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What does everyone think about the Lamar Cardinals? They should improve a little if not a good amount. They fielded a football team for the first time since the 1980's last year and they went 5-6. Went down to the wire against McNeese St, who was #11 at the time. They got absolutely crushed by SFA. Had their ups and downs last year, but it was so much more than what was expected by the public around here. We only had one rushing TD last year, that came in our last game, but the offensive line figures to be better. We got a JC transfer, Daniel Campbell, who plays offensive line and originally signed with USC out of high school. They are returning the entire team, with the exception of one RB who was the only senior on the team last year. We got home-grown talent QB transfer Jeremy Johnson from West Virginia. According to http://fcsnow.com/poll.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; , they have two top 25 schools on their schedule in SFA (#20) & McNeese (#23) (both at home). With a year of experience and team chemistry under Lamar's belt, the only way to go is up in my opinion. Any thoughts?

I don't how good Lamar will be but I do know that the McNeese coaching staff will have a lot better idea on what they are looking at when game planning for Lamar than they did for the first game last season. From what I understand, what Lamar did on offense wasn't exactly what had been expected and the coaching staff had to do a lot of adjusting on the fly during the game.

Whatever happens, it will be an interesting and well attended game unless for some unexpected reason both teams tank early in the season.

I'm looking forward to it.

Doc

BigRed42 wrote:What does everyone think about the Lamar Cardinals? They should improve a little if not a good amount. They fielded a football team for the first time since the 1980's last year and they went 5-6. Went down to the wire against McNeese St, who was #11 at the time. They got absolutely crushed by SFA. Had their ups and downs last year, but it was so much more than what was expected by the public around here. We only had one rushing TD last year, that came in our last game, but the offensive line figures to be better. We got a JC transfer, Daniel Campbell, who plays offensive line and originally signed with USC out of high school. They are returning the entire team, with the exception of one RB who was the only senior on the team last year. We got home-grown talent QB transfer Jeremy Johnson from West Virginia. According to http://fcsnow.com/poll.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; , they have two top 25 schools on their schedule in SFA (#20) & McNeese (#23) (both at home). With a year of experience and team chemistry under Lamar's belt, the only way to go is up in my opinion. Any thoughts?

One of the things you guys are going to have to deal with is getting up for conference games (that count) every weekend, as we learned when we rejoined the league in 2005...we were independent in '04, finishing 7-4, including a blowout win 51-17 win at McNeese, and heartbreaking 2OT loss at Texas State that we should have won...we had most of our team coming back (minus QB who transferred to Memphis) and thought we had a decent chance to finish near the top of SLC in our first year...we did beat McNeese again, and pounded SFA on the road, but the rigors of getting up each week proved very difficult and we finished the year 4-6, and 2-4 in the league...it's a totally different animal playing a limited number of SLC teams as an independent than playing a full schedule as a full-fledged member...you're no longer looked at as a non-conference tune-up game, with a chance to play younger guys or rest injured players, and you certainly won't sneak up on anybody again...no question you guys have assembled a nice collection of skill guys and have brought in some solid transfers, but I think you'll find it won't be as easy as some of your fans apparently think from reading your message boards.