By T. Scott Boatright
Louisiana Tech’s football program has a revamped mindset heading into the 2024 season.
The Bulldogs finished 3-9 overall last year — its third straight three-win campaign — and have been predicted by Conference USA and league media to finish seventh in CUSA rankings. However, Tech head coach Sonny Cumbie believes a new way of thinking for his Bulldogs can help his team pull off some positive surprises this season.
And as they appeared at the Conference USA Football Media Day Tuesday in Dallas, Cumbie, new full-time starting quarterback Jack Turner and senior defensive end Jessie Evans all talked about how important the mental aspects of the game being a key part of their philosophy has been.
Turner, a redshirt sophomore, played in eight games last season backing up Hank Bachmeier, receiving key snaps while completing 84-of-148 passes for 1,017 yards with five touchdowns and five interceptions,
“After two-and-half or three years, Jack Turner is ready to be the starting quarterback for our football team,” Cumbie said. “Jessie Evans is going to graduate at the end of this fall quarter, and he is really getting ready to impact our football team at defensive end.
“Their impact goes so much more than just what they do on the field and in our program and community. They’re heavily involved in our community and they’re heavily involved in our campus life, and they also just happen to both excel on the football field, so I think these two young men that represent our program and represent our players, and the city of Ruston and Louisiana Tech, I could not pick two guys who would better exude what we stand for in our program.”
Turner said the biggest thing he feels he needs to upgrade in his play is consistency.
“When you need to go a whole season playing at a high level, and ultimately winning, is big for us,” Turner said. “That’s a standard that we just have not met for ourselves over the past two years and is something that’s incredibly important for us.
“So that’s the big focus this year, just making sure that we win a little bit more.”
Cumbie believes Tech’s schedule has helped make his team’s mindset stronger.
“We’ve got a great schedule,” Cumbie said. “I am excited about our midweek contests that we kick off on a Thursday night. This year we have a Thursday, Tuesday, Tuesday game schedule that sets up really well from the standpoint of timing between our games, and then also our opponent’s (schedules). I think that in our league, if you are a fan of watching close games and watching some great players, then I think the midweek games have been great for our league in terms of the close games you’ve been able to see and the talent out there on the field.
“This will be our third year as a staff and I’m very optimistic about the team we have on and off the field so I’m really looking forward to getting this thing started Aug. 31 with a home game against Nicholls State.”
Cumbie also believes new Defensive Coordinator Jeremiah Johnson is playing a role in his team’s upgraded mindset. The Bulldogs ranked towards the bottom in numerous defensive stats the past two years and it’s an area where Tech could take giant strides.
“As we went through the process to make a change on defense, I thought it was really important that we listen to our players and what were they looking for from a new defensive staff and defensive coordinator,” Cumbie said. “I think that from a schematic’s standpoint, I am really excited about the multiplicity of our schemes and what we’ll be able to do with Coach JJ and our staff.
“But the No. 1 thing itself, I think the No. 1 thing our staff has done is connect with our players and I think that’s one of the cornerstones of our program — that connection piece. Schemes are very important on offense and defense, but the ability to connect with these young men and engage their heart and mind I think is the No. 1 thing and I think the players are looking for, so that’s what we try to go out and accomplish.
“When you recruit players, you’ve got to have a certain level of talent to be able to recruit, and you also have to a certain level of knowing how we can stop the run, how do we read better in the red zone, how do we defend the pass well? And how we change up the looks for the quarterback. But ultimately, I think Coach Jeremiah Johnson and his staff have done a particularly good job of dealing with our kids. I think he’s been in a situation at Kent State where he went in and in one year dramatically changed that team statistically and having guys able to play really good defense and I think we have the pieces in place in terms of the personnel that we have and I think the defensive staff we have will get the most out of those kids from a relationship standpoint and also on the field.”
Cumbie was asked what being a part of late coach Mike Leach’s Texas Tech teams has meant for him.
“As we look at the landscape of college football, Coach Mike Leach’s (finger)prints are all over college football,” Cumbie said. “Offensively it’s obvious, but I think defensively he will played a role, too, in how the game has evolved on defense from the standpoint of how to defend the Air Raid offense, how the defenses change their personnel and how they recruit differently. How they play different players positionally on defense because of the evolution of Mike Leach’s Air Offense, so I think his fingerprints are all over this game.
“His personality was unbelievable. It was a great educational course that I was able to have as a player and as a graduate assistant sitting in those meetings. And most of that talk, as you can imagine, was mostly non-football related. We talked about under the sun, like pirates and swinging your sword. We talked about the weather — the patterns of different weather and what to expect from that standpoint of the next windstorm that was about to blow in. You listened to Coach Leach a lot more than you talked to him, because he was full of wisdom and knew a lot. “
Cumbie said one of the things he learned from Leach was “clear minds and fast legs.”
“I think that we want to try and emulate that from the standpoint of having our players have clear minds, allowing them to play really fast,” Cumbie said. “He had an unbelievable ability to keep the game simple. I think you try to take all of those things that you learn from other coaches, whether it’s Mike Leach, Gary Patterson, Matt Wells — guys that you’re been around — and implement them into your program, and fortunately for me, I was able to be around Mike Leach and Gary Patterson.
“I think it’s interesting because they’re both brilliant on defense, brilliant on offense and you try to take things that worked well in those programs and implement them to fit these guys here in our program. I think Mike Leach has touched me in a lot of different ways. He is impacted me. I’m sitting here right now based on the influence and really the opportunity that Mike Leach gave me.”
Evans believes that a new clear-minded, fast-legs philosophy will help make for a stronger defense for the Bulldogs this season.
“On a day-to-day basis, I think it’s important that we don’t have to think about how we play, we just have to do, because our defense has a lot of great athletes out there,” said Evans. “So, now that we can just go out there and play free and make plays, I think that will make our defense way much better than it was last year.”
