeaux said yelling instructions such as "catch the ball" isn't really coaching.
"That's the crappiest coaching point I've ever heard in my life," he said. "No one wants to drop the ball. There's a lot of technical things that go into it, and we try to take a technical approach with everything, and I think our staff did a really good job of that and our players believed."
The secondary did a much better job defending the pass than the previous six quarters without senior safety Collin Jacob.
"It was both (technique and communication)," Desormeaux said. "We played with really good technique in man and zone coverage. We were lined up properly in zone coverage. We had good leverage. Our eyes were in the right spots and man covers were patient.
"We used press technique and off technique really well. Our footwork was really good. Our eyes were where they were supposed to be. On the back end, we didn't have any busts. You could just see the communication on tape."
The other encouraging area was the offensive line that spurred 243 yards rushing.
"Collectively, they all played well at times, if that makes any sense," Desormeaux said. "I think the guys that played the best from start to finish were Cooper Fordham and Zay Alexander, which was huge for us for Zay to play that way.
"Kaden Moreau had some great blocks on the line, so did George (Jackson) and Jakoby Isom filling in for Matt Broussard, he played really well again. Collectively, the group played great. You don't run what we ran for without that."
Broussard was back after two weeks with a concussion, but Isom remained the starter for now.
Desormeaux also added that tight end Caden Jensen "played really well on the edge."
The offense was forced to make an adjustment. After struggling mightily in the first quarter, the Cajuns found the formula to give the Troy defense trouble.
"The wind was definitely a factor," Desormeaux said. "It kind of dictated a little bit the way that you had to call the game, depending on which direction you were going. It felt like it was 30, 40 miles an hour at times. It was bad."
The other reason for a sluggish offense early on was the Cajuns had "to work through some things with the way they (Troy defense) were playing some things with the fits and stuff like that. I thought our staff did a really good job of relaying that, and our kids did a good job of settling in."
The result was putting up 33 points, despite the worst completion percentage of the season at 13-of-23 passing.
"We didn't have our best day in the pocket," Desormeaux said. "I thought we had some time where we could have stood in there and we had some guys that were open ... it took Lunch (Winfield) a little while to settle in.
"I've got to do a good job of calming him down early and just getting him to go through it."
Sun Belt Standings
EAST DIVISION
James Madison 7-0 4-0
Ga. Southern 3-4 2-1
App State 4-2 1-1
Georgia State 4-2 1-1
Coastal Carolina 2-5 1-2
Old Dominion 2-5 1-3
Marshall 3-3 0-2
WEST DIVISION
La. Tech 4-2 2-0