Whether you’re excited for the 2024 football season, or just excited to get it over with, we’re back to preview and predict how we think the Bulldogs will perform this year. We’ll provide our best-case scenario, worst-case scenario, and more.
But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s talk about what our typical weekly schedule will look like (at least until we start the midweek games in October):
Sunday
– Updated Scorigami
Monday
– @gtpdd_stats: Advanced Box Score
Tuesday
– Nathan’s Stat Attack post on BleedTechBlue
Wednesday
– Recap & Preview Podcast
– @gtpdd_stats: Weekly NFL Player Stats
Thursday
– @gtpdd_stats: Record Predictor
Friday
– Evan’s Three Keys to Victory post on BleedTechBlue
– Weekly Blog Post
Saturday
– Gameday!
Of course, there will be more fun stuff on our Twitter @gotechplsdntdie as well as some additional content added throughout the season on our stats page @gtpdd_stats.
Now, with that out of the way, let’s get to the preview!
Best Case Scenario
Ahhhh the best case scenario. Where we look at our schedule and think “Could we really lose to THEM? And THEM?!?! and …. Them?!?!”
Any way you slice it, there are a whole lot of bottom-dwellers in CUSA (present company included). That means in a best case scenario we could see the offense gel, a massive improvement on defense, and scrape out a bunch of wins against our terrible schedule for an 8-4 type finish.
Let’s start with some optimism. This schedule should be a cakewalk to bowl eligibility. Tech plays seven teams in the Bottom 25 of the preseason SP+ rankings: Tulsa, MTSU, Sam Houston, New Mexico State, UTEP, FIU, and Kennesaw State (listed from best to worst).
Add in an FCS game against Nicholls and a home game against the 38th worst projected team in FBS (Jax State), and if you squint there are 9 winnable games for a mediocre team.
The question is just how bad Tech will be this year. Currently, Tech is only ranked above the last three in the list above. But if Jack Turner figures it out, new defensive coordinator Jeremiah Johnson rights the ship left by the Scott Power vacuum, and nearly everyone stays healthy, I really could see Tech winning seven of those nine games.
2-10: the dogs manage to not completely embarrass themselves by losing to an in-state FCS opponent or by giving Kennesaw State their first FBS win unlike last year with Sam Houston. We let Cumbie go after the buyout drops and we hype ourselves about the unlimited possibility of a new coach.
Winning 3 or 4 games. This team is bad in all three phases of the game. It’ll be a miracle if they get off the bus without pissing and crapping themselves. But this is CUSA, the Cars 2 of NCAA football conferences, and 3 or 4 games won isn’t impossible for even so putrid a team as our LaTech Bulldogs.
Worst Case Scenario
4-8/5-7: Coach Cumbie manages to luck himself into a handful of wins somehow on the back of an easy schedule, which convinces the athletic department he’s turning it around and they punt on firing him and moving on for another year. Bulldogs fans around the country enter even further into apathy. Homefield says they’re never making Tech gear. I stub my toes repeatedly every gameday walking to the couch.
0-12 is not off the menu, sadly. Nicholls is an above-average FCS team (expecting to win a second straight Southland championship). Let’s take SP+ as gospel and say that Tech is only better than three of the FBS opponents the Bulldogs will face: UTEP, FIU, and Kennesaw State.
Wait a second Josh, you… nevermind, I see what you did there.
Being real for a second: there is an absolutely real chance that Tech will not win a game this year. We have exactly one QB with FBS experience… and the last time the backup didn’t become the starter at some point was… 2018. We have a WR group that has a lot to prove, and an RB room that will be great when healthy… but will they be healthy? The defense should improve… but if they don’t? I shudder to think of myself driving to Ruston for Homecoming staring down the barrel of another date with Rich Rod’s Jax State team. I don’t think 0-12 is where we’ll end the season, but there is a chance.
0-12
And I pray for it. I’m desperate for it. I want it more than I want peace on earth. I beg you, go 0-12. Make a dream come true.
Biggest Question Mark
Will the Wide Receivers gel with Jack Turner? Who is THE guy? It feels like Tech always has someone out wide that gives you confidence. Someone who, in the blazing August heat, makes you think “Well at least HE’LL be open”. As we sit here towards the end of Fall camp, I don’t know who that guy will be.
