Louisiana Tech is officially Sun Belt-bound after league officials voted to invite the Bulldogs this morning. Tech was named the obvious candidate to replace Texas State as the Bobcats head to the PAC-12, but Sun Belt East schools preferred expansion into a new market over a third Louisiana program. Locked On Sun Belt Podcast host Dave Schultz said most of the conference’s recent additions have been in the east.
“Really, the only team in the west that’s joined over the last handful of years has been Southern Miss, and so now to replace a team in the west, you put a team in the west,” said Schultz.
Appalachian State and Georgia Southern joined the conference in 2014, followed by Coastal Carolina in 2016 and James Madison, Marshall and Southern Miss in 2022.
Louisiana Tech’s addition was backed by Western schools like ULM and UL-Lafayette despite historic conflicts between the programs. Schultz said Louisiana schools will save money on bus ride commutes and reignite heated in-state rivalries, especially in Lafayette.
“[The Cajuns] hate LA Tech,” said Schultz. “There is absolute hate between those two institutions, not only on the field but in the board room as well, and that is only gonna be great for on the field stuff.”
The move will also benefit the Bulldogs, who become the tenth team to leave Conference USA since 2022. Schultz said LA Tech needs to reinvest the money it will save from regional rivalries to compete in one of the top mid-major conferences.
“The need to embrace sports and get on par with the rest of the Sun Belt, and hopefully they will feel the peer pressure to do that and be able to compete on the level that the Sun Belt is,” said Schultz.
Louisiana Tech will owe at least a $5 million fee to leave Conference USA. The soonest they can make the move is 2026, the same year Texas State departs for the PAC-12.
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