Rise and shine Golden Panthers in more ways than one.

It's an early kickoff against Louisiana-Lafayette, and the Ragin' Cajuns bring a pretty stout running game with the type of mobile quarterbacks that tend to feast on FIU's defense.

For the first time in three years, FIU will start a game at noon and for the first time in five seasons the Panthers host a noon game.

Instead of its usual home game start time of 7 p.m., kickoff Saturday is at a special Halloween noon start time.

FIU last played at noon in the 2007 season opener at Penn State. The Panthers last hosted an early kickoff twice in 2004 when Georgia Southern visited FIU Stadium for an 11 a.m. televised game and Florida A&M played FIU at 1 p.m. in the Orange Bowl.

The Panthers, who have been preparing by getting up early each day this week, are eager for the noon kickoff.

``I'm excited playing in the hot sun,'' freshman defensive end Tourek Williams said. ``This is how we play year round and in summer camp, so we don't have too much to worry about the heat.''

With temperatures expected to be in the high 80's, FIU will wear its white road uniforms on Saturday instead of the home dark blue uniforms.

Weather and uniforms aside, FIU's defense will likely determine how the Panthers fare against the Cajuns, who have won all six meetings in the series.

The FIU defense displayed their Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality last week against a potent Arkansas State running game.

After a game-opening drive netted 58 yards rushing for the Red Wolves, the Panthers held ASU to 18 yards rushing the rest of the first half.

However, ASU cranked out 200 yards rushing in the second half in its 27-10 win.

Running quarterbacks such as ASU's Corey Leonard have been a nemesis for FIU. It doesn't get any easier on Saturday with ULL quarterbacks Chris Masson and Brad McGuire, who each average more than 4.5 yards per carry. McGuire rushed for three touchdowns last week against Florida Atlantic.

On top of that, freshman running back Yobes Walker has averaged 99 yards per game since becoming the starter two weeks ago. ULL is averaging 155 rushing yards per game.

``Every Sun Belt quarterback is a runner, and that has been a challenge for us,'' FIU coach Mario Cristobal said. ``It's something that we have to get better at. We have to get him on the ground when he does run the football. [ULL] makes it hard to find the football with the way they run the read zone and some of their option stuff as well. It's all going to be about assignment football and being very disciplined when approaching their offense.''

The usually reliable FIU offense must revert to its 34-points-a-game-ways after last week's 10-point performance.

FIU was just 4 of 15 on third down conversions last week -- in part because the Panthers put themselves in a hole with five pre-snap penalties on offense.

The FIU offensive line might be tinkered with again Saturday.

``We had some drives where pre-snap penalties really killed us,'' quarterback Paul McCall said. ``We weren't able to overcome those. We weren't able to come up with big plays until the fourth quarter. We have to be more efficient early on, and we need to run the ball better.''

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