Who's In & Who's Out?: New Orleans Pelicans Trade Deadline

With the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns football team kicking the new season off this weekend, I present to you my regular season record predictions for UL in 2026, including what I believe to be the absolute floor and absolute ceiling. So let's talk about it. Lots of Uncertainty Leading Up to the Season I won't reveal my predictions until the end, but one thing I will say to start this off is there’s a pretty wide spread between what I believe the absolute floor and absolute ceiling could be for this 2026 Cajuns team. A lot of people who follow this team have had lots of question marks about what's to come this season, myself included. There have been times this offseason where I looked at this team as a 10+ win group, and other times where I viewed them as yet another 6-6 group. We can't necessarily blame the program for this either. When you lose significant talent to the transfer portal and graduation, and always being left with younger talent who are looking to boost their standing in college before "moving up," things change quickly. The good news is that UL didn’t lose as many players to the portal this past offseason as similar programs typically do (I believe only ten players transferred out, if that), and many of the players who did stay gained valuable playing experience last season because of the injury epidemic the Cajuns went through. The bad news is that several of the players the Cajuns lost this offseason were key contributors. Injuries sustained this offseason only added another layer of uncertainty for me and many Cajuns fans out there. Schedule Opens the Door for Potentially High Ceiling One thing is for sure: the Cajuns have a relatively manageable schedule. Only three of their 12 opponents currently rank inside the top 100 of ESPN’s Football Power Index: USC, Southern Miss and Troy. Yes, I used the ESPN FPI, so make of it whatever you want. But, one can look at that schedule and immediately say UL has an opportunity to win a lot of football games, and rightly so, I would agree. The Cajuns are very much capable of winning nine or 10 games this season, and potentially even 11 if things break their way and, most importantly, the team stays healthy. Now I will be honest, I am ruling out a 12-0 regular season because I simply don’t think the Cajuns are capable of beating USC on the road with the talent the Trojans have. UL will also be traveling all the way to the West Coast, while USC already has a game under its belt after playing San Jose State last weekend. That should give the Trojans an advantage in being more settled in and game-ready by the time the Cajuns, who will have only played an FCS team in Lamar, arrive on September 12. Outside of USC, the biggest stretch of the season comes in mid-October. UL will play at Louisiana Tech (the return of the rivalry), return home to face Troy, and then travel to Southern Miss. To me, those are the three toughest games on the schedule after USC. Troy is the only home game of the three, while the other two will come on the road against programs that have historically given the Cajuns problems. Still, if UL is healthy, I think all three games are within reach. The Cajuns kept things competitive against Troy and Southern Miss last season despite being severely depleted at several key positions. So, I will not be shocked if UL can find themselves at 9-3 or 10-2 come December. After all, that is the expectation a lot of Cajuns fans have for this team. An Unsatisfactory Low Floor Still Exists On the flip side, I will not completely rule out another 6-6 season or even a losing record. UL’s depth is relatively young (which once again, is not unusual). Now they have depth with experience at some positions, including at offensive line. But with that depth came a lot of injuries last season, so needless to say, they are injury prone. Not to mention, the wide receiver room is, in my eyes, thin when it comes to proven experience, and the secondary still has plenty to prove as well. If injuries begin piling up again, that’s where I could see this team struggling to get beyond six or seven wins. And we don’t have to look very far back to see how quickly that can happen. At this time last season, expectations were extremely high. The Cajuns had Ole Miss-transfer QB Walker Howard, LSU-transfer WR Shelton Sampson Jr., several other promising transfer additions and a more veteran roster overall. A lot of people believed UL had a legitimate chance to win 10-plus games and potentially accomplish more than simply reaching the Sun Belt Championship Game. The expectations were set really high. Then the injuries started. They began as early as Week 1 at home against Rice, and seemingly never stopped. UL eventually found itself sitting at 2-6 towards the backend of the season with a similar strength of schedule to this season, and it became clear pretty early that the team we saw on paper before the season was not going to be the same team we watched on