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  • Louisiana Tech @ Texas 7 PM 8/31 on LHN


    Machinator

    It is no longer "way too early". Game week is here.

    Time to go 1-0.

    H/T to @Bevo for digging this up.

    LA Tech football depth chart projections ahead of 2019 opener at Texas

    https://www.thenewsstar.com/story/sports/college/louisiana-tech/2019/08/23/louisiana-tech-football-depth-chart-projections/2098111001/

    RUSTON — Game week is upon Louisiana Tech, which’ll begin preparations for its season opener versus No. 10 Texas Saturday morning after the team conducts a closed scrimmage Friday.

    The next media availability for Tech head coach Skip Holtz and a few players will be Tuesday for the first weekly press conference of the year and the first official depth chart will be provided.

    With the kickoff to the 2019 season right around seven days away, here are projections on what the Bulldogs’ two-deep at each position could look like:

     
    OFFENSE
    QB: J’Mar Smith, redshirt senior; Westin Elliott, redshirt junior; Aaron Allen, redshirt freshman

    Smith enters his third season as Louisiana Tech’s starter and with offensive coordinator Todd Fitch taking over as his position coach, more is to be expected from the quarterback who already has 27 career starts and has thrown for 6,546 yards, 33 touchdowns and 16 interceptions.

    RB: Israel Tucker, redshirt junior; Justin Henderson, redshirt junior AND Jaqwis Dancy, redshirt senior

    Tucker, who started five games a year ago, is primed to take the first snap against Texas. But expect to see plenty of Henderson and Dancy, when healthy, this season as the position will be a by-committee approach.

    X-receiver: Adrian Hardy, redshirt junior; Praise Okorie, redshirt sophomore AND Malik Stanley redshirt senior

    Hardy looks to follow up his breakout 2018 season, where he caught a team-high 75 passes for a career high 1,145 yards and six touchdowns.

    H-receiver: Cee Jay Powell, redshirt junior; Davon “Smoke” Harris, redshirt freshman

    Powell appears set to take over Teddy Veal’s former spot in the receiving corps and get his first amount of significant playing time in his career. In two seasons, the 5-7, 163-pound slot receiver has 22 catches for 138 yards.

    A-receiver: Griffin Hebert, redshirt sophomore; Joshua Matthews, redshirt sophomore

    Hebert put in impressive work on his body over the offseason, filling out with more muscle and he’s followed that up with a solid fall camp.

    Z-receiver: Isaiah Graham, redshirt junior; George Scott III, junior

    Graham, a TCU transfer, has had one of most impressive camps of any players on Tech’s roster and looks primed to be a major difference maker in the passing game.

    Y-receiver: Bobby Holly, redshirt senior; Jacob Adams, redshirt sophomore

    Whenever Louisiana Tech projects to start with an offensive formation that’ll include the Y position, Holly will be there. The Farmerville native started three games last season and two of his four total receptions went for touchdowns.

    RT: Gewhite Stallworth, redshirt senior; Antawn Lewis, junior

    Stallworth has been taking the majority of the first-team snaps in practice, leading to believe he’ll get the start at Texas. The big, 6-8, 322-pound tackle has started three games in his career.

    RG: Ethan Reed, redshirt senior; Joshua Mote, redshirt sophomore Reed, an All-Conference USA honorable mention lineman last year, has started every game the last three seasons for the Bulldogs. Mote adds valuable depth at the position with four starts under his belt.

    Kody Russey, redshirt junior; Abraham Delfin, redshirt sophomore Russey returns to once again anchor Tech’s offensive line in the middle, starting 26 straight games.

    LG: Drew Kirkpatrick, redshirt senior; Carter Habich, sophomore

    After redshirting in 2017, Kirkpatrick emerged as the starting left guard as 2018 progressed, playing in 11 total games.

    LT: Willie Allen, redshirt junior; Biron Rossell, redshirt freshman

    Allen, an LSU transfer, seems to have tapped into the potential coaches saw in him when they recruited him two years ago out of Tyler (Texas) Community College. If he gets the nod next weekend, his first FBS collegiate start will come against Texas.

    DEFENSE
    DE: Ka’Derrion Mason, senior; La’Dante Davenport, redshirt senior

    Mason earned two starts a season ago and had six his sophomore campaign. For his career, the 6-4, 291-pound end has 40 tackles with one sack.

    NG: Courtney Wallace, redshirt senior; D.J. Jackson, redshirt freshman OR Keivie Rose, freshman

    Wallace looks to get his first start of his Tech career against Texas. He’s played in 22 games and has 13 tackles, including three tackles-for-loss and 1.5 sacks.

