By David Asbury
Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler!
Every year the Monarchs must face two SBC West teams. This year, it will be two teams they have never faced before, the Troy Trojans in Norfolk, and the UL-Monroe Warhawks in Monroe, Louisiana. A fun fact about this school is that it was named after the town, which was named after a boat, which was named after President James Monroe (does that mean the Sun Belt has two schools named after presidents?). Anyways, they have been in the Sun Belt for years but have had very very little success. In fact, they have been the Sun Belt's routine punching bag. The last time they had a winning season was 2012 where they would go on to lose the Independence Bowl, their only bowl appearance in program history. The "Vanderbilt" of the Sun Belt if you will. But similar to the SEC's Vanderbilt, 2024 was a surprisingly good season.
2024 was Bryant Vincent's first year as head coach for the Warhawks and he proved he could change their program's trajectory. As UAB's interim head coach in 2022 he went 7-6. When UAB passed on him to hire Trent Dilfer, he bided his time and got his revenge last year when the Warhawks crushed the Blazers 32-6. That wasn't the only surprise he had in store for ULM. They were predicted to be very bad and Vegas predicted 1.5 wins. But he got his team off to a strong 5-1 start and even upset the JMU Dukes in Monroe.
That strong start could be credited to a soft front-half of the schedule as they lost their last six games and finished 5-7 missing bowl eligibility yet again. But hey, 5-7 was way above expectations. It was the Warhawks best season since 2019, and Vincent may have this team moving in the right direction! To keep building, he needs to improve the offensive production.
Monroe, LA is a difficult place to travel. Attributed to Spatms at Wiki Commons under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
Head coach Bryant Vincent was also the offensive coordinator last season. In December, he said he was going to hire an offensive coordinator but that didn't happen so it appears he is set to do it again in '25. The lack of a coordinator showed because the attack wasn’t great overall, starting with the passing game. The Warhawks averaged a putrid 149 passing yards per conference game (last in SBC). If this teams wants to go bowling it starts with improvement from the quarterback. Sophomore Aidan Armenta returns and is the favorite to start, but he did not appear all that talented last year completing only 54% of his passes, scoring only nine touchdowns to ten interceptions. Armenta needs to work on increasing his completion percentage or else a transfer quarterback or underclassmen could unseat him. The good news for Armenta is that he will have receivers returning including Jake Godrey who caught 24 catches and scored twice.
The Warhawk offense was actually good in the red zone and running the ball with 188 rushing yards per conference game (6th in SBC). However, that was mostly due to running back and SBC Freshman of the Year Ahmad Hardy. Hardy transferred to Mizzou and now the ULM offense needs to find a new workhorse. In comes Zach Palmer-Smith, the power back who ran for 1,433 yards and 11 touchdowns for the Richmond Spiders. Palmer-Smith will share carries with Arkansas-transfer Tyrell Reed and big freshman D'Shaun Ford. There are also enough starters on the offensive line returning to be a force. If the ULM passing offense struggles again, then hopefully this trio of backs can at least match Hardy's production from last year.
Turning to the defense, it was actually pretty good overall. In fact, ULM had the best pass defense in the Sun Belt allowing only 156 passing yards per conference game! That sounds amazing, right? Right?!? Well, actually probably not. Sun Belt teams elected not to pass on this Warhawk defense. Most of them had the lead by the second half and were running every play to chew up clock. They were able to do it too since ULM allowed 226 rushing yards per conference game (12th in SBC). It will be interesting to see if the defense can improve these numbers after losing their top three tacklers.
Having said all that, the defense has some playmakers returning to the unit along with a bit of help from the portal. Specifically, Billy Pullen (6 sacks in 2024) and Kevontay Wells (11 TFLs in 2024) make for a strong duo on the defensive line. ULM also has talented defensive backs returning and transferring in. However, the unit needs some linebackers to step up and make plays if they want to improve from the poor rushing defense of last year.
ULM defense pass break up against Army in 2023. Photo courtesy of U.S. Army (Public Domain).
Overall, expectations for the ULM Warhawks are pretty low. Vegas set the win total at 4.5 and gave them very long odds of winning the conference. CFBudge ranked them a respectable 10th in the conference while Phil Steele ranked them last in the Sun Belt West. Bryant Vincent appears to be a good coach, but the Warhawks have systemic and budgetary limits that will just be very hard for him to overcome. They may flirt with bowl eligibility and still are more likely than not to miss another bowl game for the 13th season in a row.
But just because ULM has not been good, does not mean it will be an easy win for the Monarchs. For starters, Monroe is a rough place to travel to. It is a long flight. The hotel options are far from the stadium. The away team locker room can only fit 50 players at a time, making it one of the smallest in FBS college football. This forces visiting teams to take shifts just to get the whole team dressed for the game. All of this can add up, throwing off the visiting teams gameday schedule and giving ULM a huge mental homefield advantage. In fact, SBC East teams have struggled when traveling to Monroe. This is how the Warhawks nearly defeated a very good App. State team in 2023 and could be in a factor in how they upset a good JMU team in 2024.
The Monarchs need to come prepared and in the right mindset. If they do that, they should control the game on the ground and rush for a million yards. If Old Dominion has the right mindset, they will be favored to win and take care of business when they visit Louisiana. Let the good times roll!
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