Time to build momentum
Jayden Gray celebrates after one of his two sacks against MTSU on Thursday. Photos by Josh McDaniel
Louisiana Tech showed its potential under new offensive play caller Nathan Young in a 48-21 win over Middle Tennessee on Thursday, breathing new life into a season that looked to be heading nowhere fast going into its bye week.
A whopping 551 yards of total offense and seven touchdowns — after just nine through the first four games — combined with a breakout game from quarterback Evan Bullock, has the Bulldogs heading to Las Cruces, New Mexico, with more than just a blowout win to feel good about.
They have something they haven’t had much of under Sonny Cumbie since he took over as head coach in 2022: momentum.
Cumbie knows it’s right there for Tech to take. His players do too. They know that Thursday’s win could be the start of something more. And it could equally be fool’s gold. The deciding narrative now falls on the Bulldogs, who take on a New Mexico State team (1-5, 0-3 CUSA) that’s far from formidable to continue their midweek contests tonight.
The Aggies have lost five straight overall, giving up 50-plus points in their last two losses as well. NMS has the second worst scoring defense in CUSA (38.2 points per game) and the second worst total defense (473.5 yards per game) in the league. If that’s not enough good news for Tech, NMS also has the second worst rushing defense in the country — allowing 250 yards per game on the ground.
That’s exactly what Tech ( 2- 3, 1- 1 CUSA) wants to hear after Nathan Young delivered a stellar play calling debut for the Bulldogs in the running game at 4.9 yards per carry — led by a balanced attack of Omiri Wiggins (49 yards, 2 receiving touchdowns), Marquis Crosby (41 yards), Jimmy Holiday (40 yards), Fred Robertson ( 27 yards), Amani Givens (28 yards).
Cumbie is eager to see if Tech can keep up its offensive prowess on Tuesday. But he knows the short turnaround from playing Thursday evening to traveling to New Mexico for a Tuesday game is difficult, and he expects the Bulldogs to be prepared like normal.
“ It’s a tough one from the standpoint of there’s really no formal meeting with your team to put this to bed individually,” Cumbie said. “ We’ll meet together as a team on Saturday night and practice, really walkthrough, in The Joe. We’ll walk through The Joe on Sunday. We’ll have a fast Monday and then we’ll travel.”
If there’s an individual who’d like to rewatch every minute of his performance against MTSU, it’d be Evan Bullock, Tech’s redshirt freshman quarterback who lit up the box score in his second career start. He finished 18-of-25 passing for 290 yards and 5 touchdowns and added a 1-yard rushing score as well. In the win, Bullock tied the program record for most TD passes thrown in a CUSA game.
Bullock, 19, knows he and the Tech offense at large can’t afford to let this upcoming stretch pass by without consistent improvement and wins.
“This next stretch of games is really going to be about momentum and who can get hot at the right time,” Bullock said. “I think (Thursday) was just a big first step as to what we can do for the next couple weeks.”
Cumbie agrees with his young signal caller, adding on that today’s matchup with NMS is a chance for Tech to prove its blowout win wasn’t a one- hit wonder.
“I think if we continue to play how we played on defense and we continue to play how we played on offense, I think this football team has a lot of promise,” Cumbie said. “The challenge is doing it this week.”
Tech faces NMS tonight at 8 p.m. The game will be broadcast on ESPNU.
