BY RANDY ROSETTA
Advocate sportswriter

Barring a major upset Saturday and two more wins against Western Athletic Conference opponents, Louisiana Tech won’t go back to a bowl game for a second straight season.

That’s not cause for panic for third-year Bulldogs coach and Athletic Director Derek Dooley.

But it is a step back, and Dooley is the first to admit so.

Tech (3-6) entered this season with expectations bursting at the seams after an 8-5 2008 campaign that culminated with a triumph over Northern Illi-nois in the Independence Bowl.

That was the Bulldogs’ first bowl victory since 1977 and considered a foundation for an-other step forward this fall.

Instead a rash of injuries led to a three-game losing streak entering Saturday’s 6 p.m. bat-tle with No. 9-ranked LSU (7-2).

Those three losses came at Utah State 23-21, at Idaho 35-34 and back home vs. fifth-ranked Boise State 45-35.

Fourth-quarter trouble is the common thread in the three close-call setbacks.

Tech stormed back against Utah State but failed on a game-tying two-point conver-sion with 6:15 to play.

The Bulldogs led Idaho 34-21, but succumbed when the Van-dals scored two later touch-downs, the second with 52 seconds on the clock.

And Tech had Boise State on its heels when a touchdown early in the final period chis-eled the Broncos’ lead to 30-28.

All three fourth quarters turned sour for the Bulldogs and those three games that got away are the difference between 6-3 or 5-4 and 3-6.

“We’ve had a tough year,” said Dooley, the former LSU assistant and son of Georgia coaching legend Vince Dooley.

“The last three games, we had a chance to win ’em in the fourth quarter and haven’t made plays to get that done. That’s something we’ve got to work on.”

The work the rest of this season will be geared toward long-term goals.

“We’re still building a program here,” Dooley said. “We have a lot of success last year and probably over-achieved a little bit.

“We still have a lot of young talent, and I think it’s going to take us another two or three recruiting classes to get us where we want to be. We’ve made some great investments in our program the last few years and eventually that’s go-ing to pay big dividends.

The trip south to Baton Rouge isn’t exactly timely for the Bulldogs, whose two-deep lineup includes seven sophomores, six redshirt freshmen and six true freshmen.

Because of injuries 8-10 freshmen who were slated to redshirt have played exten-sively this fall.

But Dooley isn’t fazed by returning to the stadium where his first Tech team absorbed a 58-10 loss.

“Any time you have an opportunity to go play in Tiger Stadium against what I consider one of the top three teams in the country, if you need motivation for that, you’ve got problems,” Dooley said. “We’ve got a lot of young men who grew up in the state and dreamed about playing in that stadium and this is their chance.”

Dooley ought to know. He was also LSU’s recruiting coordinator under Nick Saban and was the primary architect of the 2003 national championship roster. And when Dooley looks at the current Tigers, he’s quick to point out the talent is still rolling in.

“What you see is, first off, there are some very out-standing football players who have been developed as well as anybody’s program in the country,” he said. “They have tremendous coaching with coach (Les) Miles and his staff, a tremendous administration and a great support staff with Tommy Moffitt training them. When you turn on the film and watch them, there aren’t any weaknesses.”

LSU might look a little different than the team Dooley has seen on film if Jarrett Lee winds up starting at quarterback for Jordan Jefferson, who is recovering from a sprained ankle.

That may be the least of Tech’s worries, Dooley said.

“They’re gonna do what they do offensively because they have so many weapons to choose from,” he said. “We’ve got to play good sound defense and play as hard as we can. We’ve got our work cut our for us no matter who’s playing quarterback.

“We can’t worry too much about their offense because they have as complete a foot-ball team as we’re going to see. We also have to figure out a way to survive their defense and special teams.”