Louisiana Monroe Football: Can Terry Bowden turn Warhawks around?

After a winless 2020, Louisiana Monroe football brought in Terry Bowden to get the program on an upward trajectory

Louisiana Monroe is one of the hardest jobs in the country and that is evidenced by their track record or lack thereof. The Warhawks have only made one bowl game and are consistently at the bottom of the Sun Belt. Former head coach Matt Viator looked like he had ULM on an upward trajectory, but the program bottomed out and went winless in 2020 and that was enough to show Viator the door.

Coming into ULM is Terry Bowden, who is a name that every college football fan will know. Bowden was recently the coach at Akron, which is also seen as one of the toughest jobs in the country, and had relative success there.

Bowden guided the Zips to a bowl game, which is a big deal at Akron, but he could not sustain the success and was later fired. Bowden comes to ULM hoping to bring some of that energy and experience that he has and turn a program around.

One of the hires that Bowden made is another familiar face to college football fans, Rich Rodriguez. Rodriguez is known as one of the best offensive minds in football and has had success as a head coach at West Virginia and Arizona. Rodriguez does not come without controversy, however.

This is going to be seen as a multi-year rebuild and fans of the program are going to have to have patience. This team ranked near the bottom at most statistical categories and Bowden is relying on the transfer portal to help make this a quick turnaround. Bowden has the experience and can breathe life into a program, as seen in Akron, but patience is going to be required.