JOURNAL SPORTS
RUSTON — Much of Southeastern Louisiana’s coaching staff is quite familiar with Louisiana Tech and Ruston.
Head coach Frank Scelfo and a number of his assistants will play at a familiar location Saturday night when the Lions open up on the road against Louisiana Tech at Joe Aillet Stadium.
Kickoff is slated for 6:30 p.m. and the game can be seen on ESPN+ with Malcolm Butler (play by play), Luke McCown (color), and Madison Kaufman (sideline) providing a call of the action. Shreveport radio station KLKL 95.7 FM will carry Tech’s broadcast of the game with new lead announcer Kyle Schassburger joined by veteran color man Teddy Allen and sideline reporter Jerry Byrd Jr.
Scelfo coached for the Bulldogs under Derek Dooley (2007-09), while Lion assistants Ross Jenkins and Antonio Baker played for Louisiana Tech during their collegiate days. Scelfo and his son and current OC Anthony Scelfo along with DC Bill D’Ottavio also spent the fall of 2005 in Ruston when they were a part of the Tulane football program that came north after Hurricane Katrina destroyed the city of New Orleans.
So exactly 20 years and one day after Hurricane Katrina made landfall in the Big Easy, the trio returns to Ruston to face the Bulldogs.
“The hospitality (of Tech and Ruston),” said Frank Scelfo when asked about his memories of 2005. “The difficulties of all of that stuff at the end of the day was made somewhat tolerable because of how welcoming people were.
“They opened up their doors for us. We lived in people’s houses. It was nuts. You would go eat somewhere, and someone would pick up the check. Very seldom did you pay for stuff because (the people of Ruston) were just doing that for us. Tech and Ruston were so gracious to us.”
That was two decades and a few football programs ago for Scelfo, who will bring his Lions team into Joe Aillet Stadium looking to pull off an early season upset.
After starting 1-4 last year, the Lions won six of the final seven games and finished 6-1 in Southland Conference play. And although they will bring two new quarterbacks into the contest, for the most part it’s a veteran Lions team that boasts 24 seniors and 16 returning starters.
It’s a fact not lost on Tech head coach Sonny Cumbie.
“Every game is hard to win,” said Cumbie. “We want to win every game we play. This is a good (Southeastern Louisiana) football team. Coach (Scelfo) has been there for a long time. When you watch them (in all three phases), I think the biggest thing that jumps out to me is their athleticism.
“They finished last season on a three-game winning streak, and finished 6-1 in their conference. And it’s a really good conference.”
Cumbie said during Tuesday’s press conference that he is pleased with how fall camp went and feels like his squad is in a good place entering its season opener.
“I think we had a great (fall camp),” said Cumbie. “I think this time of the year is always the best time of the year for our kids. It’s one of the benefits of the quarter system. School doesn’t start until next week. So we get to concentrate on football.
“The chemistry and camaraderie of our football team is very, very high. We’ve been very intentional in terms of building that every year in terms of the transfers and additions to the rosters that you have … really across the country. It’s what we are faced with in college football; building a team for one season. These football players have really embraced that when it comes to chemistry and trust.”
Tech boasts two new coordinators in offensive guru Tony Franklin and defensive coordinator Luke Olsen. Franklin will try to inject some more life into a Bulldog offense that struggled at times in 2024, while Olsen hopes to continue to build on a Tech defensive unit that was stellar for most of last year.
Fall camp has seen a three-way battle for the starting QB role with sophomores Evan Bullock and Blake Baker battling junior college transfer Trey Kukuk. Tech fans won’t find out who the starter will be until the Bulldogs first offensive possession Saturday night.
On the defensive side of the football, the Bulldogs return a strong one-two punch at linebacker in preseason CUSA Defensive Player of the Year Kolbe Fields and Chief Leota as well as a veteran presence in the secondary with the likes of Mike Richard, Jacob Fields, and Cedric Woods.
Tech leads the all-time series 27-8-2 although the two programs have only met twice (2008, 2021) since the Bulldogs joined the FBS ranks in 1988.
The Bulldogs will put an 11-game home opener win streak on the line.
“You want to defend your home turf,” said Cumbie. “We have six home games this fall, and our goal is to be 6-0.”