Eighteen hours after Mike Lucas was named UL-Lafayette’s interim defensive coordinator, McNeese coach Lance Guidry stood slightly confused.
Guidry played against Lucas when he coached the defense at Sam Houston and coached against him when Lucas was Southeastern Louisiana’s head coach in the late 2000s.
He saw a ton.
“He got in a 3-3 stack, a 4-2-5, a 50,” Guidry said of Lucas’ 2014 stint as Northwestern State’s defensive coordinator, another time the two faced off. “He did everything.”
Following Boise State’s 45-10 dismantling of UL-Lafayette where the Broncos gained 584 yards, Cajuns coach Mark Hudspeth relieved defensive coordinator Melvin Smith of his duties just before 5 p.m. Sunday night.
Smith, whose defense allowed 420.8 yards per game last season and had just five interceptions, coached just one game into his second season before his dismissal.
Boise State quarterback Brett Rypien carved the Cajuns’ young secondary for 426 passing yards in a game his team led, at one point, 38-0 and averaged eight yards per play.
“You don’t know until you’re in those meetings and looking at those videos what they saw that may have caused their kids not to play as well,” Guidry said. “I know Boise is a very disciplined team, I coached against them one time when I was at Miami of Ohio. They were very physical, executed very well. Just kind of handled their business. Kind of like North Dakota, to tell you the truth.”
Smith’s departure leaves Lucas, a Southland Conference veteran who rose to prominence as Sam Houston State’s defensive coordinator in the ‘90s and served as Northwestern’s defensive coordinator in 2014, in an interim title through the remainder of the season.
Lucas was formerly the Cajuns’ linebackers coach
Smith ran a 50 defense in Lafayette — sometimes called the “Oklahoma defense” with a five-man defensive front — though the Cajuns would sometimes transition to a four-man front, Guidry said.
Enter Lucas, who must balance Smith’s installed scheme the team is familiar with and his proven methods from jobs past. Sam Houston defense were in the top-15 of FCS stat categories 11 times and the unit led the Southland Conference five times in Lucas’ 13 seasons.
“I don’t know if they can do that all in one week but we have to prepare for some of those things and those looks,” Guidry said. “It could be good for them if they do a lot of looks, it may not be. From my experience, you want your kids to play fast and play with confidence because in today’s football people go really fast at you with the timing of plays, they put a lot of formations into the boundaries, so your kids have to know how to line up so that they can play fast.”
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