LAFAYETTE, LA – Lorenzo McCaskill is preparing for fourth season with the 23rd-ranked Ragin’ Cajuns.

After recording a team-high 83 tackles last year, he landed on the All-Sun Belt Third Team.

“I mean I could’ve never imagined it,” McCaskill says. “I didn’t know what I was getting into two, three years ago. This is exciting. It’s really exciting you know.”

In week four of his best season yet, McCaskill suffered a shoulder injury. He continued playing, and even led the team in the bowl win with 11 total tackles.

“A huge jump in the beginning of last season, but that injury kind of brought me back down,” McCaskill says. “I’m just one of those guys that can never sit out unless I’m truly, truly hurt. I always wanna play, but sometimes you need to recover. You have to sit back and recover and get the mental part of the game which is always good.”

McCaskill had surgery following the bowl game and sat out during spring practices.

He then worked out in Houston and Dallas over the summer. There, he trained like a defensive back to prove he can move in pass coverage and show he can do more than stop the run.

“I think I was the only linebacker there,” McCaskill says. “With the trainer that we had, he was really on me about getting out of this linebacker mentality. You come and train, you train like I defensive back. I was training with some of the best defensive backs. That was my main thing. I knew going there I could stop the run, but let’s be better with being in pass coverage and opening drops, flipping your hips. So that was my main thing.”

McCaskill plans to graduate then pursue a career in the NFL.

But whenever plan A comes to an end, he says there is a plan B.

“Whenever football is all said and done, whether I play two, three years in the league or 10 or whatever, I’m always still gonna have a business,” McCaskill says. “I’m always gonna have that part of it. Even right now in college, I have a business.”

McCaskill breeds bulldogs – English, American, and French bulldogs.

“The dog business is huge right now,” McCaskill says. “These dogs are going from $10k-20k a dog, even more than that. That’s been a big part of me and Percy right now, and a few other guys. I’m doing that while I’m playing college football. I also have a party bus business back home. I run that, me and my dad. That’s always been a portion of me. I’ve always been a hustler since I was a little kid.”

The Detroit native credits that mentality to the way his family raised him and his hometown.

“I always say anybody from Detroit will tell you, that’s probably the number one hustling city in the world,” McCaskill says. “Nobody hustles like people from Detroit. I just wanna live a certain lifestyle, and to do that you have to hustle, make money, have businesses, and do the right things.”