TLU football gets practice started for 2024 season

(Seguin) — The Texas Lutheran football team practiced for the first time on Thursday.

2024 will be year three of the Neal LaHue era on the TLU campus as the Bulldogs move into the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference. Texas Lutheran spent the past seven seasons as an affiliate member of the American Southwest Conference.

“We have a lot of numbers out here. They moved around well,” LaHue said of the first practice. “We had a few guys that have to get in better condition, but I thought overall, the young guys did a good job and the older guys picked up where they left off. So, I’m pretty pleased with day one.”

The SCAC will employ a double round-robin format. With only five conference schools participating in football, each team will play each other twice this season.

LaHue says they are approaching the new conference format like the pros do.

“It’ll be like playing in a division with NFL guys. We’ve reached out to friends of mine that are in the NFL about how they approach that,” LaHue said. “We’ll have a plan for that. You know, we’ll see how we respond. We’ve got some long trips and hopefully (our opponents) have some long trips coming here.”

TLU is coming off a 2-8 season in 2023. Despite losing eight games, the Bulldogs were competitive. Half of their losses were by five points or less. Junior quarterback Caden Bosanko is back. Last year, the San Antonio East Central product appeared in all 10 games with six starts, throwing for 1260 yards.

LaHue says there is a big competition for the backup to Bosanko.

“There’s a battle. We got two guys from the spring, Jacob Smith and Isaiah Phillips. I also like what I saw from Landon Gill. Micah Casson and Andres Sepulveda looked good as well. They are all athletic. They can run the zone read and they all have good arms. So, we’re happy with our quarterbacks.”

Defensively, the Bulldogs have a number of contributors back from 2023. Troy Tomaselli and Mason Hardy are back in the secondary. Christian Monroe and Kaleb Hamilton are back on the defensive line and Tristan Smith returns at linebacker.

TLU will start the 2024 season on the road against Trinity on September 7th in San Antonio. Conference play starts the next week at Bulldog Stadium with Centenary, who will be playing in their first official NCAA football season in over 50 years.