Mark Hudspeth didn’t take the expressway to an NCAA Division I head coaching job.
In fact, the road was barely paved.
But the hard work has paid off so far for the Louisville native, as he has the University of Louisiana at Lafayette off to an 8-2 start and one win away from clinching the Sun Belt Conference title in his first year as the Ragin’ Cajuns’ head man.
“I didn’t get anointed a Division I assistant coaching job because of my dad being a D-I coach,” Hudspeth said. “I took the long road, the graduate assistant road and the high school coaching road. Before I became a head coach, I took the coordinator’s road.”
But Hudspeth said all of those roads have led him to a good place.
“My journey has prepared me for where I am,” he said. “In all of those roles in high school and on the Division II level, I learned a lot about what it takes to have a successful football program. At those levels you have your hands in everything, all the way from field preparation to equipment to making sure everybody is where they are supposed to be. You learn how to do everything, so you know what it takes to do it right.”
After two years as the passing game coordinator/wide receivers coach at Mississippi State, Hudspeth used that experience to earn the job as ULL’s new coach on Dec. 11, 2010.
“I was just blown away by the community we have here of a quarter million people,” Hudspeth said of his visit to Lafayette for his official interview for the job. “This is a wealthy community. There are a lot of people in the oil business around here. I knew that if we could tap into the people in the business community here we could have great facilities and build a really successful program.”
Hudspeth believes good facilities and hard work will help the program attract even better players, which he helps he can translate into even more success.
“The state of Louisiana is one of the best high school producers of talent anywhere,” said Hudspeth, who is 43. “We are right next to Mississippi, which has an abundance of high school talent, and on the other side we are next to Texas. We’re also not very far from the panhandle of Florida.
“There was just so much potential and such a great recruiting area that this seemed like the right place for us (his wife, Tyla, his boys, Major and Gunner, and his daughter, Carley) to be.”
Most of those who know Hudspeth or have worked with him aren’t surprised he has become a Division I head coach.
“You knew he was an up-and-coming guy,” said Noxapater football coach Tyler Peterson, who served as a student assistant and as a graduate assistant under Hudspeth when he was at the University of North Alabama. “He’s very organized, a great motivator, and is very knowledgeable about the game.”
Peterson said Hudspeth’s focus always impressed him. He said he didn’t sell a program short because it wasn’t a multi-million dollar revenue maker or it wasn’t in the national spotlight.
“Big time is wherever you are,” Peterson said. “That’s the way he’s always carried himself, whether he was at North Alabama, Winston Academy, or Louisiana-Lafayette. For him to go there and flip their record like that is amazing.”
Hudspeth coached at Winston Academy, a private school in Louisville, to a 25-1 record in 1996-1997. The Patriots went 14-0 and won the state title in 1997.
In seven seasons at UNA, the Lions went 66-21, earned two Gulf South Conference Championships, and reached the Division II Playoffs five times.
Hudspeth also was an accomplished player, starting at safety for Delta State as a junior and then taking over at quarterback as a senior. That’s when Hudspeth realized coaching could be in his future.
“My career was about over and I realized I really didn’t enjoy doing anything other than football,” he said.
After graduating from DSU, Hudspeth joined Clifton Ealy’s staff at the University of Central Arkansas and has been in the business ever since.
Hudspeth is part of an impressive line of coaches that has come out of Winston County. Hudspeth is one of three head coaches at the Division I level — Andy Kennedy, a former Little League baseball teammate of Hudspeth’s, is the men’s basketball coach at the University of Mississippi, and Matthew Mitchell is the women’s basketball coach at the University of Kentucky.
In addition, Van Chancellor was the women’s basketball coach at LSU up until this season. He also coached the Houston Comets to four WNBA championships.
“All we really had to do in Louisville was athletics,” Hudspeth said. “We had so many great coaches in that small town. I was coached by Hall of Fame coaches like Bud Turner and Robert Herring and then Gary Hughes, Ferrell Rigby, and Les Triplett coached me in basketball. All of those guys were such great influences, not only on me, but on a lot of people.”
In his first year at ULL, Hudspeth has helped transform a football program that went 3-9 in 2010. The team has secured a bid to the New Orleans Bowl or the Go Daddy.com Bowl in Mobile, Ala.
Hudspeth said more success could be in the future.
“We went from being the 120th-ranked team in Division I to most recently No. 32 in the BCS poll in one year,” Hudspeth said. “We have closed the game, and we have a very young team. We are starting five true freshmen. Next year we have nine starters coming back.”
With all of that success comes a little recognition, and with recognition comes rumors connecting Hudspeth to bigger Division I jobs, such as Ole Miss. He handling those distractions in his own way.
“I leave my phone in the office and I try not to read the newspapers,” Hudspeth said. “We are so busy here and we are so tunnel-visioned we don’t have time to think about anything else.”
Hudspeth is focused on team’s game at 2 p.m. today at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, Ark. A win would give the Ragin’ Cajuns the Sun Belt Conference championship.
ULL will close its regular season at the University of Arizona. Its only league loss was a 42-23 decision at Western Kentucky. ULL opened its season with a 61-34 loss to Oklahoma State, the nation’s No. 2 team.
“Up until last week, nobody has scored as many points against them as we did,” Hudspeth said. “I’ve been keeping up with them. I think it would be pretty neat if they played for the national championship. We felt like we have played them as good as anybody.”
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