LAFAYETTE, LA – “Teams are always gonna bring us their best game,” Louisiana junior safety Percy Butler says. “We gotta always be on our best game in order to stay up on that ranking and to stay up to the play that we know we’re capable of.”

Following the most successful season in program history, like Butler alluded to the Ragin’ Cajuns are ranked in the Top 25 for the first time ever in a national preseason poll.

Those rankings don’t earn the team anything, and they know that.

But Butler is one of the players who had a big impact on the success from last season. He had two interceptions on the year, along with two forced fumbles and fumble recoveries.

The junior has gotten better each year at Louisiana. This offseason, he trained in Dallas with Michael Johnson Performance.

Recently, he earned a spot on the Senior Bowl Watch List.

“I feel like it’s a head start, but it made me feel like they’re really watching,” Butler says. “I really can get there. I can’t be complacent with it. I really gotta go even harder just because they are watching. I’m really focusing on my communication with my teammates, and focusing on what the other offense is doing like calling out the plays to my teammates. I been focusing on that a lot. And I’m really trying to up my game in the box like with my run defense. I’m tryna up that too.”