The sting of the road loss to Southern Miss won’t soon disappear, but the focus has to turn to the final four games for a strong close to the season.
Coach Michael Desormeaux’s club took a big step in that direction with the news that senior safety Collin Jacob is set to return for Saturday’s 4 p.m. game against South Alabama.
The next critical piece to the formula is redshirt junior quarterback Lunch Winfield finishing with a flourish.
“He’s in a good spot right now,” Desormeaux said of Winfield. “If you want a really good, strong finish here, obviously you need your quarterback playing well and healthy.
“He’s taking care of himself really well. He did a great job in the offseason of doing everything we talked about.”
The goal going into the season was walking the fine line of keeping Winfield healthy while improving him as a passer without losing the value his running skills bring to the offense.
“He’s never going to slide; it’s not who he is,” Desormeaux said. “I don’t want him to be something he’s not … But when I can throw it or run it, you need to throw it, and he’s done that and he’s done it really well. So, he’s in a good spot right now.”
Winfield is completing 66.6% of his 195 passes for 1,452 yards with six touchdowns and five interceptions. As a runner, he’s run for a team-high 470 yards and nine touchdowns on 110 carries.
“I’m feeling great, honestly,” Winfield said. “The week off was perfect for my body. I needed it.”
Over the past three weeks, his completion percentage has gone down and so have his rushing yards. Perhaps the rest will take care of those trends, but either way, Winfield isn’t concerned.
“If you just watch the numbers and stuff like that, it won’t tell the whole story,” Winfield explained. “Sometimes you got to throw the ball away. In some games you just take shots and shots are high-risk, high-reward type of thing. So it’s like if it hits good, it’s completion. If it don’t hit, then it’s not. So things like that add up.”
Desormeaux also contends the game plans of the opposition impact those statistics.
“Some of it is efficiency; sometimes it’s dictated by who you play a little bit — the style that you’re getting on defense,” Desormeaux said. “You’ve got to be able to create yardage somehow. It’s not as efficient, then you’ve got to do it through explosives, which we’ve been able to do a little bit. You just try to get them in a rhythm where they feel comfortable.”
Another potential factor is the availability of receivers with both starters Landon Strother and Shelton Sampson both missing multiple games.
Coming out of the bye week, Winfield feels better about the connection with his current receiver corps.
KeDarius Wade now leads the way with 13 catches for 279 yards and two scores, followed by Trenton Chaney (17-2-4, 21 TD).
“We’re working our tails off, all that practice with timing and everything,” Winfield said. “It’s just a matter of time for everybody to see everybody in the receiving room that plays have 60-plus receiving yards. I really feel like that’s in our near future. These guys want it for sure.”
This week, UL faces a South Alabama defense giving up 244.6 passing yards a game — ranked last in the Sun Belt Conference. Opponents have thrown 18 touchdowns in eight games.
Winfield said he’s aware of those numbers, but he doesn’t put too much stock in them.
“We see numbers, but those numbers ain’t going to play the game for them,” he insisted. “Film, don’t lie … numbers lie, film don’t.
“You just have to see guys’ tendencies. You see where they’re weak and where they’re strong and just play off that.”
Mixing that approach with the running game at times has worked in many ways. Currently, UL’s offense ranks fourth in the Sun Belt at 30.1 points a game, is third in first downs (22.8 a game) and leads the league in third-down conversions (47.3%).
“I try to take it, play by play, completion by completion and stay between the sticks … stay in front of stakes, I would say,” Winfield added.
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