LAFAYETTE — Billy Napier is living up the promise he made back on Feb. 7.

That day, the first-year UL Lafayette football coach had wrapped up his first recruiting class for the Ragin’ Cajuns — signing 16 players including four high school seniors from Louisiana and two more graduate transfers who also hail from the Bayou State.

Napier, who was hired Dec. 15, promised that he and his staff were going to be crisscrossing the state in the spring and summer — intent on increasing the number of Louisiana prep stars who will be suiting up for the Cajuns in 2019 and thereafter. 

“We are going to every high school this spring, and evaluate every possible prospect in the state,” Napier said on National Signing Day. “We are not going to worry about anything except the Louisiana kids until we are done with that.”

Focus on Louisiana

That focus on in-state prospects is evident in the slew of verbal commitments the Cajuns have racked up in the past few months. 

In the most recent team rankings for 247 Sports, the Cajuns have the 64th ranked class in the country — the No. 1 ranked class in the Sun Belt Conference — and have 11 verbal commitments for the 2019 class, including nine three-star recruits. 

How many of those 11 are from Louisiana? Seven. 

That nearly doubles Napier’s first class this past February which featured four high school prospects in Percy Butler and Andre Riley of Plaquemine High, linebacker Jordan Cordova of Kinder and offensive lineman Max Mitchell of Neville. 

Napier, though, was also to get two graduate transfers to enroll in defensive back and former St. Thomas More star Kendall Johnson Jr. (Nevada) and Covington High defensive lineman Garrald McDowell (Ole Miss), which do not count as signees.

Key to success

So why have Napier and his staff been so successful? It seems to come with the coaching staff’s approach to the entire recruiting process.

The first domino to fall for the 2019 class was Chandler Fields.

The pro-style quarterback out of Archbishop Rummel already had an offer on the table from Memphis, and Arizona State and Oklahoma State began to show interest, which helped make him the 39th-ranked prospect in the state. 

Fields never took an official visit but made a few unofficial visits to the Cajuns. 

During one of those Napier and his staff, including Field’s primary recruiter Jabbar Juluke, who began recruiting him while he was at his previous job at Texas Tech, offered him a scholarship. Three days later he made his commitment. 

“What made me fall in love with the program was that Coach Napier believed in me first, and that just made me believe in him,” Fields said. “I was very impressed by Coach Napier. He is family guy and I think that is important to have a family oriented coach. He cares about you as person. I thought that was very important.”

Being impressed with Napier is a sentiment shared by Catholic High wide receiver Peter LeBlanc, ranked as the No. 54 prospect in the state, who committed on July 16.

“Coach Napier just seems like he has it under control,” said LeBlanc, who also had offers from Nicholls State and Louisiana Tech. “With the way he talks, the conversation you have with him is very focused. You can tell he cares about his players, he just wants the best for you and the team. That made a difference.”

Added Neville offensive lineman Logan Newell, who committed on June 27 and is ranked as the No. 41 prospect in Louisiana, “He just had very respectable morals and feels like a genuine person to me. I instantly felt a trust with Coach Napier and the rest of the staff.”

Erath offensive guard Jax Harrington, meanwhile, expressed his honest opinion to Napier during an unofficial visit — and the coach’s response impressed the three-star prospect.

“Coach Napier says what he means, and means what he says,” said Harrington, who committed on July 9. “I was there attending a practice in the spring and he asked me how it looked. I said, ‘Coach it looks rough.’ He agreed with me. He already knew the weak points of the team being it was their first or second practice but he just wanted to see what my response would be.”

The Cajuns’ top recruit for 2019 so far is E.D. White’s Brandon Legendre, who is ranked as the No. 29 prospect in the state. Legendre had offers from Notre Dame, Arizona State, Kentucky and Kansas. Yet, he selected the Cajuns and according to him it didn’t have anything to do with any kind of lengthy football talks. 