Saturdays. That experience is a big reason why I’m hesitant to automatically assume everything will go right this season. As far as how low things could realistically go, I simply do not see the Cajuns losing to Lamar, UAB, UL-Monroe or Georgia State. Or at least I would think. I may even go as far as saying I don’t think they lose to Coastal Carolina after how they played last season, but Coastal’s level of play seems to vary from year to year, so I’m a little less confident there. Regardless, it would surprise me if UL finished with only four or five wins. On paper, this team is better than at least half of the teams on its schedule. Of course, like I said earlier, we learned last season that being better on paper doesn’t mean much when a quarter of your roster is injured. And those who follow the Cajuns, as well as the New Orleans Saints, know a thing or two about how completely different things can be from expectations when injuries plague your team. We unfortunately have a tendency to attract injury-prone players, but that’s a story for another day. On the flip side of this, at the time of writing this, I also don’t believe this year’s team on paper is any more talented than the group UL had entering last season. Last season presented a lot of "bigger" names and veteran players than what I am seeing on this season's roster. That doesn’t necessarily mean this team will be worse, but it’s another reason why I’m not ready to confidently call the Cajuns a 10-win team before seeing them in action. Final Thoughts on Record Prediction Ultimately, because of how favorable the schedule is, I don’t think it’s difficult to envision UL having a very successful season. At the same time however, knowing this program’s recent injury history and considering how young and/or thin certain parts of the roster are, I’m not ready to assume that this season will automatically be dramatically better than last year. With so much uncertainty, there is a lot of proving that needs to be done on the field for me to make sense of what this 2026 squad is about. I actually went back and forth for a while between predicting 8-4 and 9-3 for this Cajuns team because I realistically believe they will end up somewhere around those two marks. The four games I’m most concerned about are USC (not really concerned, I think we know how this one will go), Louisiana Tech, Troy and Southern Miss. Losing to Louisiana Tech and Southern Miss would certainly hurt, but both games will be on the road against teams expected to be competitive within the Sun Belt. The Troy game was ultimately the deciding factor for me. I view that matchup as a true toss-up, and one that could come down heavily to how healthy UL is by that point in the season. I also believe that game could ultimately decide whether the Cajuns reach the Sun Belt Championship Game, similar to how last season’s matchup versus Troy ultimately decided who made it (after it was all said and done). The Louisiana Tech matchup will also carry some extra juice with it being the Bulldogs’ first Sun Belt game after joining the conference. As much as I hate to say it, I fully expect Louisiana Tech to be fired up for that one. With the record I’m predicting and losses to the teams I mentioned above, I don’t think that will be enough to get UL back to the Sun Belt Championship Game, as my prediction would have them finishing 5-3 in SBC West play. Still, if that ends up being the final result, I would be satisfied considering everything surrounding not only the football program this offseason, but the athletic department and university as a whole (again, a story for another day). More importantly, I think this season could serve as a bridge toward what has the potential to be a special year for the Cajuns in 2027. But first, we have to see what this team actually looks like. That starts this weekend against Lamar, a matchup which won’t be a gimme like typical FCS games the Cajuns schedule. Lamar is coming in ranked in the FCS Top 25 after taking down a top 25 opponent last weekend, so they will be coming in hungry. Regardless, Cajuns fans are hoping this season’s opener showing looks a whole lot better than what we saw in last season’s opener against Rice. So after going through the schedule, the roster and all of the uncertainty surrounding this team, here’s where I ultimately land: Absolute floor: 4-8 Projected record: 8-4 Absolute ceiling: 11-1 Those who know me well know that I am a realist. Rather than being the super optimistic, I just want to be right with my predictions. Saints and Cajuns fans know what it’s look to be completely wrong with optimistic predictions because things don’t go as expected. We all know how hard it is being a fan of both. At the end of the day, these are just predictions, and we know the chance any team goes 0-12 or 12-0 is never 0. But, that's my realistic approach to the outlook of the Cajuns team this season, given what we know so far up to this point (a lot of uncertainty but a positive outlook of a team that will be hungry for wins).