LA Tech closes season with win over Kennesaw State

Louisiana Tech came into its season finale looking to close the season on a high after another year without a postseason berth. Sonny Cumbie 'anticipated' it from his team, remarking on how much resilience the Bulldogs have shown in a year filled with tough moments.

His belief was backed up on a chilly night at Joe Aillet Stadium as the Bulldogs, thanks once again to a dominant defensive performance, along with a rare strong running attack, to defeat Kennesaw State 33-0, giving Tech a 5-7 overall record and 4-4 mark in Conference USA play to end the 2024 season.

"Extremely proud of our players," Cumbie said postgame. "I'm happy just the way we finished."

The game could not have been more one-sided in favor of Tech, with the Bulldogs' defense forcing six punts in the first half, including five 3-and-outs, against an Owls' offense that lived up to their billing as the 125th scoring offense in the country. For the game, Kennesaw State punted 10 times as an offense, allowed a safety, and missed a 43-yard field goal.

Entering the fourth quarter, Kennesaw had just 111 total yards and was 3-11 on third down. The Owls finished with 146 for the night with just 8 first downs. It's the fewest yards allowed by Tech's defense since New Mexico State had 142 yards in 2009. It's also the most punts forced by Tech's defense (10) in at least the last five years.

"It's pretty appropriate - I think first play of the season we had a safety and then the last game of the season we have a safety," Cumbie said of the defense's performance. "From a schematic standpoint, our guys are difficult to play against. But the secret and the edge is each other. The edge is they believe in it and they believe in one another. Coach [Jeremiah Johnson] and his staff a year from about now came in here and poured into our players, built a relationship and a trust and that's why our guys play as hard as they do."

Kennesaw State quarterback Davis Bryson started 3-12 for 37 yards in the first half, missing recievers left, right, sideways, and downfield to force the Owls into quick drives. He finished 10-26 for 88 yards. Kennesaw also managed just 38 rushing yards in the first half and 51 for the game. The Bulldogs held the Owls to just 75 yards in the first half, while the Bulldog offense put up 237 yards of their own.

Kennesaw State did manage to get to Tech's 26 in the first half but the drive stalled, forcing the Owls to attempt and eventually miss its field goal try. 

Omiri Wiggins' two touchdown runs, along with his 70 rushing yards in the first half, gave the Bulldogs plenty of breathing room for a 14-0 lead with less than a minute gone in the second quarter. Wiggins, along with 20+ yards from Marquis Crosby and Amani Givens helped Tech average over 5 yards per carry on 103 total rushing yards through two quarters.

Wiggins punched in his first score on Tech's first drive of the game off an option pitch from Tech quarterback Evan Bullock, hustling in from 4 yards out for a 7-0 lead. Wiggins followed that up with a second TD on Tech's fourth drive, walking in untouched from 6 yards out for a 14-0 lead.

The sophomore from Lafayette capped off his career night with a 35-yard TD run following Kennesaw State's safety, giving him a season-high 3 TD and 129 yards rushing.

Amani Givens added to the productive night offensively with a 2-yard TD run with 10:50 left in the game for a 33-0 lead - his second TD this year.

Cumbie saw the two former junior college tailbacks improve as the year went on.

"I think you saw Wiggins grow in his confidence, a guy coming from junior college and there's a transition period for both of them [Amani Givens]," Cumbie said. "The more they played, the more confident they got and they more they believed, 'Hey, I can do this at this level.' That's what you saw as you saw their performance increase over the course of the season."

Tech finished with 210 rushing yards - the second most all season - to go with a season-high 3 rushing TD.

Buck Buchanan also nailed a 55-yard field goal in the first half but also missed a 55-yard attempt as the half expired for Tech's special teams contributions on the scoreboard.

Moving into the offseason, Cumbie is confident he will return as head coach and will get the chance to turn the Bulldogs into winners in year four after another losing season without a bowl game berth, giving him an 11-25 record in three years in Ruston. Cumbie is the first Tech head coach to have three losing seasons in their first three years.

When asked postgame why he feels fans should stay paitent ahead of a potentially fourth season, Cumbie answered in detail.

"You saw a football team that for 12 weeks played their tails off. Now, we can be smarter, we can execute better in the red zone. But we have identified those and there's an awareness of it to go out and enhance it whether it’s personnel or whether it’s schematics. We'll have a lot of time to evaluate all of those things as we move forward," Cumbie said. "If you want guys that play hard and guys that flew around, these guys flew around and played really hard. We've gotta make a few tweaks here and there to get the recipe just right. We gotta continue to do what we do on defense. From that standpoint, the progression over the course of our time we've been here – Yes, we want to win Conference USA championships and want to win bowl games. That's our goal and our mindset. That's what we're fixing to embark on through this offseason. There's a heck of a lot of progress.

Cumbie continued his answer by saying, "Our first spring here, we had 38 scholarship kids that we went through spring practice with. Our second spring, we had 56 scholarship kids. The goal is to be around 60 scholarship kids this year that you go through January, February and spring practice with and you sprinkle them in. The core is returning. That's the number one thing. We have to recruit our own people. We gotta retain them and we're going to work to do that. That's where I think from a buy-in, from how hard they play and yes, all those things are what you gotta do but you need to win. That's where I feel like from a standpoint of things we're identifying and areas we've got to go out and enhance. That's what we're going to do."

This year gave Tech its fourth straight losing season - the first such streak for the program since 1992-1995. And since 2022, Tech is 2-17 on the road, is tied with ULM for the worst record among in-state FBS programs (11-25), has not had an offense top 60 nationally in scoring, has 113 offensive touchdowns to 98 3-and-outs, and has not made a bowl game.

The plus side of Cumbie's resume is the hiring of defensive coordintor Jeremiah Johnson, who took the Bulldogs from a bottom 10 unit in the country to a top 25 unit this fall. The development and retention of Evan Bullock could be another notch, as he emerged as Tech's best QB over the latter half of the season. Bullock finished with 1,941 passing yards, 14 TD, and 2 INT in 2024.

Cumbie admitted postgame the Bulldogs have not achieved any of their postseason goals in his three years as head coach but still feels the program is turning the corner.

“I want to use this as a springboard because I think the goals of our football team are to win conference championships. Our goals are to win bowl games. And that is where our focus has always been. We’ve had a hard time at times getting to that moment. We were able to finish this season 4-4 in our conference. But that’s really not what we’re after," Cumbie said. "From the standpoint of this football team moving forward and how we build it from a roster standpoint, from a mindset standpoint, I think we’ve got finishing games and physical and doing those types of things, we have to maintain to do that. And then we have to turn our mindset into winning football games and finishing those close games at the end.”

Louisiana Tech finishes 2024 with a 5-7 overall record.