For the Ragin’ Cajuns, their Aug. 30 kickoff game against the Rice Owls marked the beginning of the team’s 124th season. The game also marked another unwelcome addition to a seemingly evergrowing Cajun tradition, as it became the fourth straight year with a quarterback being injured.
In the fourth quarter of the game, starting quarterback Walker Howard suffered an oblique injury, which will require Howard to receive surgery that will mark the end of his season. Howard is a Lafayette native and St. Thomas More alumnus. He is currently a redshirt junior and transferred from Ole Miss after two years of backup play.
In response to this injury, Daniel Beale, a three-star redshirt freshman and Catholic High School Baton Rouge alumnus, was promoted to starting quarterback for the Cajun’s game against McNeese State University on Sept. 6.
Beale’s backup is D’Wanye “Lunch” Winfield, a redshirt sophomore and Lutcher High School alumnus.
Howard’s injury is the newest development in what is now a long line of Cajun quarterbacks facing time away due to injury.
Since 2022, there have been six total quarterback injuries, three of which have been season-ending. In that time, the Cajuns had a 22–18 overall record.
On Nov. 16, 2024, starting quarterback Ben Wooldridge suffered a broken collarbone in the second quarter of the game against South Alabama University. South Alabama ended up winning that game 24-22, after stopping Fields’ two-point conversion.
Following this injury, quarterback Chandler Fields stepped in as starter until Wooldrige ended his career with the Cajuns at the New Mexico Bowl in a loss to Texas Christian University on Dec. 28, 2024.
During this time, Fields was the starting quarterback until he was injured in the Sun Belt Conference Championship game against Marshall University, where Beale would then be forced to lead the Cajuns offense in a 31–3 loss.
The Cajuns finished the 2024 season with a 10–4 overall record, being 7–1 in Sun Belt Conference play. Prior to Wooldridge’s injury, they were 8–1 and had scored 317 points in those nine games.
After Wooldridge’s injury, the Cajuns went 2–3 in their last five games and had scored a total of 116 points. In their final two games, the Cajuns did not score a touchdown.
A year prior, for the Sept. 16, 2023 game against the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Wooldridge suffered a lisfranc foot injury that required surgery, ending his season.
As a result, redshirt freshman Zeon Chriss filled in as the starter, where he led the team to victory 41-21. In their two games before the injury, the Cajuns were 1–1 and had scored 69 total points.
Over the course of the next five weeks, Chriss led the Cajuns to a 3-2 record, with 153 total points. On Nov. 4, in a 37–17 loss against Arkansas State, Chriss broke his fibula in the fourth quarter.
Fields would step in as the starter for the last four weeks of the season, including participating in the New Orleans Bowl against Jacksonville State, and lead the team to a 1–3 record with 138 total points.
The pattern of injuries began in the fifth week of the 2022 season, where Fields suffered an undisclosed “long term” upper-body injury.
This is where Wooldridge would come into the picture and make his first career start as quarterback against South Alabama. Prior to this start the Cajuns were 2–2.
Wooldridge would also begin his history of facing injury and fighting back to a starter position in this season, as he suffered a torn ACL at practice before a Nov. 19 game against Florida State University.
Up to that point Wooldridge had gone 3-2 since stepping in. Finally, to complete the preview of the cycle to come, Fields stepped in as a starter for the remainder of the 2022 season. Ending with an overall record of 6–7.
In the time since Fields’ first injury, the Ragin’ Cajuns have always had a “next man up” mentality.
Along with that mentality, Beale has the full faith and backing of the team and coaches as they are confident in his development as a college-level quarterback.
In an interview with The Advocate, Head Coach Micahael Desmoreaux said, “Daniel is going to go out there and run the show, and he’s going to do a really good job.”
The program is well aware that anything can happen on the field and seems always ready to put its nose down and get back to work.
The issues around these quarterbacks can best be described as this: an orchestra cannot always perform to the best of its ability when it is forced to use a completely different conductor at a moment’s notice.
The quarterback helps direct the offense, and in the case of the Cajuns and quarterbacks all over the globe, every athlete is different, so you have to change on the fly.
Best of luck and health to our quarterbacks Beale and Winfield as they look to lead the Cajuns to victory, and wishing a speedy recovery to Howard.