    DE: Milton Williams, redshirt sophomore; Steven Shaw, redshirt freshman

    Williams (6-4, 262) has garnered a lot of praise from coaches since the spring and he’s parlayed his solid play into an expected starting role on the defensive line. He saw action in seven games last season.

    OLB: Willie Baker, redshirt junior; Tristan Allen, redshirt sophomore

    Baker switched positions from end to outside linebacker in defensive coordinator Bob Diaco’s 3-4 scheme. His pass rush skill set will still be utilized, highlighted by four sacks coming in the Hawaii Bowl last year, but he’ll handle come coverage duties as well.

    MLB: Connor Taylor, senior; Randy Hogan, redshirt senior OR Trey Baldwin, redshirt junior

    The former JUCO National Defensive Player of the Year looks to be more effective this season for the Bulldogs. Taylor ended 2018 with 30 stops.

    MLB: Collin Scott, redshirt senior; Alex Zayed, redshirt junior

    Scott led the team in tackles last season with 87. The senior linebacker is poised to have another solid season along with handling the defensive calls.

    S: James Jackson, redshirt senior; Ezekiel Barnett, redshirt junior

    Jackson started every game a season ago, finishing second on the team in tackles with 74, including 8.5 TFLs and had one interception.

    S: Darryl Lewis, redshirt senior; Bee Jay Williamson, redshirt freshman

    Lewis has collected 130 career stops and six picks in 40 total appearances, including 26 straight starts. He’s one of the veteran leaders on backend of Tech’s defense.

    S: L’Jarius Sneed, senior; Jaiden Cole, redshirt sophomore

    In the spring, Sneed moved from cornerback to safety and it’s paid dividends for Louisiana Tech’s defense. His three interceptions last year was good enough for second-best on the defense to go along with his 59 total tackles.

    CB: Amik Robertson, junior; Zach Hannibal, redshirt junior

    Unquestionably the most notable star for the Bulldogs, Robertson enters his third season starting at corner. He paced Tech with four picks, has nine total in two seasons, and for his career, has 123 total stops.

    CB: Michael Sam, redshirt senior; Aaron Roberson, redshirt senior

    Sam has battled some injuries during his career, but Holtz called him the “most pleasant surprise” this spring after he moved from safety to corner. Sam has pieced together a great fall camp and looks to more talent to an already deep Bulldog secondary.

    SPECIAL TEAMS
    PK: Bailey Hale, redshirt senior; Brady Farlow, redshirt junior

    Hale transferred to Tech from Eastern New Mexico before 2018 and ultimately earned the starting place kicking job. He had a 68 percent field goal rate in his first year, making 15-of-22 with a long of 46.

    P: Brady Farlow, redshirt junior; Jacob Barnes, freshman

    Behind Davan Dyer last season, Farlow punted five times for 179 yards for a 35.8-yard average.

    PR: Davon “Smoke” Harris, redshirt freshman OR Cee Jay Powell, redshirt junior

    The two combined for three punt returns in 2018.

    KR: Davon “Smoke” Harris, redshirt freshman OR Praise Okorie, redshirt sophomore OR Justin Henderson, redshirt junior

    Okorie and Harris piled up a combined 247 yards on 13 kickoff returns last year. Expect those two to be in the mix to field the opening kickoff for Louisiana Tech at Texas next weekend.


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    I thought the corners played soft, preferring to give up the short throws to make sure they didn't get beat deep and make La Tech drive down the field.  Since they couldn't sustain their drives until the 3rd string was in, I guess it worked.  I do think the tackling on the short throws was not great, it was something Tom mentioned and could be a noticeable drop off from Davis and Boyd until they get better.  Hardy and those guys looked decent but we will play better and they will make us pay for poor angles and diving at the legs.

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    8 hours ago, Fozzz said:

    Texas outgained LaTechnical College by about 40 yards. 

    Consider:

    1. First game
    2. Vanilla game plan
    3. Extensive rotation of inexperienced talent, especially in the 2nd half
    4. Give Tech some credit. They have some talent and good coaching. I also thought their QB showed improvement over last season.

    Still, the D has a lot to clean up. CB is the glaring sore point. Green is usually in position, but needs to learn how to finish -- both playing the ball and tackling. After him, it just gets worse. Actually, just about everyone needs to clean up on tackling although the front guys and LBs do better. They aren't always taking the correct angle on plays to the edge though. CBs are by far the worst offenders tackling. I guess the concept of wrapping up is hard. That and their desire to make every tackle like a heat seeking missile (minus the heat seeking feature). This is a real sore point for me and I call out the coaches on this one. Swarming to the ball is good. Flying past it, not so much. They need to put more emphasis on it. This is also a fault of the coaching (or lack thereof) in middle school and HS. They love lowering the boom and dramatic hits but squaring up on approach and wrapping up the ball carrier needs to be drilled. Some serious ass chewing for not doing it needs to happen for repeat offenders. Call me a curmudgeon but I learned proper tackling technique in 6th grade from coach in a single fall camp practice.

