Louisiana football opened the 2024 season on Saturday by putting on a show for its home crowd of 23,107 at Cajun Field.

The Ragin’ Cajuns gave Grambling State more than it could handle, beating the Tigers 40-10 to notch their first win of the young season. From big pass plays to key defensive stops, they dominated Week 1, showcasing all the work put in during the offseason.

With Game 1 of the season behind them, here are three things we’ve learned from UL football’s 30-point victory over Grambling.

1. Ben Wooldridge is back

After playing only three games as the Ragin’ Cajuns starting quarterback last season before a season-ending injury, Wooldridge made his comeback Saturday. The 6-foot-3 slinger earned his starting spot back and the game gave him a warm welcome back. On the first play of the game Saturday, he connected with wide receiver Harvey Broussard for 50 yards.

“It was a great call by Coach Des to start the season off on the right foot,” Wooldridge said. “Great rout running by Harvey, too. I mean I underthrew him a little bit but he made a great play on the ball. It’s good to start the season with an explosive play like that.”

From there, Wooldridge ran head coach Michael Desormeaux’s offense with ease picking up first down after first down against a Tigers squad that just couldn’t keep up. Wooldridge ended the night throwing for 308 yards and three touchdowns at 75% completion rate. His only mishap was an interception in the third quarter after a dropped pass got picked off by Grambling’s Blake Davis.

2. Ragin’ Cajuns defense still warming up

To start the game, Grambling’s offense was moving down the field making the Ragin’ Cajuns defense look a step behind. Starting off slow was something Desormeaux and his staff noticed during scrimmage play in the offseason.

“There's a lot of things that we got to clean up all in all,” Desormeaux said. “We kind of talked about it last year and defensively we just weren't good enough on first and second down. We were getting third-and-2 instead of third-and-7 or 8, and that’s a big difference. But I thought we did a good job of changing that tonight.”

Leading the defense against the Tigers were linebacker K.C. Ossai and safety Tyrone Lewis, who finished with a team-high seven tackles. The highlight of UL’s defense, though, was linebacker Caleb Kibodi who made a house call from 50 yards out off of a Myles Crawley interception in the second quarter.

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3. Question marks in the backfield

While the Cajuns passing game was nearly unstoppable, their ground game couldn’t say the same. In the first quarter, running back Dre'lyn Washington took it from 6 yards out for their first touchdown of the game. After that, Grambling’s defense tightened up, not allowing UL much more on the ground after that.

As a team, the Cajuns rushed for 118 yards and averaged less than 5 yards per carry. The longest run of the game came from running back Zylan Perry, who rushed for 29 yards and finished with a team-high 45 on five carries.

“I didn't think at running back, we were doing a good job of pressing and getting off and running through arm tackles,” Desormeaux said. “So we kind of challenged our guys at halftime like we need to run the football better. Part of it is I think Grambling has a pretty good front and those guys were big, so a lot of the throws we had were runs. They were RPO throws because we had to.”

Shannon Belt covers high school sports and the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns for The Daily Advertiser as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow her high school and Cajuns coverage on Twitter: @ShannonBelt3. Got questions regarding HS/UL athletics? Send them to Shannon Belt at sbelt@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on The Record: 3 things we learned from UL football's win over Grambling State