Six Chapters, One Story. Chapter Three: Past Meets Future
10/5/2026 8:00:00 AM | Football
RUSTONÂ | Louisiana Tech opens Sun Belt Conference play on October 10, the first Sun Belt football game in program history. The opponent is UL-Lafayette, a rivalry with more history behind it than most fans in the stands have been alive.
The Hall of Fame celebrates those who built Louisiana Tech. Kennel Takeover and Time Out for Tech put the next generation of Bulldogs, current and prospective, front and center. And against a renewed Sun Belt rival, the weekend brings it all together: a proud past, an exciting future, old rivals, and new memories.
A Rivalry Renewed
Louisiana Tech and UL-Lafayette have been rivals for over a century, and their campuses sit just 180 miles, about a three-hour drive, apart. Louisiana Tech leads the all-time series 48-33-6, a rivalry that dates back to a 75-0 Bulldog win in 1910. After a handful of early meetings, the two programs played nearly every year from 1924 to 2000, one of the longest-running series in program history. The annual game paused when Tech moved to the WAC and UL-Lafayette to the Sun Belt, but the two have still met four times since: 2003, 2004, 2014, and 2015, and continued facing off in other sports the whole time.
The most recent stretch belongs to the Bulldogs. Louisiana Tech won eight straight meetings in the series from 1997 through that last matchup in 2015. The signature moment came in 2014, a 48-20 Tech win that still stands as one of the loudest nights in the rivalry's history: running back Kenneth Dixon broke off a 99-yard touchdown run, still a Louisiana Tech and Conference USA record for the longest rush in either record book, and defensive back Xavier Woods, now playing for the Chicago Bears, took an interception back 46 yards for a touchdown to help put the game away. The following season, 2015, Tech closed out the series with a 43-14 win.
Now, more than a century after it started and over a decade since they last met, Louisiana Tech and UL-Lafayette pick the rivalry back up as Sun Belt West Division opponents, on a stage neither program had when the series began.
Friday Night: Hall of Fame Weekend Kicks Off
The weekend starts a night early. On Friday, October 9, Louisiana Tech welcomes home its newest Hall of Fame class at a reception and induction ceremony, honoring four Bulldogs whose careers built the program this year's team represents:
Music starts at 6 p.m., and the Block Party officially kicks off at 6:30 at Railroad Park. Tech Cheer and the Regal Blues Dance Team perform; the Band of Pride takes the stage and closes things out with the Fight Song and Alma Mater, and a few Louisiana Tech football players will be on hand along with Champ. Fans can also enter to win a Bulldog Block Party prize package, including two Louisiana Tech football tickets and Downtown Ruston merchandise, at app.seemylegacy.com/community/2679/campaign/10821.
It's also an extra Blue Bloods opportunity. Any Blue Blood who attends and scans in earns rewards points and is automatically entered to win additional prizes on top of the Block Party giveaway.
Between the Hall of Fame ceremony and the Block Party, this is a night for anyone who's ever worn red and blue to show up.
Saturday Morning: Time Out for Tech
Game day starts on campus well before kickoff. From 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Centennial Plaza, Louisiana Tech hosts Time Out for Tech, its fall preview day for prospective students and their families. Visitors get to see campus alive with activity and learn about academics, student life, and everything else Louisiana Tech has to offer.
The day carries into the evening. Prospective students who register for Time Out for Tech receive a free ticket to the UL-Lafayette game, and their parents and guests can purchase discounted tickets to sit on the student side. For a lot of these students, Saturday night in the Kennel will be their first look at what Louisiana Tech students build on gameday, and the Hall of Fame weekend around it shows them what that kind of tradition looks like after 50 years.
Saturday Night: Kennel Takeover
If Friday night is about where Louisiana Tech has been, Saturday night is about who's carrying it forward. Kennel Takeover puts Louisiana Tech students in charge of gameday. Blue Bloods, the Union Board, SGA, Greek Life, and every registered student organization on campus will have a hand in building the atmosphere at Origin Bank Field at Joe Aillet Stadium, from pregame buildup through the final whistle.
Each organization gets the chance to use the game to represent itself, with a platform in front of the whole stadium. Representatives from student organizations will take the field with the team for the pregame run-out, putting the people behind those groups at center stage.
Two student leaders will also serve as honorary pregame bell ringers: Union Board President Jacob Brewster and SGA President Maygen Jackson. The bell will be pulled onto the field by Louisiana Tech's own SAE Baja team, the student-run engineering organization that designs, builds, and races off-road all-terrain vehicles in collegiate competitions. Students build the vehicle, and students ring the bell.
Gameday energy starts earlier in the week, too. On Wednesday, October 7, from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Blue Bloods partners with Aramark's Tech Table, the all-you-care-to-eat residential dining hall where students come for the company and the food, for the Tech Table Takeover. Blue Bloods will table outside Tech Table in the student center to hand out concession vouchers for the game. Students can scan in for Blue Bloods points and enter to win prizes including tickets to the Davison Athletics Complex, Aramark gift cards, and Louisiana Tech gear, with select students winning.
