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Louisiana survives special-teams nightmare at App. St.

Barry Werner
·3 min read

Louisiana had lost to Appalachian State in its first eight meetings with the Mountaineers. The Ragin’ Cajuns broke through Friday night, 24-21, in a victory that was anything but a snap.

Things were so bad on special teams that Louisiana had its quarterback Levi Lewis run 27 yards into the end zone with a five-point lead and less than two minutes left on a fourth-and-2.

What led to this decision by coach Billy Napier was a special teams nightmare of a night by long snapper Paul Bordeaux.

Napier had praised the redshirt junior for his outstanding work, said the ESPN announcers multiple times. His work stood out against Appalachian State for the wrong reasons.

It was pouring rain in Boone, NC, and Bordeaux couldn’t find his punter with snaps, air-mailing three over Rhys Byrns. Bordeaux also had a bad snap on a PAT that led to a failed 2-point conversion on a fire drill.

So, Napier was faced with the choice of punting and having Bordeaux make another long snap, or avoiding a fourth snap catastrophe by having Lewis take the intentional safety.

He made this call:

Appalachian State had its own special teams nightmare as kicker Chandler Staton was 1-of-3 on field goals missing from 39 and 30, the latter kick pulled left after the ball was snapped with five seconds to play.

Twitter, as it can be, was ruthless.