With Conference USA Football Media Day coming up this week, we want to give everyone a review of Louisiana Tech’s football program since the victory over Illinois at the Heart of Dallas in late December 2014.
For a reminder of what we wrote right after the Heart of Dallas Bowl victory, here is our 2014 Football Year in Review artice: http://latechreport.com/2014/12/28/2014-football-year-in-review/.
Recruiting
Louisiana Tech continued its recruiting approach of getting commitments early and recruiting players on the I-20 corridor and within a 5-hour radius of Ruston (Louisiana, Mississippi, south Arkansas, and east Texas). Louisiana Tech signed 22 high school recruits and Florida transfer QB Jeff Driskel. Twelve recruits were along the I-20 corridor from schools like Haughton, Parkway (Bossier City), Neville, Junction City, and Strong. The only recruit outside of the 5-hour radius of Ruston was Jeff Driskel. The class of 2015 included no junior college (JUCO) transfers and only one transfer from an Division I FBS program.
There are 12 verbal commitments for the 2016 class so far. Like the class of 2015, most are within a 5-hour drive of Ruston. This also marks the second straight year that Louisiana Tech has had this many recruits for the upcoming class this early.
Preseason Honors
Coming into the 2014 football season, Louisiana Tech had two players selected to the Conference USA Football Coaches Preseason First Team (Kenneth Dixon and Vernon Butler). The team was picked by the football coaches to finish 4th in the C-USA West Division behind North Texas, Rice, and UTSA. Louisiana Tech went on to win the West Division title and defeat North Texas, Rice, and UTSA by a combined 73 points. Two players earned C-USA First Team honors (Mitchell Bell and Xavier Woods), and three players earned Second-Team Honors (Dixon, Butler, and Trent Taylor).
Louisiana Tech placed four players on the 2015 Conference USA Preseason First Team (Dixon, Taylor, Butler, and Woods), and the Bulldogs are projected to repeat as West Division champions.
In addition, Louisiana Tech is represented on ten national award watch lists.
Scheduling News
Louisiana Tech announced its rearranged 2016 non-conference schedule a couple months ago. The schedule was supposed to include games against three SEC West programs – at Arkansas in Little Rock, at Texas A&M, and in Ruston vs. Mississippi State. Now, the new non-conference schedule is at Arkansas in Fayetteville, at Texas Tech, and at UMass. The Mississippi State game in Ruston was pushed back a year to 2017, and one future game at Mississippi State that former Tech AD Bruce Van De Velde reportedly bought out reappeared on Tech’s future schedules with McClelland’s latest announcement. Without explanation, the game at Arkansas was moved from War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock to UA’s campus in Fayetteville. Louisiana Tech bought out of the return game to Texas A&M game to net $100,000 more by playing at Texas Tech. McClelland also signed a home-and-home series against UMass (@ UMass in 2016, @ Tech in 2019).
Louisiana Tech also signed an agreement with Baylor for a three-game football series from 2020 to 2022. Baylor will host the 2020 and 2022 games while Louisiana Tech hosts the 2021 matchup. Baylor will owe Tech $500,000 for the first game of the series in 2020.
With the recent additions and swaps in the future football schedules, Louisiana Tech should only have five home games in 2016. The 2017 and 2018 schedules look like they could have six home games each. Even better, it looks like Tech won’t have to associate with ULL any time soon.
Coaching Changes
I wrote in the 2014 Football Year in Review article on December 28th, “even though Skip Holtz’s praise of Diaz is richly deserved, I almost kind of wish that Coach Skip Holtz would tone down just a little on his praise so that the larger schools with vacant defensive coordinator positions won’t focus their attention on Manny Diaz.” One week later, Manny Diaz returned to Mississippi State as their new defensive coordinator. Blake Baker was promoted from the safeties coach to become the new defensive coordinator and linebackers coach at Louisiana Tech.
After Diaz’s departure, Louisiana Tech saw two more assistant coaches leave for opportunities elsewhere. Oscar Giles (former DL Coach) became the new defensive line coach at the University of Houston, and Matt Moore (former OL Coach) became the new co-offensive coordinator and offensive line coach at Troy University.
To fill the three vacant assistant coaching positions, Skip Holtz hired Rick Petri (former DL Coach at Duke University) to be the new Defensive Line coach, Karl Scott (former defensive coordinator at Southeastern Louisiana University) as the new safeties coach, and Robert McFarland (former offensive coordinator and offensive line coach at Copiah-Lincoln Junior College) as the new offensive line coach. In keeping with the idea of recruiting local players from Louisiana, Mississippi, east Texas, and south Arkansas, the three new assistant coaches this year either came straight back Louisiana and Mississippi or spent several years in the area with previous Division I-A programs.
Facility Updates
The $22 million South Endzone Project, now renamed the Davison Athletic Complex, is scheduled to be ready for move-in by mid-August. On April 23rd, Louisiana Tech announced that the 302 club seats were completely sold out for the 2015 football season. Tech also replaced the old playing turf with a new playing turf for the 2015 season.
Tommy McClelland mentioned during a recent Bossier City Lions Club luncheon that the two biggest needs are the press box at Joe Aillet Stadium and repurposing the back side of the Joe Aillet Field House.
Louisiana Tech Bulldogs to the NFL
While no Louisiana Tech players were selected in the 2015 NFL Draft, several players signed on with NFL teams as undrafted free agents. Mitchell Bell signed with the Oakland Raiders after being selected to the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl in January. Tony Johnson signed with the New York Giants in June. Houston Bates signed a free-agent contract with the Washington Redskins after a three-day rookie minicamp tryout. Terrell Pinson signed with the Oakland Riaders, but was waived by the team a couple weeks later.
Don’t be surprised to see a couple of Louisiana Tech players selected in the 2016 NFL Draft. Kenneth Dixon should be selected assuming he has a pretty good senior year. I think at least one of the top defensive players at Tech (someone like Butler, Barnes, or Woods) might be drafted as well if the defense has another outstanding year like they did in 2014.