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    5 minutes ago, KeysPhoneWallet said:

    It was concerning how well la tech was able to move the ball in the passing game. It didn’t turn into points, so no need to panic, but we’ll need to tighten that up next week.

    La Tech has a modified air raid scheme. You can pretty much write in ink that those kinds of teams will throw for at least 300. Especially since we shut their run down completely. Outside of Boyce, I thought the secondary played fairly well with exception of some poor tackling.

    Edited by Vertigo
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    Its crazy how easily our offense moved the ball considering we went vanilla as fuck. It was very clear we didnt want to run the ball at all yesterday.

     

    Also, we only passed over the middle, what, 3 times? 

     

    When do Young and Johnson come back from their injuries?

    Edited by GreenspointTexas
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    It's important to remember how vanilla the offense truly looked and how good the vanilla results were.

    I highly doubt we're throwing 12 WR screens next week.  We'll see more qb RPOs where Ehlinger has the option to run.  We'll see more throws down field. 

    The offense barely looked like they were trying and they did well. And while La Tech's corners aren't LSU's or in that same class, they have some guys who will likely be in the NFL.

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    38 minutes ago, KeysPhoneWallet said:

    It was concerning how well la tech was able to move the ball in the passing game. It didn’t turn into points, so no need to panic, but we’ll need to tighten that up next week.

    Some of this was personnel (Hi Boyce!), but a lot of it was game plan. Orlando has consistently chosen to shut down the run and give up some easy 5 yard wr screens and other quick throws in the process. This usually results in a bend but don’t break defense because it requires the offense to not have any negative plays for a 10-12 play drive. More often than not, it works for Orlando.

    The advanced stats don’t like it, but it’s proven to work. When you’re a DC in the Big 12, trying to have a lockdown defense is pointless. I prefer Orlando’s strategy of shitting down the run and doing things like slants and blitzes to create drive-killing plays. The defense will slant the wrong way or not be in a position to stop certain play calls sometimes, but eventually, we’ll create a negative play and kill the drive, like we did last night until we put our backups in.

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    9 hours ago, Fozzz said:

    Texas outgained LaTechnical College by about 40 yards. 

    This is the type embarrassing post I expect from you. I'm sure you're dying to post some advanced analytic about how LA Tech was better than Texas last night. 

    You should be negged to oblivion at this point. 

    Edited by Rickylovesweed
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    19 minutes ago, Burt Macklin said:

    The advanced stats don’t like it, but it’s proven to work. When you’re a DC in the Big 12, trying to have a lockdown defense is pointless. I prefer Orlando’s strategy of shitting down the run and doing things like slants and blitzes to create drive-killing plays. The defense will slant the wrong way or not be in a position to stop certain play calls sometimes, but eventually, we’ll create a negative play and kill the drive, like we did last night until we put our backups in.

    I think we win if we shit down the run next week

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    10 hours ago, RabidM said:

    Ingram looks great. I don't think he has the speed to bust a lot of really long ones, but he's got truly fantastic feet and vision.  If he's going to be breaking tackles like that, he's going to get a lot of yards this year.  

    The OL could be really good this year. I would have been happy with above average.  I'm sure they'll have struggles against LSU next week, but later in the year they could be doing very good things, consistently.  

    Eagles looks athletic as fuck. Athletically, he reminds me of Dez Bryant out there.  

    I am a little concerned about how LA Tech moved the ball on our defense. A lot of their drives stalled, but better offensive teams will be able to sustain those types of drives. We need to fix some stuff. I hope to hell Cook is really our #2 CB. I'm a little concerned Jamison didn't win more playing time over Boyce.  We stuffed the run well, but I'm not sure if we're going to have a good pass rush this year.  Perhaps Ossai can provide a good pass rush, but I'm not sure who else can.  I don't think Roach has the athleticism for it. TQ is looking like a JAG so far.  

    It’s time to accept that Taquon Graham will never be more than a JAG for this program.

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    10 hours ago, RabidM said:

    Ingram looks great. I don't think he has the speed to bust a lot of really long ones, but he's got truly fantastic feet and vision.  If he's going to be breaking tackles like that, he's going to get a lot of yards this year.  

