Boise State on the Southern Road: Lousiana Tech Hopes to Stay Perfect at Home

Friday night Boise State plays La Tech in Louisiana. The Broncos have traveled great distance already this season while fulfilling their 2009 schedule and remaining undefeated. Louisiana Tech, this season, has won three games and lost five.

The three games they have won were all on their home field. In fact, La Tech’s last two losses on the road to Idaho and Utah State went to the wire. La Tech lost by two points to Utah State, 23 to 21. They also had a tight 35 to 34 loss at the University of Idaho. La Tech has struggled this year, but seem to be playing better football now.

Their coach Derek Dooley, the son of the legendary University of Georgia Bulldogs coach Vince Dooley, seems to be doing well in only his third year. It appears that La Tech would have to win out if they were to repeat being Bowl eligible this season.

Overall, the Dooley-coached team has represented the WAC well since Derek’s appointment as head coach and athletic director in 2007. Prior to Dooley, La Tech had only two winning seasons—the first in 1999—going 8 and 3 and being ranked 30th of 117 teams. In 2001, La Tech was 7 and 5, similar to last season's team.

Coach Dooley was brought to Ruston to turn their program around, thus he knows football and should not be taken lightly. Still, the odds are that while they have been perfect at home, defeating Boise State at Ruston will prove to be one of their greatest challenges this year, if not their greatest.

It seems that Boise State should be able to run against this team as the Bronco offensive lineman have been blocking out very well lately. Boise State likes Avery and Martin to handle the bulk of that load. But the most powerful back appears to be Matt Kaiserman. Matt has had some really solid action since returning from his injury.

However, Boise State football has always been about passing. Having said that, look for the receivers Pettis, Young, Shoemaker, and Kellen Moore's much bigger little brother Kirby to rack up some serious yardage, all the while lighting up the scoreboard pretty much at will.

The end result will be an entertaining game as La Tech always proves itself to be a fierce competitor at their home turf. Bronco fans are still waiting for their team to play a solid defensive game. That hasn’t happened since the Broncos destroyed the Oregon Ducks in their season opening game. It seem like the Broncos problem, if their is any, lies in the secondary. And that’s another story. Go Broncos.