Bo's Bits: 2020 SERVPRO First Responder Bowl Has Opponents With Colorful Head Coaching Histories
By Bo Carter
One school has a lengthy tradition of colorful characters as head coaches for some 119 years while the other is a “baby” in the NCAA FBS ranks at just one decade.
Either way, Louisiana of the Sun Belt Conference and UTSA of Conference USA have produced football mentors with great reputations, colorful coaching methods and great rapport with fans, media, student-athletes and student sections.
Yes, the two teams meting for the first time in the 11th annual (if you include one weather-related no-contest stopped in the first quarter in 2018 between Boise State and Boston College) SERVPRO First Responder Bowl have interesting recent and long ago histories of men leading their programs as well as unique college team nicknames – UTSA Roadrunners and Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns.
For example, UTSA started its program in 2011 with 2001 Bowl Championship Series head coach Larry Coker of Miami (Fla.) and drew solid recruits from Coker’s home state of Oklahoma and the fertile Texas signing grounds.
Coker stayed at the helm for five seasons, spoke to hundreds of alumni and civic groups, made many friends in the administrative and media ranks and did everything except produce a bowl team in the early stages. He actually led the Roadrunners to their to-date best record in school history at 8-4 (the current squad can equal that with a win Saturday).
Frank Wilson, a veteran assistant coach at Ole Miss, Southern Miss, Tennessee and LSU (assistant head coach), guided UTSA to its first bowl appearance in 2016, and worked through the 2019 campaign before he accepted the head coaching post at McNeese State, which will compete in football again formally in spring 2021.
Then along came Jeff Traylor who has produced some of the Roadrunners’ most prolific offensive performances, a 5-2 Conference USA mark (best in school history and most league triumphs by any C-USA member in 2020), and the school’s first Top 25 national ranking. Traylor cut his teeth in the Texas high school ranks from 1989-2014 before becoming a top college assistant at Texas, SMU and Arkansas with many football tales and some travail along the way.
Some 413 miles to the east in Lafayette, La., the Cajuns have produced some sterling squads under head coaches such as NFF College Hall of Fame player Johnny Cain of Ole Miss from 1937-41, winningest coach in UL history with 66 victories from 1961-73 and former All-SEC lineman from Vanderbilt Russ Faulkinberry and LSU standout quarterback Nelson Stokley from 1986-98.
Mark Hudspeth piloted the Ragin’ Cajuns to five bowl games in six seasons as a NCAA FBS crew from 2011-16, and laid the groundwork for head coach Billy Napier who has brought UL to two bowl tussles in three seasons andled the squad to its first-ever College Football Playoff Top 25 rankings in ’20.
The Cajuns also have been guided in football by the colorful Raymond Didier who racked up 458 baseball victories and seven conference baseball crowns during a 26-year head coaching career on the diamond at Lafayette, LSU (1961 SEC winners) and Nicholls State. Didier ran both the Cajuns football and baseball programs from 1951-56 and had the then-nicknamed Bulldogs in contention for Gulf States Conference trophies annually in both sports – a real, two-sport head coaching rarity in the post-World War II area.
The baseball stadium at Nicholls State, incidentally is Ray E. Didier Stadium, and Ray’s nephew Bob was a standout catcher for the Atlanta Braves and Boston Red Sox in Major League Baseball from 1969-74.
Even more tales of successful and Cajun-drawl story spinners could be told of UL head coaches, but space won’t permit in this blog. From the diamonds to the sometimes (in the old days) smoke-filled football meeting rooms, these colorful coaches have left their marks for a combined 130 seasons between the SERVPRO First Responder Bowl foes.
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