UL running backs chewed clock, ate well in victory

The Daily Advertiser

They went into last Saturday’s game against New Mexico State wanting to chew clock with their ground game.

UL running back Darius Hoggins breaks through the defense during the Ragin' Cajuns' 47-34 win over New Mexico State last Saturday.

Led by running backs Trey Ragas and Darius Hoggins and quarterback Jordan Davis, the Ragin’ Cajuns had a virtual feast.

A 14-play UL scoring drive on its first possession of the second half, in fact, included five carries by Ragas, covered 64 yards and ate up six minutes and 10 seconds as the Cajuns took a 10-point lead in their eventual 47-34 win.

“That was critical,” said coach Mark Hudspeth, whose 5-5 Cajuns head into Saturday afternoon’s home game against Georgia Southern needing one win in their final two outings — they close the regular season Dec. 2 at Appalachian — to become bowl-eligible.

The bulk of the work was done by Ragas, a redshirt freshman who ran 23 times for a season-high 138 yards and two touchdowns including a 4-yard run with just more than five minutes to go that all but sealed the deal.

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It was the second 100-plus-yard game of the season (he also had one at Tulsa on just 11 carries) and seventh in nine games with 70-plus yards for Ragas, who for a disciplinary reason was suspended for UL’s Nov. 11 loss at Ole Miss.

Hoggins added 53 yards on seven carries against NMSU and No. 3 running back Jordan Wright, who left the game with a season-ending broken arm that needed surgical repair, had 14 yards on two runs including a 10-yarder.

That was a season-high yardage total for Hoggins, a career reserve — four-year regular Elijah McGuire is now a rookie with the NFL’s New York Jets — who missed the season’s first two games with a broken jaw.

In all, UL had 279 yards on the ground Saturday.

“Trey Ragas is an outstanding athlete,” Davis said. “He’s a big, physical runner who runs the ball really well.

“Him, Darius Hoggins, Jordan Wright before he got injured … the running back room did a really good job keeping the pressure on in the run game that allowed me to be able to still throw the ball, then also have quarterback runs.”

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Davis had 71 yards and one touchdown on seven carries, giving him three rushing TDs in a game-and-a-half going back to the Ole Miss loss, and also threw for 203 yards and two TDs.

“They (the Aggies) were so keyed in on them (UL’s running backs) that I was able to use my legs effectively,” Davis said.

“When you have a really good run game like you had (Saturday) … we’re able to move the ball effective in ways wherever we want to.”

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That could come in handy against Georgia Southern, which is coming off a 52-0 win over South Alabama that marked its first victory of the season.

The Eagles’ defensive front is a sizeable one, and seems to have Hudspeth concerned.

“They’re hard to move,” he said.

The physical Ragas, however, shouldn’t mind taking on the task.

What he did against New Mexico State, after all, boiled down to a simple matter of doing his job, he suggested afterward.

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“When the coach calls your number, you give it your all,” said Ragas, who is now the Sun Belt Conference’s second-leading rusher at 84.2 yards per game — trailing only the 87.3 of Idaho’s Aaron Duckworth and well ahead of the 72.8 of New Mexico State’s Larry Rose III.

“You go out there, make the plays, help your team out and make the win.”

It seems like the Cajuns can count on that from Ragas, an Archbishop Shaw High product from the New Orleans area.

But with Wright unavailable the rest of the way, the Cajuns also will need a boost from fifth-year senior Hoggins — a 5-foot-7, 177-pound Floridian averaging 25.5 yards per game on 41 carries this season.

Those numbers aren’t overwhelming, but they’re also not fully reflective of the value Hoggins — whom Hudspeth calls “very” underappreciated — brings to the offense.

The Cajuns coach said change-of-pace Hoggins — whose younger brother, Ronnie Hoggins, is a junior cornerback at South Florida — had some “nice runs” against the Aggies and did a “great job in (pass) protection,” and that he “deserves the playing time he gets.”

“He’s been that ‘role player’ for so long,” Hudspeth said, “and whenever he gets the opportunity he always makes the most of it.”