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Bowl game goes over 'great'
Dec 22, 2005
Author: Dan McDonald
Bowl game goes over 'great'
Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@theadvertiser.com

The two top officials with the New Orleans Bowl and the sponsoring Greater New Orleans Sports Foundation gave good grades to the staging of Tuesday's first-ever bowl game in Lafayette.
"It's been great," said bowl executive director Billy Ferrante at halftime. "We have not had one issue come up that's operational or logistical. Everything has gone really smooth."

"Everything outside the stadium went well, with all the pregame activities, and the fans of both teams were having a ball," said Jay Cicero, executive director of the GNOSF. "That was really nice to see. And the field was just immaculate ... everyone I talked to was raving about the shape it was in."

The biggest concern from bowl officials all week was game attendance, but Ferrante and Cicero both said they were satisfied with the announced crowd of 18,338.
"It looked like we had a good walk-up," Ferrante said. "The lower stands were pretty full and the presentation on TV was good. People had fun, and that's a lot of what we were trying to accomplish."


INDIAN HISTORY: The last coach to take Arkansas State to a bowl game was on hand for Tuesday's contest. Bennie Ellender, who coached the Indians for eight years before a five-year stint at Tulane, arrived in Lafayette Monday.
Ellender, now 81, led ASU to three straight Pecan Bowl appearances from 1968-70 when the Indians were a power in what at the time was the NCAA's College Division.

"It's a big thing for the players to realize their season's not over yet," Ellender said Tuesday. "They've worked hard for 11 or 12 weeks, and now that they're through that they've got something like this to look forward to."

Ellender said that the bowl appearances helped his program back then, and they're still valuable to a collegiate program.

"It's just amazing what it can do for your program," he said. "It certainly created a lot of interest."


MORE HISTORY: ASU used an old-fashioned "quick kick" on fourth down from the MSU 39 in the first quarter. Quarterback Nick Noce took a shotgun snap and attempted a kick, but it was partially blocked and went for only six yards.
Noce had kicked three other times from shotgun formations this year and had averaged 40.3 yards on those three kicks.


A PROGRAM NOTE: The official New Orleans Bowl program reflected the change in game site following Hurricane Katrina's ravages in late August.
The program cover depicted a scene from the French Quarter featuring some of that area's architecture. The centerspread, meanwhile, had a two-page spread of an aerial shot of Cajun Field showing the stadium's largest crowd ever, the 38,783 that were on hand for UL's contest with Texas A&M in 1996.


NO MORE FG WOES: Kickers at Cajun Field this year in Division I-A games (five Ragin' Cajun games and the relocated Tulane-Houston game) had gone 3-for-11 on field goal tries for the entire season. And the woes continued when ASU's Eric Neihouse missed a 41-yard field goal in the second quarter.
However, the trend reversed itself, and Neihouse and USM's Darren McCaleb each hit their attempts in the second quarter despite swirling winds for most of the game.

Ironically, the only made kick by a Cajun opponent during the season was by one of Southern Mississippi's partners in Conference USA. Central Florida beat the Cajuns with a field goal on the last play of their regular-season meeting.


KIDS' NIGHT: The Boys and Girls Clubs of Acadiana were beneficiaries of an Arkansas State "Tickets for Kids" program for Tuesday's game.
ASU allowed fans in the Jonesboro area who were not making the trip to Acadiana to purchase tickets from the school's allotment. In turn, ASU donated those tickets to the Boys and Girls Clubs, and presented the organization with 350 tickets Friday.

"And we still had people buying them Friday and over the weekend," said ASU athletic director Dean Lee early Tuesday. "It's been a very good program for us. We'll probably wind up with over 500 before we're through."


LAGNIAPPE: The 0-0 score after the first quarter was a first in the five-year history of the New Orleans Bowl ... Lafayette High's Mighty Lion band performed the National Anthem during pregame activities ... Former Ragin' Cajun and NFL standout Brian Mitchell, the guest speaker at Monday's bowl banquet, handled coin-toss duties. ASU won the toss and deferred to the second half ... The safety recorded on USM's bad punt snap in the third quarter was the first in New Orleans Bowl history. ... An officiating crew from the Big East Conference worked the game, with bowl games all using neutral-conference crews. Crews from the Sun Belt are officiating two bowl games this year, the Alamo Bowl and the Capital One Bowl.



Originally published December 21, 2005

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