10/23/2016 football Edit

Louisiana Tech avoids "trap game" taking care of FIU, 44-24

Trent Taylor eludes a defender during Saturday night's game at FIU.

Jonathan Ford • BleedTechBlue

Columnist

Jonathan Ford is the former Publisher of BleedTechBlue.com. He now lives in Nashville, TN with his wife Allison and is an IT Director for Concept Technology. Ford graduated from Tech in 2006.

While Florida International struggled to get its broadcast for ESPN 3 that ultimately failed, first on the web then on DirecTV, Louisiana Tech finished with another victory.

During his postgame radio interview, Tech head coach Skip Holtz said he saw last night's game as a potential "trap game" for his team. It is easy to see where Holtz was coming from. The week before, Tech traveled to Foxboro, Mass. and followed that up with a trip to Miami for a road trip mileage of 5,000 miles. Given the distance traveled in back to back weeks and the lack of any atmosphere whatsoever in both venues are both plenty of reason for a hangover, Tech avoided it for the most part.

Tech's defense continues to struggle stopping the pass. Against UMass, Tech blitzed a lot. They blitzed against FIU as well but to combat it the Panthers went to the short passing game and rolled up over 300 yards through the air.

Benefitting from good field position all night, Tech stalled in the red zone in 3 of their 6 trips settling for field goals.

Tech still ranks in the top 10 of many offensive categories: total offense (8), passing offense (3), pass efficiency (6), 3rd down conversion percentage (5), and first down (4). Where Tech has struggled finishing drives and as a result their scoring offense lags a little at 12th and a lot in red zone offense (68).

Opposing defenses have to pick their poison when trying to stop the Bulldogs on offense. If you stack the box to take running backs Jarred Craft and Boston Scott out of the game, you leave potentially the nation's best wide receiver tandem (Carlos Henderson and Trent Taylor) to feast off your secondary.

The west division of Conference USA is still wide open and Tech controls its own destiny as all of its remaining games are against divisional opponents. The last game of the season in Hattiesburg, Miss. against Southern Miss looms large as both teams are tied for first in the west. First, however, Tech must handle Rice at home Saturday at 6:00 p.m. inside Joe Aillet Stadium.