Sure there’s promise – transfers Jimmy Holiday and Abdul Fatai Ibrahim might be those dudes. Tru Edwards might find a way to harness the energy of his father.
But that’s my question in August – who will catch the balls that Jack Turner throws?
Was Jeremiah Johnson the right call at defensive coordinator? Cumbie is an offensive minded coach. And while the last two years have had their ups and downs (with mostly downs), if looking just at points scored and allowed, the offense has well outplayed the defense. The offense ranked 61st and 78th in points scored in 2022 and 2023 respectively, while the defense ranked 128th and 117th.
If Jermiah Johnson can turn this defensive group into a unit that’s even average, it would solve a lot of the Bulldogs’ problems.
*gestures wildly at everything* look man, I’m only vaguely aware of who’s on the roster this year and I kinda know the schedule. The whole team is an enigma to me as far as I’m concerned.
How is Cumbie still employed? Why do people still go to games? Do you need more proof there is no benevolent god than to see this moribund program further embarrass themselves to the point you question your sanity?
Breakout Player Prediction
LB Kolbe Fields
For those in the know last year reading Ben Carlisle’s BleedTechBlue reports – Kolbe Fields was ALL OVER them. The Junior linebacker transferred in from LSU last summer but was deemed ineligible by the NCAA because… reasons?
Anyway, I expect Fields to be a household name in the CUSA-verse by the end of the year.
DE J’Dan Burnett
I might be blurring the lines of fiction and reality here, but in CFB25, J’Dan Burnett is a force to reckoned with. He won back to back Heismans in my playthrough, and if you look at the BTB forums, you’ll see I’m not alone.
While a Heisman-caliber season might be a little too much to ask from Burnett, my hope is that under a new DC, Tech will greatly improve from the 16 total sacks a year ago. And who better to go chasing after a sack record than another Tech DE who’s first name starts with J?
DB Pig Cage
Incredible name = incredible vibes.
Whoever transfers out of the program (and CUSA entirely) after LaTech loses to Nicholls. Not only the breakaway, er, breakout player…but the smartest player too.
Final Predictions
Insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result. Is Tech doing the same thing? Well, three 3-9 campaigns in a row suggests that even though things are different, they stay the same. Will the new defense work out? Will the offense find its groove (and stay healthy)? I don’t know. But I do know that until we prove otherwise, I’m riding with 3-9. Maybe then we’ll get the change we need?
I do think this team is better than last year’s. We have an experienced QB (Jack Turner) that’s had three years to learn in Cumbie’s system. Unlike past years, he’s had first team reps in spring and fall camp, allowing him to build connections with the receivers he’ll be throwing to. I’m not expecting a Ryan Higgins-esque turnaround, but I do really believe he’ll be a “good enough” quarterback. And I also think the defense will take a step towards “good enough” with the new DC.
If those two areas improve enough, Tech really could find themselves in a bowl game in December. It’s a big if, but not an impossible one. I’ll say 6-6.
I think the dogs are in the pits of despair and Cumbie knows he is on the hot seat. He’s going to throw everything he can at our opponents and break out every single trick he knows, on and off the field. The dogs start off the year with a gutsy, yucky win against Nicholls to open the season, but that’s the only win they manage. Not a single game is within reach for the dogs and Cumbie finds himself fired before seasons end (which means we are stupidly paying a higher buyout than we should be). 1-11 with plenty of horrible losses and the fan base gives up mid September.
In which all optimism dissipates. This program died a few years ago and now its charred corpse is being pissed on in the midst of conference realignment and NIL opportunities at more prestigious programs. In the wake of this, LaTech is headed towards the FCS at terminal velocity. There will be no escape. You could time travel to 1972 and bring Maxie Lambright to this wretched football team and, after a quick stop for a Caniac Combo, he’d recoil in horror and demand to go back to whence he came. No AD, no university president, no coaches or players can save this team. It will continue to wallow in the doldrums until it either ceases operations or eventually goes independent and never sniffs another winning record again. Thanks, NCAA. Greed will imprison us all.
