By DOUG IRELAND, Journal Sports
RUSTON — It’s New Year’s Day for Louisiana Tech Athletics.
Today the Bulldogs and Lady Techsters are officially members of the Sun Belt Conference, completing a move that despite its obvious logic, required nearly a year of legal wrestling with Tech’s former league, Conference USA.
Discussions between the Sun Belt and Tech began last spring and the deal was officially announced last July 15. The terse relationship with Conference USA boiled throughout 2025-26 athletic year, notably with CUSA including the Bulldogs on its initial conference football schedule release in March, just ahead of the Sun Belt’s release of its league schedule also including Tech. For a few weeks, the Bulldogs had 20 conference games in two leagues.
The conference shift carried an $8 million pricetag to satisfy CUSA’s legal challenges and pay the entry fee for Sun Belt affiliation. Tech officials won’t confirm the figure but acknowledge the cost was significant.
“First I want to thank the Louisiana Tech Foundation and those who love Louisiana Tech Athletics for helping make that possible,” said university president Dr. Jim Henderson. “It was certainly a financial decision that just about any reasonable person would make.
“Within two years we’ll be more than whole. Within four years, we’ll have a solid athletic budget, which not a lot of schools are talking about. We’re actually talking about adding sports because we know they can add benefits to the bottom line.
“Moving conferences makes that possible because (of) the reduced costs associated with travel and certainly the increased revenues associated with fans being accessible to the games. I couldn’t be more satisfied with the finances,” said Henderson Monday in a media session.
The Bulldogs football season ticket base is growing rapidly, said athletics director Ryan Ivey, with regional rivalries with ULM and UL Lafayette a big part of the appeal.
“We feel like we’ve had a lot of success over the years. … Being in the Sun Belt again allows us to really grow that brand and really strengthen it moving forward,” he said.
After being subjected to playing October mid-week games in CUSA, Tech will have six Saturday home games this fall for the first time since 2017.
“It’s kind of boring. We just have six Saturday home games,” said football coach Sonny Cumbie, sarcastically.
“The city of Ruston and North Louisiana thrive on Saturday game days,” Cumbie said. “… It’s a great opportunity for people to come together on Friday in Ruston and go to restaurants and stay in hotels and just frequent all the places that they remember when they went to school here.”
Ivey said the home football schedule is being well received and indicates Tech fans are buying into Sun Belt membership and regional rivalries that simply did not exist in CUSA. One Tech athletics official referred to visiting team fans from league foes as “non-existent.”
Not the case in the Sun Belt. Blending in non-conference games, Tech’s start to this football season is a Bulldog fan magnet, said Ivey.
“With Army, (UL) Lafayette, Southern Miss, and Northwestern State (visiting Tech in the first six weeks of the season) … in the month of October, we don’t leave Lincoln and Ouachita Parish (an Oct. 17 game at ULM). It’s big,” he said.
Kennesaw State (Georgia), Jacksonville State (Alabama), Sam Houston State (Huntsville, Texas), Missouri State and Middle Tennessee were Tech’s closest conference foes in CUSA. Longer trips included Delaware, Liberty, Florida International, New Mexico State and UTEP.
Now along with ULM and UL Lafayette, there’s reasonable drive time between Tech and Arkansas State, Southern Miss, South Alabama and Troy.
In the Eastern time zone are Coastal Carolina, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, James Madison, Marshall, and Old Dominion.
Coaches are thrilled to have a much-reduced number of long road trips in conference play, several requiring air travel with tight connections in particular for basketball two-game swings to the Eastern time zone.
Tech was in the Sun Belt from 1999-2011 before jumping to a then robust CUSA. But most of the league’s premiere teams soon migrated to the American Athletic Conference and fan interest dipped. Meanwhile, Tech officials were dismissive of the Sun Belt when reports surfaced of possible interest in the Bulldogs returning to the SBC fold.
But that mindset shifted in recent years and as of today, all is forgiven – or paid for.
Contact Doug at sbjdoug@gmail.com