“I can’t say enough about that staff,” Legendre said. “I talked to (Napier) two times in his office. Each time it was for about two hours. We really didn’t talk about football all that much. He talked about being a man and growing into the man. That impressed me.”

That good impression has helped Napier and his staff be able to do something the past two coaches were unable to do — put together highly ranked signing classes.

Change in culture

Mark Hudspeth averaged a little more than nine in-state recruits per year during his tenure but those classes were not highly ranked nationally. Hudspeth had only one class ranked above No. 80, which was the 2015 class which received a No. 78 ranking. In fact, four of his seven classes were in the 100s making his average class ranking 97.5.

Like Hudspeth, Rickey Bustle averaged a healthy eight in-state recruits per year but he had only class finish as high as the 80s, the 2005 class which was ranked No. 82 nationally, and had five of his nine classes finish in the 100s for an average national ranking of 100.5. 

In the 2019 class alone, the Cajuns have five of the Top 50 players in the state and seven of the Top 85. 

That has helped the Cajuns build a prospective class that is ranked higher than the likes of the Big 10’s Maryland (66), the Big 12’s West Virginia (69) and Kansas State (80), the Pac 12’s Arizona (70), and the Southeastern Conference’s Missouri (79).

For the majority of the 2019 signing class, there also is a brotherhood that is forming about not only playing for the Ragin’ Cajuns but keeping some of the state’s best prospects inside the state. 

“For us local or state guys, having Louisiana across our chest means something to us — it means that is where we are from,” Harrington said. 

“When those players go back home and talk to people who see them or watch them on TV it means something. If a guy is from Arkansas and he goes back home it doesn’t mean as much.”

Added Newell, “Louisiana is definitely loaded with talent. The need to keep as many in the state is a must for any program. The Cajuns are determined to do just that.”

Another factor seems to be the culture that Napier and his staff are promoting. 

All of the prospects committed early, and did so without taking official visits to the Cajuns or elsewhere. A big reason for that was how Napier and his staff are conducting themselves in the present and what they want to do in the future. 

“They walked me through the process of how they are doing things,” Newell said. “The regimented summer workouts, how each part of the year has it own process. There is an everyday grind and commitment to the program. They are going to be accountable to each other. 

“All of us in this class feel like we can help them even more and keep things rolling.”

“More and more you see guys attracted to that,” Legendre said. “With other programs it was about ‘We want you to because you are talented.’ With the Cajuns it was ‘We want you because we see you as a leader, and want you to help us change the culture of the program.’ It is a little bigger than football sometimes.”

For Harrington, being exposed to the culture that the Cajuns staff is promoting is contagious and something he simply just had to be part of.

“They are building a winning culture and they are doing it by making sure the players are winning in the classroom, and winning every rep in the weight room, and winning every day in practice.

“That kind of attitude is contagious. When I was going through the process I just felt that I wanted to be part of that.

Continued efforts

Napier and his staff are from done with 2019’s signing class.

The Cajuns also have offers out to a plethora of three-star in-state prospects including a total of eight players in the Top 50 in 247 Sports rankings, including Westgate High star running back Tyreese Jackson. 

The Cajuns also are targeting all corners of the state. 

The team has made offers to New Orleans area schools (Warren Easton cornerback Chester Kimbrough, John Ehret defensive end Earl Barquet, Riverside Academy wide receiver Kash Foley and Edna Karr running back Ahmad Antoine). The Cajuns also have targeted the Hammond (Kentwood defensive end Kendall Wilkerson), Lake Charles (Washington-Marion defensive end Jaylon Ned), Baton Rouge (University Lab offensive tackle Dylan Rathcke) and Acadiana (Northside High defensive end Billy Sonnier, New Iberia Senior High’s Ja’Braylon Spencer and of course Westgate’s Jackson) areas.

So this very Louisiana-feel to the 2019 class for the Cajuns could even swell with more in-state prospects. 

“I think the coaching staff is extremely incredible in what they been selling in the culture,” Fields said. “I think they are changing it already and we just love it.”