Let’s get this out of the way – the vibes are bad in the Louisiana Tech Bulldog football fanbase to start the 2024 football season. This season marks the third consecutive year that Tech has attempted to rebound from a 3-9 campaign. But for the first time in a long time, there’s a notable lack of optimism in Ruston.
In 2022, after the Skip Holtz firing, the hope was that Sonny Cumbie and his air raid offense would produce a more exhilarating rendition of the Bulldog offense. That even if Tech struggled with wins and losses in that first year under a new head coach, the games would be more fun to watch.
In 2023, there was hope that the coaching transition was over. That Year 2 under Cumbie would look similar to Year 2 under Holtz. After all, in Skip’s first year the Bulldogs finished the season with only four wins (the fewest since Derek Dooley somehow parlayed a losing record into a Tennessee job) and were playing for a conference championship the next year. So after a 3-9 start to the Cumbie campaign, there was hope he could turn it around in Year 2.
But a fanbase’s patience only extends so far. And another 3-9 season is very much possible. If you look at Bill Connely’s SP+ rankings, Tech is only ranked higher than three of their FBS opponents: UTEP, FIU, and Kennesaw State.
But there is one team ranked lower than all three that’s also on Tech’s 2024 schedule: FCS Nicholls.
An FCS game is supposed to be an easy win, the same way Tech is supposed to be an easy win for Arkansas in November. The home team pays a “lesser” team to trave and the home team expects to win.
But historically, Tech has often struggled in those expect-to-win games. It was only a decade ago that Tech fell to Northwestern State, an event we ranked the most painful in Tech history. But Skip wasn’t alone among recent Tech coaches who’ve struggled against FCS programs. Since 2000, Tech has lost to FCS programs twice, and has only outscored their FCS opponent by 30 or more points five times.
And Sonny Cumbie is responsible for two of those five in his first two years in Ruston.
Granted, as bad as the Bulldogs were last year, Northwestern State was atrocious even at the FCS level. Bill Connely’s SP+ ranked the Demons as the 353rd best college football team (8th worst in FCS) compared to Tech’s 153rd overall rating.
And bad news – Nicholls instead looks to be a pretty good FCS team this year. Not only are the Colonels expected to repeat as Southland Conference champions, half of both the first-team Preseason All-Southland offense and defense are Colonels.
But this won’t be the first time Cumbie will face a high-ranked FCS program as the Louisiana Tech head coach.
In 2022, Stephen F Austin finished the season ranked as the 55th best FCS program by SP+. And Cumbie’s Bulldogs easily handled the Lumberjacks 52-17 victory in the home opener. Oh, and Nicholls enters this year ranked 52nd.
So, on paper, the Bulldogs should be opening their 2024 campaign off with a win. If there’s one thing we know about Sonny Cumbie, it’s that he doesn’t overlook an early FCS opponent. Even if his teams have struggled late in the year to similar programs just after their transition to FBS.
It’s the lowest imaginable bar, but Cumbie has so far cleared it – win your FCS game. But anyone who remembers (then-FCS) Appalachian State’s thriller over Michigan in 2007 or Florida State’s disaster of a performance against (then-FCS) Jacksonville State in 2021 can tell you, these automatic “W”s on the schedule are written in pencil, not pen.
In fact, in the two years since Cumbie took the reins, 10 FCS teams have upset an FBS team. And while Tech has been in the Bottom 25 of the FBS barrel for that entire stretch, they have remained off that embarrassing list.
And for any chance of Tech making a bowl game, competing for a conference championship, or keeping the head coach off the hot seat, they better keep up that trend. For this season’s sake, and also for Cumbie’s sake.