Head Coach: Sonny Cumbie is entering his 4th season with the Bulldogs with a 11-26 record. It’s been tough sledding in Ruston so far for the former Red Raider Quarterback who is known for exciting offenses. He enters 2025 needing some positive momentum.
Program Outlook: Louisiana Tech is a program that has a good history of success in College Football. Typically this program is known to win more often than lose, but they also haven’t had an FBS season that landed then in the Top 25. Lots of great players have come through here especially on offense, this includes multiple NFL Hall of Famers and also notable they had a Biletnikoff award winner when Troy Edwards won it in 1998. The Bulldogs haven’t found success lately despite being one of the historically better programs in CUSA. The Bulldogs are on a mission to find their way to winning.
How does the 2025 Roster look?: Louisiana Tech ranks 102nd in the country returning 42% of their production per Punt and Rally’s returning production rankings. Key players starts with QB Evan Bullock he has a big arm and played well as a freshman last year. TE Eli Finley is a good safety net that is back. The RBs Omiri Wiggins and Amani Givens could prove to be solid if they can get space to work. This defense has some dudes. LBs Kolbe Fields and Sifa Leota are a great combo, possibly one of the best in the conference. You could say the same for safeties Jacob Fields and Blake Thompson. They have some solid corners as well. The question marks starts with the offensive line, this unit struggled immensely late year in pass protection and run blocking, they desperately need improvement there. The portal really hit the receiver position hard and there’s not a lot of proven talent there, sophomore Jay Wilkerson made some big plays early in the year but wasn’t used much late, now they’re relying on him. The defensive line is another area that was hit hard, they still have Zion Nason but next to no depth.
Screenshot from FBSchedules.com
2025 Schedule Thoughts: Louisiana Tech’s schedule is pretty favorable overall. The Bulldogs non-conference schedule is filled with regional foes as they play LSU, Southern Miss and Southeastern who is likely to be one of the better teams in the Southland. Of course, there had to be a random game to fill out the non-conference schedule and that is a mid-November road game to Pullman, Washington to face Washington State! The conference schedule is not bad, Louisiana Tech gets all of the relative newcomers in Delaware, Missouri State and Kennesaw State. They avoid Jax State but do have to play Liberty and Western Kentucky. Overall the schedule allows for more wins.
Final Thoughts: This team just hasn’t been able to put it all together. In 2023 they had an electric offense but couldn’t win because their defense couldn’t get stops. Last year their defense was incredible but they still couldn’t win enough games because the offense collapsed. Now it’s a complete shift, Sonny Cumbie felt he wasn’t doing well enough calling plays so he brought in an old friend in early Air Raid guru Tony Franklin to run the offense, this is his 2nd stint here, he was also the OC with the program from 2010-2012, 2012 being one of the best season’s in program history. The defense lost DC Jeremiah Johnson after he transformed that unit last year. The Bulldogs should be able to reach a bowl on merit this time, if the offense can get back going and the defense doesn’t regress then there’s a chance they can be a factor in the CUSA race.
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