Ragin' Dave's ULM Preview
ULM Preview
Rivalry week?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! I know even though we don’t want this to be our rival the SBC does, and it is Rivalry week, so we get ULM on our schedule to finish the year. I am going to admit that I have been really impressed with the job that Terry Bowden and the entire coaching staff has done at ULM this year. This is a team that not only did not win a game last year, more importantly they did not lead a football game at any point in 2020. And I will admit after game 2 of this season, I did not expect much from this team, but they have fought hard and are currently sitting at 4-7. The started the year losing badly to Kentucky in Lexington 45-10, then played Jackson State at home and pulled out a 12-7 victory in which they only kicked FG but pulled out the win. They then had their best win of the year at this point in a home game where they defeated Troy 29-16. They then were crushed on the road by Coastal Carolina and at home vs Georgia State. At this point in the season, they were 2-3 on the season and 1-2 in conference. Then they had their biggest surprise of the season, they played Liberty at home and defeated them 31-28 and then had another home game vs USA where they beat them 41-31. Suddenly ULM was 4-3 overall and 2-2 in conference play and still were in play for the western division title, but the wheels fell off at that point. They played 3 of their next 4 games on the road with losses to App State, Texas State and LSU on the road and Arkansas State at home. They currently sit at 4-7 overall and 2-5 in the SBC. The interesting thing is the difference between home and away games for ULM. The Warhawks are 4-2 at home, but 0-5 on the road, now granted two of those road games were vs SEC competition and the other 2 were vs App State and Coastal, two of the better teams in the SBC, the other was a road loss at Texas State. But home wins vs USA, Troy and Liberty shows they are a much better team at home then on the road.
QB—The Warhawks have played 4 different QB’s this season. Chandler Rogers has played in all 11, but Rhett Rodriguez has played in 5 and was the expected starter for the Warhawks until injuries slowed him down. They have also played Jiya Wright a transfer from Northern Illinois in 4 games and last years starter Colby Suits in 3 games this year, but Rogers and Rodriguez when healthy are 1A and 1B for them. All these guys bring different skill sets, but Chandler Rogers is probably the most complete QB, while Rodriguez is the son of OC Rich Rodriguez and a transfer from Arizona. Rogers was a late add to the recruiting class and is listed as a freshman but has really gotten better as the season has progressed. He was not a highly recruited player as it was only FCS teams on him except for ULM. On the season Rogers has completed about 63% of his passes with 9 TD’s and 3 INT’s. He can also do it with his legs as he is the 2nd leading rusher on the team with 512 yards from scrimmage and 1 TD, before sacks are factored in. Meanwhile Rodriguez has completed only 52% of his passes with 3 TD’s and 3 INT’s. He only has 62 yards from scrimmage rushing the ball on 28 attempts and is in the negative once you add in his sack yards. I am confident we will see both guys vs UL on Saturday, but not sure who will be on the field for more plays as they have bounced back and forth since Rodriguez came back from his rib injury in week 3 vs Troy. Rogers is listed as the starter, but Rodriguez has more attempts passing since his return 2 weeks ago.
RB—Andrew Henry leads the way, Henry is a 5’10” 196 lb. RB from Dallas, Texas. Henry a JUCO transfer, Sophomore has 127 carries for 490 yards with a 3.9 per carry average and 4 TD’s. Behind him Is Malik Jackson who is a listed as a WR but has 57 carries for 339 yards and 2 TD’s. The other RB’s on their roster do not see a lot of action. So, their leading rusher is a RB, #2 is their QB and #3 is a WR. This plays into the very creative offense that Rich Rod likes to run. With multiple sets and multiple formations. They also don’t throw the ball that much to the RB’s with Andrew Henry having 13 catches for 83 yards and 1 TD on the season. The before mentioned Malik Jackson who is listed as a WR but plays in the backfield some has only 6 catches for 21 yards. Outside of that they don’t throw it there often.