    The OL could be really good this year. I would have been happy with above average.  I'm sure they'll have struggles against LSU next week, but later in the year they could be doing very good things, consistently.  

    Eagles looks athletic as fuck. Athletically, he reminds me of Dez Bryant out there.  

    I am a little concerned about how LA Tech moved the ball on our defense. A lot of their drives stalled, but better offensive teams will be able to sustain those types of drives. We need to fix some stuff. I hope to hell Cook is really our #2 CB. I'm a little concerned Jamison didn't win more playing time over Boyce.  We stuffed the run well, but I'm not sure if we're going to have a good pass rush this year.  Perhaps Ossai can provide a good pass rush, but I'm not sure who else can.  I don't think Roach has the athleticism for it. TQ is looking like a JAG so far.  

    It’s time to accept that Taquon Graham will never be more than a JAG for this program.

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    I figured my first alma mater, GA Southern, was going to get whomped by LSU but they got absolutely skullfucked by a very very physically dominant team. God damn it would be a good season if Texas can beat them.

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    I understand the theory behind Orlando’s stop the run first defense, but damn I don’t like seeing La Tech March down the field. The tackling really concerns me though. If they fail to wrap up up next week like they did last night we’re likely to see a few long ones busted on us.

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    9 minutes ago, GSU&UT said:

    I figured my first alma mater, GA Southern, was going to get whomped by LSU but they got absolutely skullfucked by a very very physically dominant team. God damn it would will be a good season if when Texas can beats them.

    More better now.

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    IDK if this belongs here, but thought some of you may be interested in this (from TexasSports):

     

    • 18 total freshmen played in their first career games on Saturday, including 11 true freshmen.
    •  The following true freshmen played in their first career game on Saturday: DB Chris Adimora, WR Malcolm Epps, LB David Gbenda, DL Moro Ojomo, DB Tyler Owens, WR Jake Smith, DL T’Vondre Sweat, LB Marcus Tillman, RB Jordan Whittington, WR Marcus Washington, TE Jared Wiley
    •  The following redshirt freshmen played in their first career game on Saturday: LB Ayodele Adeoye, OL Junior Angilau, DL Keondre Coburn, QB/RB Roschon Johnson, OL Christian Jones, QB Casey Thompson, WR Al’Vonte Woodard
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    2 hours ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

    I understand the theory behind Orlando’s stop the run first defense, but damn I don’t like seeing La Tech March down the field. The tackling really concerns me though. If they fail to wrap up up next week like they did last night we’re likely to see a few long ones busted on us.

    Orlando was going bend-but-don't-break defense so it's okay if they put up yardage (all part of the plan), never mind the fact that he also blitzed constantly to generate negative plays.  

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    13 hours ago, Jersey Man10 said:

    Holy shit there was so much talent today. Even on the jumbotron there was a lot of fine ass everywhere. I wish I could've gotten pics but I had some family with me. Great experience. My 12 year old nephew got to experience his first Longhorns game and had a blast.9c5d957e8d764859b36ba1e189b35dc2.jpg273422643d281790b21e0824f06c7dcc.jpg5a06b377e7051b956ffba8cc05fe9fa9.jpgfdb8349857f8d6d51039256319aa48fc.jpg

    So show the pics of the fine ass, too. Don't be stingy.

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    2 hours ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

    I understand the theory behind Orlando’s stop the run first defense, but damn I don’t like seeing La Tech March down the field. The tackling really concerns me though. If they fail to wrap up up next week like they did last night we’re likely to see a few long ones busted on us.

    It's often stated that in a season teams make the greatest improvement from week one to week two. I'll bet tackling is what is concerning TO this week at practice.

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    8 hours ago, PsychMike said:

    IDK if this belongs here, but thought some of you may be interested in this (from TexasSports):

    •  The following true freshmen played in their first career game on Saturday: DB Chris Adimora, WR Malcolm Epps, LB David Gbenda, DL Moro Ojomo, DB Tyler Owens, WR Jake Smith, DL T’Vondre Sweat, LB Marcus Tillman, RB Jordan Whittington, WR Marcus Washington, TE Jared Wiley
    •  The following redshirt freshmen played in their first career game on Saturday: LB Ayodele Adeoye, OL Junior Angilau, DL Keondre Coburn, QB/RB Roschon Johnson, OL Christian Jones, QB Casey Thompson, WR Al’Vonte Woodard

     

    Guess TexasSports made some mistakes... 

     

    Participation thru B12 CCG  (2018)

    Player Participation
    # Player Games Played
    40 Adeoye, Ayodele 3
         
    99 Coburn, Keondre 2
    85 Epps, Malcolm 2
         
    98 Ojomo, Moro 2
         
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