Louisiana Tech Cruises Past Bowling Green

The Louisiana Tech Bulldogs coasted past the Bowling Green Falcons, winning 35-7 in Ohio Saturday.

The Bulldog defense had an excellent performance on the road. The offense still has work to do, but this was clearly their best game so far.

The game started quickly, with both offenses scoring touchdowns on their opening drives. After the Falcons took the early 7-0 lead, Tech quarterback J’Mar Smith found Isaiah Graham for a 49 yard touchdown.

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Just three plays later, Amik Robertson intercepted Darius Wade and ran untouched into the end zone, giving the Bulldogs a lead they would not relinquish.

The game slowed down after this, as the two teams combined for eight consecutive punts, with the first four being three and outs.

The Bulldogs added a touchdown midway through the second quarter to give themselves a 21-7 lead at halftime.

Tech pulled away in fourth quarter, with Jaqwis Dancy and Smoke Harris recording touchdowns on back-to-back drives.

The Bulldog defense was excellent, holding the Falcons under 300 total yards. There was some aspects of a bend, don’t break performance, but it worked. The Falcons were aggressive, attempting five fourth down conversions. The Tech defense stopped them four of those five times.

Offensively, Tech had its highest scoring effort of the year, but there is still room for improvement. The offense converted just four of 13 third downs. The points were mostly scored in quick spurts, and the offense was fairly inept otherwise.

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With that being said, there were good signs. Smith threw for 267 yards and two touchdowns, but didn’t play the whole game. Once Tech went up 35-7, Skip Holtz pulled him out to let the backups have a look. Had he played the entire fourth quarter, he likely would have gone over 300 yards.

Third-string quarterback Aaron Allen got a chance to play late, and looked good, albeit in garbage time. The redshirt freshman threw 5/5 for 57 yards. He led the offense down to the BGSU three-yard line on a 13 play drive. Tech could have gotten some points on this drive, but Holtz chose to have the team take a knee given the score and only a minute left.

After a quiet start to the season, Adrian Hardy had a nice performance, leading all receivers with six catches for 95 yards, more than double his impact in the first two games. Hardy is still waiting for his first touchdown of 2019, however.

If the Tech offense can figure out how to play consistently the way it did on its scoring drives, 2019 could be a solid season yet. Combine that with defensive performances like this one, and good times could be ahead.

The Bulldogs return to Louisiana 2-1, and now prepare for their conference opener on Friday night against FIU in Joe Aillet Stadium.