WR/TE—They do have some athletes at WR that are pretty good, but Jeremiah “Boogie” Knight is the best of the bunch. Knight is a former walk on at Ohio State who transferred to ULM. His a 5’10 Junior who makes things happen for the offense. On the season he has 43 catches for 541 yards and 2 TD’s. He is really good player for them and kind of a surprise. Behind him is Will Derrick 3rd year slot receiver for the Warhawks who has 25 catches for 301 yards and 1 TD. Then the next two are Zach Jackson and Jared Sparks who has 25 catches for 301 yards and 2 TD’s and 26 catches for 294 yards and 1 TD respectively. After having one of the best TE’s in the SBC for many years in Josh Pederson, the Warhawks don’t get a ton of production out of the TE position this year. Their leading receiver at that position is Zach Rsamussen who has only 6 catches for 94 yards, but 3 of them are TD’s. So, they will go to him in the Redzone quite a bit as he is a big target at 6’4” 225 lbs.
OL—The Warhawks like to rotate about 7 guys on the OL. And this is a very transfer laden group. Willie Tyler who started his career off at Texas is a LT, Keydrell Lewis who transferred from SJSU at LG, Garrett Hirsch at Center from Illinois State, Aries Davis at RG, a transfer from UT-Martin and finally RS Freshman Victor Cutler at RT. The other guys we will probably see are Freshman Peyton Dunn at Guard and Sophomore Blake Lodes at Tackle. The guys we will see are big, really big. Lewis is 6’6, Lodes is 6’7, Tyler is 6’7, Dunn is 6’7, Davis is 6’2, Hirsch is 6’2 and Cutler is 6’3. But they have the tendency to give up sacks, this group has given up 36 sacks in 11 games are more than 3 per game and it is probably one of the areas of concern for the Warhawks offense that has struggled at times.
Offense—The offense is a concern for ULM as they only average 21.36 points per game and have only scored over 30 points twice this year. The first being 31 vs Liberty and the 2nd being USA. They have in turn scored less than 20 on 5 occasions. They also just don’t move the ball that well. They are only averaging around 327 yards per game on offense with 132 of those on the ground and only 197 through the air. They have thrown 9 INT’s (only 6 of those coming from the main guys at QB) and fumbled 15 times, but only lost 5 of those. So, they do put the ball on the ground and turn it over allot. They only have a total of 26 TDs on the season offensively including 17 of 27 in the redzone. They are not very good in 3rd down conversions only converting 35%. Offense has been the Achilles heal of this team most of the season.
DL—ULM plays a 4-3 style defense for the most part, they will add a DB in their nickel packages. But nothing jumps off the page at you up front. Their best of the front 4 is Ty Shelby, a 6’4” 260 lb. DE. He leads this unit in tackles with 40. But has 7.5 TFL’s and 5.5 sacks on the season. He is a guy you need to make sure you account for in the passing game. In the middle are Caleb Thomas and Quincy Ledet. Thomas is a big one, he is a 6’0 311 lb. grad transfer from UCONN. Ledet is a Freshman from Orange, TX. Myles Cole is the other DE and is 6’6 288. Their guys up front don’t scare you allot with their numbers but they can get some pressure on you and they can take up some space for their LB’s. A couple of other names to keep an eye on are Jahaziel Lee, Sir’Darrius Ellis and Seth Mason. Lee is pretty good; he is a Grad transfer from Georgia Tech.
LB—This is the strength of this defense for sure. The best of which is Zack Woodard, who has 87 tackles on the season. He is a grad transfer from Jacksonville State. He has 9 TFL and 3.5 sacks on the season and an INT. He is really good, but it does not stop there. Traveion Webster is 2nd on the team in tackles with 83. He has 4 TFL and 1.5 sacks on the season. Quae Drake is 4th on the team in tackles and plays the SAM backer position and is a transfer from Kennesaw State. Drake has 53 TFL’s and 2.5 sacks on the season. Ja’Cquez Williams has 32 tackles on the season with 1 sack, Williams plays the WILL backer and is a transfer from Wake Forest. The main 3 we will see are Woodard, Williams, and Drake, but they will play KeyShawn Johnson, Traveion Webster and Tayler Behl quite a bit.
