Collin and Calep Jacob signed with the University of Louisiana at Lafayette during a ceremony at Loreauville High School on Wednesday. The brothers, who led the Tigers football team on offense and defense this season, had multiple offers from around the country.

According to Collin Jacob, the choice to play for the Ragin’ Cajuns was an easy one, especially now that New Iberia native Michael Desormeaux has taken over as head coach.

“It’s a blessing, to be able to go in your backyard and feel like home, basically,” said Collin. “UL has always been on our track since freshman year. Coach Mike Desormeaux has been trailing us and asking how we are doing since freshman year, so in our senior year it just seemed like the right choice to make.”

Despite playing quarterback and wide receiver, the brothers were signed to play on defense, positions they also excelled in for the Tigers. Collin said that he doesn’t want to rule out a possible offensive appearance for the Cajuns, but the focus now is on defense.

“We’re going to focus mostly on the defensive side of the ball, and maybe we can switch over to offense once we get there but for now it’s defensive back.”

Head coach Terry Martin said that recruiting has been hard this year, with COVID limiting opportunities and the transfer portal giving coaches more options to being in already proven players.

“We kind of thought they’d have a really good chance,” explained Martin. “The biggest thing, and not just for them but for everybody these last couple of years, with the long lasting effects of COVID, we still had guys getting COVID years which limited college scholarships.”

“I know several of the schools in our state were limited to 8 guys they could sign because they had some many coming back,” Martin said. “Add in this transfer portal stuff, and all of a sudden, the offers that they had aren’t available anymore. People started to gobble up those one or two year starters from other schools that you can play immediately.”

Martin continued, “I think there’s so much pressure on college coaches to win right now, that instead of getting kids out of high school that they can develop, they want guys who are already developed so that they can win and save their jobs.”

Martin also said that with so many new coaches at Louisiana college programs, contacting coaches became difficult.

“We also had in Louisiana six complete staff changes at the college level, and so I’m trying to get in touch with the new coaches and can’t get any (contact information) on them because they are so recent. They didn’t get a lot of the opportunities that they would’ve had in a regular year, so I’m very glad that they are going to end up at a place like this.”

Calep Jacob said that it has always been the brothers’ plan to play in college together, adding that UL fans have a lot to look forward to.

“It’s been our plan since day one when we stepped into Loreauville, and it’s going to keep going from here,” he said.

“Be ready, we’re coming with everything we’ve got, 100 percent. We do it for our fans, just like at Loreauville, so we’re hoping to bring it to Lafayette and do the same thing.”