Spring ball is officially underway in Cajun Country as Louisiana football has three spring practices under its belt already. Offseason preparation is crucial for the Ragin’ Cajuns as they look to pick up where they left off from 2024’s success.
“I think that’s where our team is built, during the offseason,” UL coach Michael Desormeaux said. “Spring has been really good, every week we kind of go through a process and it kind of emulates a game week. Certainly, there’s a lot of work we’ve got ot do to be the team we need to be but we’ll have a good football team this year because of how these guys work.”
There are some new and old faces in the mix for the Cajuns, who return a handful of key players from last year's squad and have some new weapons to replace the ones that are gone. Of the new faces, the two most notable transfers are in two skilled positions that the Cajuns needed to address: quarterback and wide receiver.
The quarterback position battle
Quarterback Walker Howard from Ole Miss and wide receiver Shelton Sampson from LSU will look to fill the shoes of now-graduated Ben Wooldridge and the handful of wide receivers/tight ends who have either graduated or transferred out.
Howard isn’t the only guy in the quarterback battle for the Cajuns this spring season. Redshirt sophomore D’Wayne “Lunch” Winfield and redshirt freshman Daniel Beale are also working hard to be at the helm of UL’s offense this upcoming season.
According to Desormeaux, the quarterback battle won’t be decided anytime soon as the Cajuns are in no rush to give any specific guy the starting role just yet.
“(Winfield) kind of brings a different dimension with what he does and he does some really good things day to day,” Desormeaux said. “Daniel (Beale) has been the most consistent which is to be expected at this point. But Walker (Howard) is one of those guys who naturally, you expect those all days to be a lot in a new system and as the week goes he continues to play better which is what you need.”
Howard was the No. 1-rated dual-threat quarterback in the 2022 recruiting class and a Lafayette native by way of St. Thomas More High School. Winfield has been working his way up the depth chart since his freshman year but didn’t see any action last season. Beale played some snaps in his freshman season, stepping in after both Chandler Fields and Wooldridge were out with an injury.
