Young quarterbacks step up to battle for starting position
Photo courtesy of Louisiana Tech athletics
Louisiana Tech sophomore quarterback Aaron Allen gets ready to throw at spring practice. Allen is battling for the starting position as the team holds its spring game Saturday.
Though their meeting rooms may not be as big as some of the other groups, the competition at the quarterback and specialist positions is just as fierce.
Louisiana Tech returns two letter winners at quarterback in graduate Luke Anthony and sophomore Aaron Allen.
“There’s been a lot of competition,” Allen said. “Every day is a competition. That’s been the best part. We’ve been rotating a lot. Everybody is competing. JD (Head) has been doing a good job. Caleb (Holstein) has been doing a good job. We’re learning the offense and recognizing the defense. The biggest thing is competition.”
Anthony, the 2020 C-USA Newcomer of the Year, played in nine games and made eight starts in the 2020 campaign before suffering a season-ending injury at TCU (Dec. 12). He completed 138-of-221 passes for 1,479 yards and 16 touchdowns.
Anthony was the third Bulldog quarterback in program history to throw at least 10 touchdown passes through the first three games of the season.
He threw a season-high 314 yards and five touchdowns and had one rushing touchdown against Houston Baptist (Oct. 2), becoming the fifth player in program history to account for at least six touchdowns in a single game. Anthony finished the season ranked fourth in C-USA in passing efficiency (138.0), sixth in passing average per game (164.3) and ninth in total offense (157.9).
Allen saw action in all 10 games while making two starts at quarterback. He completed 73-of-121 passes on the season for 602 yards and four touchdowns. Allen completed at least three passes in all 10 games of the 2020 season and completed double-digit passes in three games during the campaign. He had a season-high 18 completions on 26 passes for a career-high 191 yards and a season-best two touchdowns with zero interceptions in the comeback victory over UAB (Oct. 31).
Freshman quarterback JD Head also returns from the 2020 season where he appeared in two games. Head completed 9-of-14 passes for 78 yards against Georgia Southern in the R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl (Dec. 23). He made his Bulldog debut against TCU.
Joining Tech’s quarterbacks this spring is freshman Caleb Holstein, a three-year letter winner in football and basketball at St. Thomas More Catholic in Lafayette. He accumulated a 33-6 record during his high school football career, completing 634-of-965 passes for 9,519 total yards and 106 touchdowns. Holtsein also rushed for 15 touchdowns during his high school career.
“With Luke Anthony being out, it has been a two-man race,” head coach Skip Holtz said. “We’ve got a young Caleb Holtsein who is learning and has been doing a really nice job and has shown some promise at times of what he is going to be. But, there’s a pretty heated debate going on right now with JD Head and Aaron Allen.
“It seems like every day you walk off the field and you say ‘Today, if I had to make a decision, it’d be him. Tomorrow when I walk off the field, it’d be him.’ There’s a heck of a competition going on, and it’s going to be a lot of the little things that will make the difference. It’s putting a lot of weight on the spring game on Saturday,” Holtz continued.
Louisiana Tech fans will have the chance to preview the 2021 football team during the Tech Spring Game presented by Origin Bank on Saturday at Joe Aillet Stadium as part of a big weekend of home athletics events.
