Week 1 Preview: LA Tech vs Northwestern State
The new era begins on Saturdays.
Old Rivals
Louisiana Tech and Northwestern State are no strangers in the land of competition. The two schools have been playing football against each other for over 100 years. Even in the days of old when both colleges donned different monikers than they do now, blood boiled hot between the schools only 72 miles apart. Although Northwestern State started their institution as the “Louisiana State Normal School” ten years before Tech’s genesis in 1894, the Bulldogs hold the series record in football 55-20–5. The two universities clashed over the years, sharing conferences most of their athletic tenure and experienced intense moments that shook North Louisiana for centuries.
Even with such a dominant record against the demons, all bulldogs fans can think about is the one year Northwestern State got over the hump. Pre-planned fireworks that followed a loss to the FCS legacy rival from Natchitoches stung more than most any other loss in Tech’s history. Especially when Tech still managed nine wins that 2014 season (including a win over Illinois in the Heart Bowl) with legends on the roster such as Kenneth Dixon, Xavier Woods, Trent Taylor, and Senior QB Cody Sokol. Since then, the bulldogs and demons have played twice, with the most recent meeting being a 52-21 bulldog victory in 2023 (AKA the first football game I attended as a Louisiana Tech student). It seems that the pendulum has swung back in favor of the bulldogs and the Ruston faithful, scarred by the events of 2014, refuse to allow it to swing back.
New Slate
Today, the Northwestern State football team is undergoing a severe overhaul, attempting to find any way to break their 12-game losing streak that has lasted over a year. Last week in their first game of 2026, the demons lost to NAIA Louisiana Christian 37-42, further plummeting the program into the depths of modern failure. Regardless of their loss, Zay Davis was a shining light of success from the demon offense, averaging 10.4 yards on 12 carries with a total of 125 yards and a touchdown to show for it. Quarterback Abram Johnston also showed an efficient game of passing as he hit the 300-yard mark through the air on 30/42 attempts with two touchdowns. The ultimate issue lied with the turnovers. Allowing 42 points to an NAIA school is not a great start but turning the ball over three times is very harmful to your own self-preservation in a surprise firefight like this game. Northwestern State repeatedly gave the Wildcats short fields to score and it bit them hard when it mattered.
Louisiana Tech is looking to take advantage of a battered Northwestern State football team and use the opportunity to show out big against a big rival at home in a season where Saturdays are all the craze. Blake Baker will lead the charge as the first Tech QB in quite some time to be named the starter well before the season start. Tight-End Eli Finley, running back Andrew Burnette, linebacker Kolbe Fields and frankly the entire LB room headline the 5th year of the Sonny Cumbie era.
The Positives
I like to highlight Blake Baker’s performance last year as a point of hope for bulldog fans heading into the 2026 season. Blake Baker started and finished five games last year in his first serious role as a starter for Louisiana Tech. Even so, Baker was not the week one starter last year. No one really was. Trey Kukuk was recruited out of California JUCO Saddleback College by then-OC Tony Franklin to compete for Tech’s quarterback position and did end up starting for Tech’s first football game. Whether it was indecisiveness or genuine intrigue in the idea of playing two good quarterbacks, Tech did not really confirm Kukuk would be starting against Southeastern in 2025 until the week of. Even after that, week-to-week was a toss-up in which quarterback we would see trot out on the field. Following the LSU game last year, Baker was given the starting job and would go 4-1 across the five total games he started and finished without getting injured. In those games, Baker had 224 average passing yards per game and had higher than 68% completion rate in four of them, scoring 7 total touchdowns. While these things may be mediocre to some teams, this kind of “average” consistency is something Tech has been searching for at this position for a long time. Even if Baker managed to increase his passing average to 250 yards per game, he would be leaps and bounds above any quarterback Louisiana Tech has seen since J’Mar Smith in 2019. All you want out of Blake Baker this year is for him to play safer with his body. Notice I kept saying “without getting injured.” The injury bug has plagued Baker his entire collegiate career. If he wants to step forward to unlock the potential we know he has, he needs to try very hard to stay on the field and avoid getting hurt. I fear that is the main path this team has to elevating itself.
Now, one would expect that seeing zero returning running backs on the roster would be cause for panic, and at one point, it was. Once we lost almost all of our backs to the transfer portal or graduation, I began the train of anxiety regarding the backfield. There was so little returning production to carry the football. However, I actually find the new RB room to be one of the few main pieces of this team I place faith in. Jadon Miller, D2 Transfer from Keiser University and Dylone Brooks, a local Ruston stud headlined the spring training as proper ball-carriers to fill in the holes. Not only did these backs emerge but the 5 years to play 5 seasons had ended up ruling Andrew Burnette eligible for one more season of football play. Burnette, who was featured in multiple ways in the offense from shotgun handoffs to wildcat direct snaps had a unique knack for hard-nosed, playmaking runs and could get in the endzone better than any other back in the room. Burnette was also a product of Keiser University and is expected to contribute heavily alongside Jadon Miller and Dylone Brooks as we hope to establish another dominant, run-focused identity.
