LHSAA needs to change its culture
August 29, 2018
Sandra Chauvin
August 29, 2018
The wait is over.
This weekend, those Nicholls State University Colonels are going to be playing some football!
The Colonels kick off the 2018 season on Saturday night with a road date at Kansas, a Big 12 foe.
Kick-off for the game is set for 6 p.m. and the game will be broadcast on ESPN+ (more about that network later).
Expectations are high for the Colonels after making the Football Championship Subdivision Playoffs last year. The team also returns a slew of its starters on both sides of the ball, which has everyone, including coach Tim Rebowe excited about what’s in store.
“We’re excited,” Rebowe said during National Signing Day. “We think that we have the pieces and we’re just ready now to try and make it happen. We got a taste of the success last year, but our building isn’t finished yet. We want to go deeper into the playoffs and hopefully someday soon play in that last game.”
The Colonels have a good chance to do that this fall.
Nicholls returns just about everything this fall off a team that challenged the top teams in the Southland Conference last year in style.
Quarterback Chase Fourcade returns and is the head of the snake — a guy who is on pace to be a four-year starter in Thibodaux by the time he graduates in the 2019 season.
Fourcade was solid statistically last season, but he said at the Manning Passing Academy that he believes he can perform much better. He added that he battled several nagging injuries throughout last season, which affected his ability to practice consistently.
Even with the injuries, Fourcade completed 162-of-298 passes for 2,316 yards, 14 touchdowns and 13 interceptions last year.
Where the injuries showed up most was in the running game. In 2016 as a freshman, Fourcade rushed for 324 yards and a team-high 9 touchdowns.
But last year, Fourcade wasn’t as much of a dual-threat, finding the end zone just once with his legs.
The weapons around Fourcade are promising, as well. The Colonels return their leading rushers, their leading receivers and most of their offensive line from last year.
In addition, they also will rely heavily on junior halfback Kendall Bussey, who transferred to Thibodaux after spending the early stages of his collegiate career at Texas A&M.
“This whole offseason, we’ve been working hard,” offensive lineman Ryan Hanley said. “We’ve been doing more than what we did last year because we know where we were last year. We’re looking forward to this season and will see what happens.”
The Colonels also have a slew of standouts back defensively, including all of their leading tacklers last year and almost all of their most prominent players.
That unit has a goal of being No. 1 in the Southland in most major statistics and Rebowe has said several times that he thinks the group can be dominant.
ABOUT KANSAS
Kansas is on the opposite end of the spectrum.
Where Nicholls is in the final stages of their rebuilding phase, the Jayhawks are just beginning.
Kansas football has been a mess over the past several seasons. The team has won just three games in the past three seasons under coach David Beaty. Just one of those wins came against a FBS opponent (Texas). Last year, the Jayhawks reached arguably their lowest point. The team was 1-11 — the only win coming against Southeast Missouri State on opening day.
After that, the Jayhawks lost 11-straight. They allowed 30 or more points in all of those losses and five times, the team was beaten by 30 or more points.
But Jayhawk fans have reason to believe that a turnaround is imminent.
Last year’s Kansas team was brutally young, featuring just a handful of seniors. The Jayhawks return 9 offensive starters, including everyone who threw a pass or attempted a rush last fall. Kansas also will have Hahnville High School All-Everything halfback Pooka Williams, who signed with the Jayhawks on Signing Day last year.
Defensively, Kansas returns 10 out of 11 starters, though the departure is a big one, standout defensive end Dorance Armstrong, who went to the NFL Draft.
HOW TO WATCH THE GAME
The decision to move the game to ESPN+ was made last week. It was originally supposed to be broadcast on ESPN3.
For Colonel fans, that move to ESPN+ is a negative one, because it means that it’ll now cost money to see the game, whereas ESPN3 can be viewed for free.
ESPN+ is ESPN’s new premium streaming service. It started earlier this year and, unlike ESPN3, it is available to ANY customer — not just those who have cable or satellite subscriptions.
ESPN+ costs $4.99 per month or $49.99 per year. A 7-day free trial is available.
To get the ESPN+ streaming service, customers should go to https://watch.espnplus.com/.
In addition to the Nicholls game, the serve features several other games from around the sports world each month.
Follow Casey on Twitter for more.
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