Louisiana-Lafayette had a good 2020 college football season. They beat Iowa State soundly in Ames. They only lost once, and it was by a field goal to nearly-went-undefeated Coastal Carolina.
They’ll be back this fall.
In Bill Connelly’s latest (to my knowledge) SP+ rankings, published back around signing day, the Ragin’ Cajuns were one of two Group of Five schools in the top 25 (the other being Cincinnati). They’ll enter the year Sun Belt favorites, and with Appalachian State coming to Louisiana and a nonconference matchup at Liberty in November, there are chances for multiple solid Group of Five wins.
But there’s another big game on the schedule.
ULL, having ruined the start of an eventual Big 12 Championship appearer’s season last year, is going to try to do the same again. On Saturday, September 4th, Billy Napier will take his team to Austin, where they’ll serve as Texas’s first opponent under Steve Sarkisian.
I’m not going to say that ULL can make the playoff.
Actually, what the hell, I’ll say it. Their path is the same as any Group of Five team’s path: Beat a Power Five conference champion, go undefeated and do it dominantly.
What are the odds of this happening? Well, ULL going undefeated is probably in the one percent range of likelihood, as is Texas winning the Big 12, so we’re looking at a one-in-a-thousand shot, or—if you want to be a bigtime optimist and put both at, say, two percent—a one-in-250 shot. Those are terrible, terrible odds.
So, yeah, ULL’s in all conceivable likelihood not making the playoff.
But they could still be pretty fun.