Defense will need to play a big role in Saturday’s game against the Demons. Although they allowed many scores to LCU, their offense was able to produce numbers at a consistent rate throughout their game to continue responding (when they weren’t turning the ball over). Luckily, DC Luke Olson was able to maintain Tech’s recent era of dominant defensive capabilities left behind by a revolving door of talented Coordinators. Last year, Olson ushered a heavy takeaway defense that encouraged the emergence of All-American Jakari Foster (who led the country with eight interceptions) and a handful of other defensive backs that applied pressure to any team trying to move the ball through the air in the intermediate-to-third-level. This year, there is some talent to replace in the DB room, but I trust Olson to coach some younger, less exposed playmakers into becoming key contributors. The linebacker room is where Louisiana Tech intends to deploy incredible talent to create chaos. Kolbe Fields returns for a final year after having his season ended by injury early last year. Alongside him, Jadon Mayfield and Alonzo Jackson Jr. enter year two of development in a linebacker-heavy 3-3-5 scheme with enormous upside. With Fields commanding the defense supported by these two incredible young linebackers, I fear for opposing quarterbacks asked to test the middle of the field in any way.
The Worries
The Louisiana Tech wideout position is another that has suffered especially in the Sonny Cumbie era, with a lone bright spot being Tru Edwards, son of Louisiana Tech Legend Troy Edwards who managed to snag 84 receptions for 984 yards and 6 TD’s in 2024. Before him, Smoke Harris and Tre Harris stole headlines as they became household names not just for the Bulldogs, but later for other programs as well. Even heading back to 2019, Louisiana Tech had a committee of wide receivers who had over 500 yards, making many multiples of reliable targets available to quarterbacks. Now though, the position feels bleak and in need of an overhaul. Last year Tech’s leading receiver was tight-end Eli Finley with 444 yards and zero touchdowns. That feels like a misuse of your receiving corps to me, refusing to put an excellent red-zone threat pass catcher in positions to score and being unable to find individuals out wide who you can trust consistently. I’m high on transfers Talyn Shettron and Marcus Calwise Jr, as well as returning Sophomore Jalen Mickens, but we need multiple of these wideouts to become reliable targets, especially on third down. We’ll have to keep an eye out on who is being put in position to get the football within the scheme and who is making plays happen often.
The other main point of concern I have for this team is the defensive line. In the 3-3-5 there are less expectations from the D-line to have players that jump off the stat sheet, but I still think that there is room for improvement. Juice Williams was a massive pickup from the JUCO ranks, but I want to see big steps forward in QB pressure from Emmanuel Oguns, Donovan Rieman, and Christian Davis. If we can get 2-3 guys that rotate into this 3-man front to be a living hell for blockers, we can free up our highly athletic linebackers to make TFL’s, Sacks, and even put themselves in advantageous positions for takeaways. Last year, the most sacks from a defensive lineman came from Donovan Rieman with 2.5. If we can simply get two guys on this line to create more pressure and get up to numbers closer to 4-5 sacks each, I think we will see even more success from the defense this year.
Conclusions
This weekend I expect Tech to be firing on all cylinders, taking advantage of the apparent weakness of the Northwestern State program right now to allow many of their players to learn from each other in a real game environment. I would like for Blake Baker to be tested in the playcalling, making more midfield reads and allowing for an analysis of how efficient our new receiving corps is at routerunning. I’m interested in which backs get touches and how they perform with the ball in their hands, as we have seen very little play from the backs on this roster apart from Andrew Burnette. I am even curious if he will see much time on the field at all since he just very recently was cleared to be able to practice with the team again. With a team like Northwestern State that managed to give the ball to LCU so often in order to allow them to score, I expect at least intense pressure on their quarterback alongside some great coverage to force dangerous throws and with luck, some of those classic Olson turnovers.
With all of the pain that Northwestern State managed to inflict from one game over ten years ago in addition to the esteemed history of this rivalry, Louisiana Tech should be on a quest to manufacture bloodbaths in every matchup moving forward. I am very excited to be back in the swing of things for Tech football and although my positive hopes for this season could be thwarted very quickly, I will continue to maintain my high expectations until forced to lower them!
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