Every tradition Hall of Fame weekend celebrates started somewhere. Decades from now, someone will look back at this era of Louisiana Tech football the way this weekend looks back at Johnny Robinson's championship teams or Morgan Turkoly's record-setting seasons, and the students building Kennel Takeover this fall are the ones deciding what that looks like. The chants that stick. The traditions that get passed down to the next freshman class, and the class after that, until they're just how things are done at Louisiana Tech football games. Nobody sets out to build a 50-year tradition. They just show up, again and again, and eventually it becomes one.
Current students own that piece of the program now. They're building the next layer of it, with history and tradition on one side and the people writing the next hundred years on the other, sharing the same stadium on the same October weekend.
College of the Game
The College of Applied and Natural Sciences serves as this game's College of the Game.
"The College of Applied & Natural Sciences is dedicated to improving the health of people, communities, and the natural world through education, discovery, and service," said Dr. Jamie Newman, Dean, College of Applied and Natural Sciences. "This weekend, we are honored to recognize the local partners whose dedication helps shape the future of healthcare. Through hands-on learning, clinical experiences, shadowing opportunities, and mentorship, these organizations support students in programs such as Nutrition & Dietetics, Health Informatics and Information Management, Medical Laboratory Science, Speech-Language Pathology, Audiology, and Nursing, as well as our pre-medical and pre-PA pathways. Their commitment plays a vital role in preparing the next generation of skilled and compassionate healthcare professionals, and we are honored to recognize and celebrate their contributions during this game."
As part of the recognition, six of the college's healthcare industry partners will be honored on the field:
A proud past. An exciting future. Old rivals. New memories.
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The Hall of Fame celebrates those who built Louisiana Tech. Kennel Takeover and Time Out for Tech put the next generation of Bulldogs, current and prospective, front and center. And against a renewed Sun Belt rival, the weekend brings it all together: a proud past, an exciting future, old rivals, and new memories.
A Rivalry Renewed
Louisiana Tech and UL-Lafayette have been rivals for over a century, and their campuses sit just 180 miles, about a three-hour drive, apart. Louisiana Tech leads the all-time series 48-33-6, a rivalry that dates back to a 75-0 Bulldog win in 1910. After a handful of early meetings, the two programs played nearly every year from 1924 to 2000, one of the longest-running series in program history. The annual game paused when Tech moved to the WAC and UL-Lafayette to the Sun Belt, but the two have still met four times since: 2003, 2004, 2014, and 2015, and continued facing off in other sports the whole time.
The most recent stretch belongs to the Bulldogs. Louisiana Tech won eight straight meetings in the series from 1997 through that last matchup in 2015. The signature moment came in 2014, a 48-20 Tech win that still stands as one of the loudest nights in the rivalry's history: running back Kenneth Dixon broke off a 99-yard touchdown run, still a Louisiana Tech and Conference USA record for the longest rush in either record book, and defensive back Xavier Woods, now playing for the Chicago Bears, took an interception back 46 yards for a touchdown to help put the game away. The following season, 2015, Tech closed out the series with a 43-14 win.
Now, more than a century after it started and over a decade since they last met, Louisiana Tech and UL-Lafayette pick the rivalry back up as Sun Belt West Division opponents, on a stage neither program had when the series began.
Friday Night: Hall of Fame Weekend Kicks Off
The weekend starts a night early. On Friday, October 9, Louisiana Tech welcomes home its newest Hall of Fame class at a reception and induction ceremony, honoring four Bulldogs whose careers built the program this year's team represents:
- Johnny Robinson (Football, 1977-80) — a three-time All-Southland selection and the 1979 Southland Conference Defensive Player of the Year, Robinson helped lead Tech to back-to-back Southland championships and the 1977 Independence Bowl title. He still ranks 10th in school history in tackles and 5th in sacks, and earned a spot on Louisiana Tech's Football 100-Year Anniversary Team.
- Wenford Wilborn (Football, 1971-74) — a two-time All-Southland selection, Wilborn is tied for second in program history with 15 career interceptions and still holds the school record with 91 career punt returns, including a Division II-record 91-yard return against Eastern Michigan in 1971.
- Fred McGaha (Baseball, 1969-72) — a two-time all-conference pick and the 1971 Gulf States Conference MVP, McGaha led Tech to an NCAA Mid-East Regional appearance and earned the George Kell Hitting Award as the Southland's top hitter in 1972. He graduated holding Tech's career records for hits, runs, total bases, and stolen bases.
- Morgan Turkoly (Softball, 2016-19) — the only player in program history to earn All-Conference USA honors all four seasons, Turkoly was the 2018 C-USA Player of the Year, a Senior CLASS Award First Team All-American, and helped Tech win two Conference USA Tournament championships. She still ranks first in program history in career walks and on-base percentage.
