Louisiana Tech Bulldogs Odds

Three games in, USM is 2-1. They lost to Miss State in the opener by 17, a loss that looks like a QUALITY LOSS now that Miss State is receiving votes in the AP Poll, essentially ranking them 29th in the entire country. After that they handled Jackson State and then dominated App State 38-22 at home with a big game from Braxton. The secondary I was hopping would pop, they’re coming off of three interceptions against App State. Now here comes another overachiever in La Tech. And honestly, I didn’t see this one coming. They shutout SE LA, pestered LSU for four quarters in a respectable 23-7 loss in Death Valley and then they nuked New Mexico State 49-14 at home. But when you dig into their box scores, passing game is a mess. Despite an FCS opponent and New Mexico State, they’re 120th in yards per game through the air, if they go with Blake Baker he’s a risk taker, with an aDOT of 13.2. But he’s completed less than half of his attempts, no big time throws yet, I like Jason Semore to lay a trap or two for him. What he does present is problems on the ground, he’s a true dual threat. Semore’s defense did a good job bottling up Jacobian Morgan from Jackson State who likes to run, but you have to look at his track record from years past to get a feel for how he’ll defend the QB run. As Marshall’s DC last year, Semore’s defense corralled Alonza Barnett from JMU, threw the shackles on Ethan Vasko from Coastal, didn’t let Kyron Drones get going from Va Tech. Only Colton Joseph broke through against Semore on the ground. I’ve seen him gameplan successfully more often than not against runners and in this case, if it is Baker, you live with zero coverage, or single-high safety, and say, hey kid consistently beat us through the air.