After beginning the 2020 campaign with a top 25 win over Iowa State on the road, the No. 19 Ragin’ Cajuns put an exclamation point on a historic season with a 31-24 victory over UTSA to win the SERVPRO First Responder Bowl.

“A lot of good things today, and certainly a great way to cap off kinda the final chapter here of 2020,” Louisiana head coach Billy Napier says.

“We just put in our minds that we wanted this year to be great whatever the circumstances was,” Louisiana senior running back Elijah Mitchell says. “We just kept going at it.”

The Cajuns led through the first 3 quarters courtesy touchdowns from Jalen Williams, Kyren Lacy, and “Most Valuable Player” Elijah Mitchell.

But in the fourth quarter, the Roadrunners tied it up after scoring 17 unanswered points.

Head coach Billy Napier said there was no panic in his team, and the Cajuns finished out the game with a Trey Ragas go ahead touchdown.

“You know, this group man when it counts they put some things together,” Napier says.

“I mean if you’ve been watching us every single game, most of our games we came back and win the second half,” Louisiana junior linebacker Lorenzo McCaskill says. “It didn’t change anything. We knew what we had to do.”

“We just put it in our heads that no matter what hits, whatever happens, we just always gonna play our ball and just keep playing,” Mitchell says. “We came up successful.”

This year, UL was no stranger to adversity on and off the field, with the sudden loss of assistant Coach D.J. Looney right before the season.

And the bowl win Saturday meant even more to the team, because it was also Coach Looney’s birthday.

“That was special,” McCaskill says. “I woke up this morning, everybody woke up this morning kinda feeling that hurt. This is his day, and it’s kinda crazy we’re playing a bowl game on his birthday. It was special. That’s a special guy.”

“It means the most to us,” Mitchell says. “We actually ran a play called fourteen duo. He loved that play. That was the first play we ran, so it meant a lot to us all man. We loved him, and he just made us feel loved man.”

Louisiana finishes this season 10-1 with a second consecutive bowl victory capping off the two most successful seasons in program history.