The University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s marching band will hit the road twice this fall to support the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns® football team.
The Pride of Acadiana Marching Band will travel to Oxford, Miss., on Saturday, Sept. 13, for the first out-of-town game of the season. The Cajuns will face the University of Mississippi Rebels in Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, which seats about 60,000 fans.
“The game at Ole Miss is going to be a big one and we want to be there for the team,” said Dr. Eric Melley, band director.
A pep band will head to Monroe, La., on Saturday, Nov. 15, for the Cajuns’ battle with the Warhawks of the University of Louisiana at Monroe.
“We always feel like we’re contributing to the team and the energy in the stadium. So we try to travel to away games when we can,” Melley said.
He expects the marching band to have a little over 10 percent more members than last year. “If we don’t quite make 300 members, we’re going to come awfully close to it.”
The pep band that will travel to ULM will have about 100 members. Melley said it takes at least 80 musicians to make an impact in outdoor stadiums. Members of the pep band don’t perform on the field.
The Pride of Acadiana Marching Band will start practicing on Sunday, Aug. 17. “We’ll have 13-hour days all the way through the week. It’s a long preseason camp because we have just a short week of classes before the first home game,” the director said.
Classes for the Fall 2014 semester will begin Monday, Aug. 25.
The Ragin’ Cajuns will welcome the Southern University Jaguars to Cajun Field for the Heymann Classic on Saturday, Aug. 30.
Here are the dates and opponents for remaining Ragin’ Cajuns home games:
• Sept. 6, Louisiana Tech;
• Oct. 4, Georgia State;
• Oct. 21, Arkansas State;
• Nov. 1, South Alabama; and
• Nov. 22, Appalachian State.
This will be Melley’s second year as director of the University’s marching band.
The Pride of Acadiana performs at all home football games and at some special events in Louisiana.