A redshirt freshman with one tackle last year and less than eight snaps played on the defensive line after 11 quarters of the 2025 season, Louisiana Tech’s Jacob Bradford was suddenly a star.
Stage: Joe Aillet Stadium in Ruston, under the Saturday night lights.
Bad guys: New Mexico State offense.
Bradford’s supporting cast: A stingy Dog defense playing with a 27-14 lead early in the fourth quarter of the Conference USA opener.
Center stage was Bradford, lined up over the Aggie center, in the game because Tech had the two-score lead and because of defensive line coach Paul Randolph’s depth-building process.
“We don’t all play much but we’re all very good,” Bradford said. “I think that’s why we’ve played so well; everybody’s pushing. We came into the season with lots of new guys up front. The D-line, we were the question mark. We wanted to prove people wrong.”
Now was another opportunity.
Que the ball being snapped, Bradford moving off the center and crossing to his right, toward the guard, through the gap, and Aggie quarterback Logan Fife dropping back.
“It’s a pass.” Bradford is replaying it now. “The pocket’s closing. I’ve got a shot …”
Glory! Bradford, 6-1, 290 pounds of smiles and optimism and smarts and sweat from the football fields of Pass Christian in south Mississippi, is thinking, “First Collegiate Sack!” What would Coach Randolph say? What would his big brother Jordan, a three-year starter at Tech, 2016-18, say? What would ANY of his five brothers and sisters say? A bona fide sack in the conference opener. In his home stadium!
Surely, this is a dream … A long, wonderful dream in just a few hectic moments …
The action continues and Bradford closes, Fife moves up, players bunched in the pocket now, Fife stepping back, Fife cocking to pass but Tech’s Jaydon Mayfield closing in and Fife in all sorts of trouble and …
“He dropped the ball,” Bradford said.
Dropped it. The ball bounces.
“My immediate thought,” Bradford said, “is, ‘Jump on the ball.’”
Recover a fumble? Twenty yards from the end zone? Leading by 13 in the fourth? When the ball bounces perfectly into your greedy little mitts?
Forget that! Instead, he had this second thought, and that’s the one he acted on, right there in front of Randolph and head coach Sonny Cumbie and 13,235 fans and the Lord and everybody.
“I picked it up,” Bradford said.
Yes, he did. And here the fun began.
His walk on the red carpet was more like a rumble, but it took him 20 fun-filled yards into the end zone.
“I was expecting to get tackled any second,” said Bradford, who once recovered a fumble 40 yards out for St. Stanislaus High but got taken down from behind before he could reach paydirt, the glorious Promised Land for anyone who’s ever played the line. “I was holding onto the ball with both hands. Running hard as I could.”
But then he realized, “the touchdown was Right There!” so he switched the ball to one hand, pressing it with his forearm to his chest like a paper sack of groceries — “Wasn’t holding it right,” he said, “but I started picking up speed.”
And suddenly, more or less, he was in the south end zone and Tech led 33-14.
All the fight was gone out of the Aggies.
But shoot, Bradford was just starting.
He held the ball up with his right paw, then dropped it at the feet of Champ, the sunglasses-wearing team mascot. He twirled with defensive back Kam Franklin. He broke into a “No Fly Zone” dance as if he were the world’s most “fly” 290-pound wide receiver.
“Heat of the moment type thing,” he said shyly.
“The lights started going on an off. People started cheering. Guys are jumping on me.”
He is talking through grateful laughs.
“It was like a movie.”
Bradford’s fumble recovery was one of three takeaways on the night in a 49-14 win that pushed Tech to 2-1 going into Saturday’s game against old rival and future Sun Belt foe Southern Miss, also 2-1 but playing its first road game of the season.
Kickoff is scheduled for 6:32 in Ruston, the first meeting of the two programs since a down-to-the-wire 31-30 Tech win in Hattiesburg in 2020.
“I’m trying to explain to the guys that this is a Rivalry Week game,” said Bradford, who played high school ball in Rock-A-Chaw Stadium, about 90 miles south on the Mississippi coast from M.M. Roberts Stadium in Hattiesburg. “You can feel it building.”
Bradford can feel his team’s defense building too. Some of it is a pair of Louisiana Tech rookies but veteran coaches in defensive coordinator Luke Olson and the charismatic Randolph, a former all-league linebacker at UT-Martin, two-time Grey Cup champion, and Winnipeg Blue Bombers Hall of Famer.
“Playing for him is a blessing,” Bradford said. “He preaches the fundamentals and makes us all know we’re an important part of everything this team is trying to accomplish. He makes you love getting to football practice, makes you love working to get better.”
Some of it is Cumbie, who formed a few “exercises” during the spring and again in fall camp, activities designed to make sure everyone knew each other better, “not just the players,” Bradford said, “but the coaches, the staff, the equipment managers and training staff: each group has its own connection but all of us have a connection, too.
“This year, we have great athletes like we had last year, but it feels the ‘team’ part of it is different,” he said. “‘I’ll take on the block so the linebacker can get the tackle.’ There’s energy on the sideline. We have more activities together outside of football. It’s a closeness … You should have been on the sideline Saturday.”
Some of it is an added depth, and some of it is guys like Bradford.
“Shows up with a smile on his face, ready to work,” Randolph said. “He wants to be great.”
Same thing for guys like Trevell Vivians, 6-2, 311, a redshirt junior from Philadelphia, Miss., a player cut from the same cloth as Bradford, Randolph said, getting back-up snaps to complement Emmanuel Oguns and Zion Nason and Jayden Madkins and Christian Davis and others who’ve gotten more playing time, smiling all the way from the locker room to the practice field and back.
“He had a pass breakup Saturday,” Bradford said of Vivians, his fellow defensive lineman. “We’re good and we’re always ready. Coach preaches and we go.”
Then next “go” time is Saturday night. The script is a good one, the game one of the biggest in Joe Aillet Stadium in years. Momentum on the line. Another hard-to-win battle. Another rivalry matchup. The final weekend home game until Halloween.
Showtime.
