Louisiana Tech Professional Athletes

Louisiana Tech's NFL alumni have produced plenty of quietly elite contributors over the years, but this week the spotlight landed on New England — and a glaring omission.

The Snub Heard Around the League

Milton Williams, the Patriots defensive tackle and Louisiana Tech product, is being called one of the biggest snubs from ESPN's NFL Top 100 ranking — and the criticism isn't coming from a fanbase firing off hot takes. It's coming from an NFL scout.

According to The Sporting News, a scout specifically flagged Williams as a player who deserved recognition on the list and was conspicuously left off. That's the kind of industry credibility that carries weight. Anonymous scout opinions aren't idle chatter; they reflect how personnel evaluators around the league — the people paid to watch film obsessively — actually assess a player's value relative to his peers.

Williams has carved out a reputation as one of the more disruptive interior pass rushers in the AFC, the sort of player whose impact shows up more in quarterback pressures, penetration rates, and offensive line gameplan adjustments than in the box scores that drive popularity contests like the Top 100. Rankings that lean on name recognition and market size have a well-documented history of undervaluing players in smaller markets — and New England, currently in a rebuilding arc, doesn't carry the cultural cachet it once did. Williams suffers for it.

That a scout is speaking up makes this more than a fan grievance. It's a signal that Williams' peers in the scouting community view the omission as a credibility problem for the list itself.

The Broader Louisiana Tech Footprint

Williams isn't the only Bulldog earning a paycheck in the NFL this fall. Louisiana Tech's pipeline into the league remains quietly productive. L'Jarius Sneed continues his career with the Tennessee Titans at cornerback after making his name as one of the better boundary corners in the AFC. Amik Robertson holds down a roster spot with the Washington Commanders at CB alongside fellow alumnus Jeff Driskel at quarterback. Xavier Woods is in Chicago with the Bears at free safety, while Boston Scott and Tru Edwards both landed with the Los Angeles Rams. Willie Roberts is in Seattle, Griffin Hebert is on the Eagles' roster at tight end, Jimmy Holiday is with the Kansas City Chiefs at linebacker, and Trent Taylor remains with San Francisco.

That's eleven active NFL players from a mid-major program in Ruston, Louisiana — a depth chart that most Power Four schools would respect.

But this week belongs to Williams. When an NFL scout goes on record — even anonymously — to call out a snub by name, the football world takes notice. The ESPN Top 100 is a fan-driven exercise, not a scouting report, but perception shapes opportunities. The more Williams' name circulates in conversations like this one, the harder he becomes to ignore.

Louisiana Tech alumni have long operated in the NFL's background. Milton Williams is making a case to move to the foreground.

Louisiana Tech's Xavier Woods didn't wait for the regular season to make headlines — the Chicago Bears safety ignited one of the nastier preseason controversies of the summer during a joint practice with the Tennessee Titans, and the fallout is still reverberating.

Woods delivered a hit on Titans wide receiver Wan'Dale Robinson that drew an immediate and pointed response from Tennessee head coach Robert Saleh, who publicly called the play "cheap." The collision was severe enough that Robinson was evaluated for a concussion, and the benches cleared as both teams' players converged on the field. What was supposed to be a productive shared practice session dissolved into one of the messiest joint-practice scenes of the preseason.

Saleh didn't mince words afterward, going out of his way to single out Woods by name — a notable escalation from a head coach, particularly in a practice setting where both teams are theoretically collaborating. The Bears safety, a former Titan himself, had no shortage of backstory baked into the moment.

For Woods, the incident underscores what makes him both valuable and volatile as a defensive back. He's a physical, hard-nosed safety who has carved out a long NFL career precisely because he plays with an edge — but that edge is now a talking point heading into Chicago's final preseason stretch. Whether Bears head coach Ben Johnson addresses any internal discipline or doubles down on the physicality is a storyline to track as the roster cutdown deadline approaches.

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Amik Robertson Makes Noise in Washington

Woods wasn't the only Louisiana Tech alumnus drawing attention this week. Across the league, fellow Bulldog Amik Robertson turned in a standout moment for the Washington Commanders in their preseason matchup against the Detroit Lions. The cornerback notched a strip-sack on quarterback Josh Dobbs — a play that Joshua Josephs recovered and returned for a touchdown, giving Washington a spark in what turned out to be a 17–13 loss to Detroit.

Robertson's splash play is a timely reminder of his versatility as a defensive back. The Commanders are still sorting out their secondary depth heading into the regular season, and Robertson's ability to generate turnovers off the edge gives Washington's coaching staff something legitimate to evaluate.

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Two Louisiana Tech products. Two very different preseason moments — one a disciplinary flashpoint, the other a highlight-reel turnover. The Bulldogs' NFL contingent is making itself heard in the final weeks before rosters lock, though Woods and Robertson couldn't have taken more divergent paths to get there. Woods will need to navigate the league's response to the Robinson hit carefully; Robertson looks to be building a case for meaningful snaps in Washington's defense. Keep both names circled as the preseason wraps and the real games begin.