Music starts at 6 p.m., and the Block Party officially kicks off at 6:30 at Railroad Park. Tech Cheer and the Regal Blues Dance Team perform; the Band of Pride takes the stage and closes things out with the Fight Song and Alma Mater, and a few Louisiana Tech football players will be on hand along with Champ. Fans can also enter to win a Bulldog Block Party prize package, including two Louisiana Tech football tickets and Downtown Ruston merchandise, at app.seemylegacy.com/community/2679/campaign/10821.
It's also an extra Blue Bloods opportunity. Any Blue Blood who attends and scans in earns rewards points and is automatically entered to win additional prizes on top of the Block Party giveaway.
Between the Hall of Fame ceremony and the Block Party, this is a night for anyone who's ever worn red and blue to show up.
Saturday Morning: Time Out for Tech
Game day starts on campus well before kickoff. From 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Centennial Plaza, Louisiana Tech hosts Time Out for Tech, its fall preview day for prospective students and their families. Visitors get to see campus alive with activity and learn about academics, student life, and everything else Louisiana Tech has to offer.
The day carries into the evening. Prospective students who register for Time Out for Tech receive a free ticket to the UL-Lafayette game, and their parents and guests can purchase discounted tickets to sit on the student side. For a lot of these students, Saturday night in the Kennel will be their first look at what Louisiana Tech students build on gameday, and the Hall of Fame weekend around it shows them what that kind of tradition looks like after 50 years.
Saturday Night: Kennel Takeover
If Friday night is about where Louisiana Tech has been, Saturday night is about who's carrying it forward. Kennel Takeover puts Louisiana Tech students in charge of gameday. Blue Bloods, the Union Board, SGA, Greek Life, and every registered student organization on campus will have a hand in building the atmosphere at Origin Bank Field at Joe Aillet Stadium, from pregame buildup through the final whistle.
Each organization gets the chance to use the game to represent itself, with a platform in front of the whole stadium. Representatives from student organizations will take the field with the team for the pregame run-out, putting the people behind those groups at center stage.
Two student leaders will also serve as honorary pregame bell ringers: Union Board President Jacob Brewster and SGA President Maygen Jackson. The bell will be pulled onto the field by Louisiana Tech's own SAE Baja team, the student-run engineering organization that designs, builds, and races off-road all-terrain vehicles in collegiate competitions. Students build the vehicle, and students ring the bell.
Gameday energy starts earlier in the week, too. On Wednesday, October 7, from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Blue Bloods partners with Aramark's Tech Table, the all-you-care-to-eat residential dining hall where students come for the company and the food, for the Tech Table Takeover. Blue Bloods will table outside Tech Table in the student center to hand out concession vouchers for the game. Students can scan in for Blue Bloods points and enter to win prizes including tickets to the Davison Athletics Complex, Aramark gift cards, and Louisiana Tech gear, with select students winning.
Every tradition Hall of Fame weekend celebrates started somewhere. Decades from now, someone will look back at this era of Louisiana Tech football the way this weekend looks back at Johnny Robinson's championship teams or Morgan Turkoly's record-setting seasons, and the students building Kennel Takeover this fall are the ones deciding what that looks like. The chants that stick. The traditions that get passed down to the next freshman class, and the class after that, until they're just how things are done at Louisiana Tech football games. Nobody sets out to build a 50-year tradition. They just show up, again and again, and eventually it becomes one.
Current students own that piece of the program now. They're building the next layer of it, with history and tradition on one side and the people writing the next hundred years on the other, sharing the same stadium on the same October weekend.
College of the Game
The College of Applied and Natural Sciences serves as this game's College of the Game.
"The College of Applied & Natural Sciences is dedicated to improving the health of people, communities, and the natural world through education, discovery, and service," said Dr. Jamie Newman, Dean, College of Applied and Natural Sciences. "This weekend, we are honored to recognize the local partners whose dedication helps shape the future of healthcare. Through hands-on learning, clinical experiences, shadowing opportunities, and mentorship, these organizations support students in programs such as Nutrition & Dietetics, Health Informatics and Information Management, Medical Laboratory Science, Speech-Language Pathology, Audiology, and Nursing, as well as our pre-medical and pre-PA pathways. Their commitment plays a vital role in preparing the next generation of skilled and compassionate healthcare professionals, and we are honored to recognize and celebrate their contributions during this game."
As part of the recognition, six of the college's healthcare industry partners will be honored on the field:
- Chad Puckett, Chief Compliance Officer, Claiborne Memorial Medical Center
- Jason Thomas, Chief Operating and Information Officer, Jackson Parish Hospital
- Chelsea Mayfield, Administrator & Office Manager, The Health Hut
- David Caston, Chief Executive Officer, Reeves Memorial Medical Center
- Jeremy Tinnerello, Regional President, FMOL Health St. Dominic and FMOL Health St. Francis (Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System)
- Brian Crawford, Senior Vice President, Willis Knighton Health
A proud past. An exciting future. Old rivals. New memories.
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