DB—They are pretty good in the back as well, but mostly at the safety positions. Jabari Johson and Austin Hawley are the best of that bunch at Safety. Johsnon is 3rd on the team in tackles and has an INT. Hawlty is 8th on the team in tackles with a fumble recovery. Tre Odom and Keilos Swinney will play at the Safety position as well and Swinney has 2 INTs to lead the team and is tied with their best cover corner Josh Newton with 2 INTs on the season. The other CB is Lu Tillery or Jordyn Riley, Riley is a transfer from Akron while Tillery is a freshman. Adam Sparks is a good one in the back half as well. When they play a NB position, it will normally be Nick Roberts a transfer from South Florida, or he will play opposite of Josh Newton. That is probably their best lineup back there with Sparks and Newton.
Defense—This is not a great defensive team, but they have been better on D than on 0. They are ginving up almost 35 points per game on the season including 161 yards on the ground and almost 300 through the air for a total of 458 yards per game. They only have 22 sacks on the season as a team and are giving up a total of 45% on 3rd down, so they struggle to get off the field. Most of their issue is the lack of pressure on the QB, mostly from the front 7. They don’t blitz a ton either so Levi should have some time to move around in the pocket and find open receivers.
ST—The Warhawks Special Teams, specifically in the kicking game is pretty good. Their Punter is Dyvyn McCormick, and he is averaging about 41 yards per punt, with 24 of his 64 being fair caught and 16 inside the 20. He has 8 punts of over 50 yards and a long of 56, but it is their FG kicker who is good. Calum Sutherland is 15-20 on the season with a long of 53. He is 7-8 from 20-39 yards and 8=12 from 40-49 including 6-8 from 40-49 and 2-4 from 50-59. Calum Sutherland also handles the kickoffs where he has 20 of this 52 for TB’s but has kicked 3 out of bounds. Their best WR, Boogie Knight is also their punt and kickoff returner. He has returned 5 punts for 20 yards with a long of 9 and 12 Kickoffs for 219 yards with a long of 26. So, they are not dangerous in the return games.
Coaching—Well it all starts at the top with Terry Bowden, son of former longtime Florida State coach Bobby Bowden. Terry Bowden is no stranger to rebuilding programs. The younger Bowden took over Auburn after a very successful career at Samford. At Auburn Bowden took over from Pat Dye when they had NCAA sanctions including scholarship limitations and a 2-year postseason ban. After going 45-23-1 at Samford, Bowden followed it up going 47-17=1 at Auburn including an 11-0 season in his first year. After he left Auburn, he went to North Alabama where he went 29-9 before landing the Akron job. He made Akron respectable and that is saying allot. His stay at Akron included 2 bowl appearances. He was out of coaching for a couple of years and then ended up at ULM. The OC is former Michigan, Arizona and WVU coach Rich Rodriguez, many consider Rich Rod one of the top offensive minds in college football at one point in his career. Assistant HC is Alonzo Hampton who played in the NFL for several years as well as long time assistant college coach Ron West as the ST Coordinator.
ULM started the season as a major surprise considering most people did not expect them to win more than a game or 2 and at one point were sitting at 4-3 with at least a couple of winnable games left on their schedule. They now sit at 4-7 after disappointing losses to Texas State and Arkansas State, but this team has weapons and 2 athletic QB’s and a few weapons on the outside at WR. And some good solid defensive players specifically in the back half of the defense. We don’t know yet if we will have O’Cyrus Torrence back, but we should have an advantage on the OL for sure as well as on the DL vs their OL. We need to make sure we make some blocks on their LB’s to get some yards after contact on our running plays, because that is where ULM can be pretty good. They don’t have much that scares me when they have the ball, but we need to watch out for Boogie Knight and a couple of other guys that can make some plays. This is a team that held some good teams like Liberty to 28 points, Ole Miss to 27 points, LSU to 27 points and even a pretty good Arkansas State offense to 27 points. But on the flip side of that they gave up 59 to App, 55 to Georgia State, 45 to Kentucky and 59 to Coastal Carolina. When they have been good on defense, they have been pretty good, when they have been bad, they have been really bad.
Geaux Cajuns!!!!!!!!
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