Louisiana Athletics Hall of Fame Class of 2025: Brett Baer

More than a decade later, it remains the most memorable single play in UL football history.

When Brett Baer nailed the 50-yard field goal on the final play of the 2011 R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl, giving the Ragin' Cajuns a 32-30 over San Diego State, it also legitimized the UL program. At least, that's the opinion of one long-time Cajun staff member and a former UL standout.

"We had eight wins going in, and we were better than we'd been for a while," said then-director of football operations Dr. Troy Wingerter. "But we had a lot of last-minute wins, and some could have been considered a fluke or luck. Winning that game put an exclamation point on the redirection of the program."

The Cajun program has had more than its share of success since that first-ever bowl appearance. Whether that was the seminal moment is anyone's guess, but there's no doubt that Baer's kick was a fitting end to an historic season.

But that wasn't the first time the Brandon, Miss., product had provided heroics during head coach Mark Hudspeth's first season. Hudspeth still remembers the many times Baer was in the middle of a huge late-game play.

"Everybody remembers the field goal in the bowl game," Hudspeth said, "but people forget about the Florida Atlantic game when he hit one on the final play. He had the onside kick on the opening kickoff against Troy when we beat the four-time Sun Belt champions. He threw a pass on a fake punt against Arizona when we made that game close. And he had that perfect onside kick against ULM in the final minutes that helped us win that game.

"He wasn't just a good kicker, he was a special teams weapon. We converted seven onside kicks in his career and he recovered four of them. He was an athlete … sometimes kickers aren't real good athletes but he definitely was and we utilized him."

Baer was enough of a weapon to earn four All-Sun Belt Conference honors and put his name in several places in the UL record book, and set an NCAA record for field goal percentage that still stands.

Because of all that, Bear will be inducted into the UL Athletic Hall of Fame on Friday, Sept. 5, as part of a full weekend of Hall of Fame activities that includes the Cajuns' second home football game of the season against McNeese on Saturday, Sept. 6. He will be inducted along with golf standout Richard Ainley, men's basketball great Kevin Brooks, baseball's Corey Coles, women's softball standout Haley Hayden and long-time UL administrator Dr. Ed Dugas at the Friday night ceremony.

Doors open at 6 p.m. with the ceremony beginning at 7 p.m. in the McElligott Club of the new Our Lady of Lourdes Stadium. Tickets are available from the Ragin' Cajun Athletic Foundation at RCAF@louisiana.edu or by calling (337) 851-7223.

More than a decade after ending his collegiate career, Baer remains the most accurate field goal kicker in NCAA history – 45-of-50 (90%).

"When you've got that type of confidence in your kicker, it gives you a certain strategy calling the game," said Hudspeth, who took the Cajuns to four more New Orleans Bowls after that breakthrough in 2011. "When you get to the 25-yard line, you know you're playing with house money … with Brett, you're going to get those three points."

Baer was limited to kickoff duties as a freshman but went 7-for-7 as a sophomore in 2010, before his record-setting final two seasons. He led the Cajuns in scoring both years and had 113 points – one off the season record – in his senior year. He remains UL's second-leading career kick scorer and in the top 10- for overall points.

But he was at his best in the postseason. In his two bowl appearances, he had five field goals and seven PAT's including three field goals in UL's 43-34 win over East Carolina in the 2012 New Orleans Bowl. His 13 points in that game is still a bowl record for kick scoring.

It's almost overlooked that Baer also handled punting duties his last two seasons, including a 40.3 average as a junior and a 42.0 senior season.

"Nobody even tries to do that anymore," Hudspeth said of Baer handing both duties. "You don't see guys that do both in college football, and he did them really well."

Everything else he did, though, takes a back seat to that December evening in the Superdome in UL's first bowl trip as a Division I-A program. UL led most of the game and was up 29-24 on Baer's field goal with 2:09 left, but SDSU drove to a go-ahead touchdown with 35 seconds left to apparently steal a victory.

"I knew we still had a shot," Hudspeth said.

Blaine Gautier, who threw for a bowl-record 470 yards in the win, threw twice to Javone Lawson and once to Harry Peoples to get into Aztec territory. A five-yard procedure penalty with two seconds left set up a 55-yarder for Baer, but a following five-yarder on SDSU put it back at 50 yards. John Broussard's snap and Brady Thomas' hold were true and Baer stuck it a couple of yards inside the left upright at the horn to set up a wild scene on the field.

"I knew he was going to make it," Hudspeth said. "That season had just been ordained. Those guys never let go of the rope one time. It was just an amazing thing."

"Winning that game justified the support we had that year," said Wingerter, now associate AD and chief of staff for football. "If Brett hadn't done that and we hadn't won, it would have been 'wait-and-see' all over again. The success we had the next few years was the by-product of that one moment."

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University of Louisiana at Lafayette Athletics

Louisiana Athletics Hall of Fame Class of 2025: Brett Baer

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