ULM's Terry Bowden offers look at Texas' Week 1 opponent

The 2022 Texas Longhorns football season will open when Steve Sarkisian’s program hosts Terry Bowden and the Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks in 150 days at Darrell K Royal – Texas Memorial Stadium.

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In order to get a way-too-early look at the 12 opponents on Texas’ regular season schedule, Inside Texas is catching up with people associated with or who cover the program who will line up across from the Longhorns in 2022.

For ULM, there’s no better place to start than with Bowden. A coaching veteran, Bowden is entering his second season in Monroe after going 4-8 (2-6, Sun Belt) in 2021.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

What were you able to accomplish in year one with the Warhawks?

Terry Bowden: “Well, you have to put things in perspective that we came into the program at a point in time when they were ranked last in the NCAA. They did not win a game in (2020) and they did not lead in a game in (2020). That was a distinction that was unmatched. Now, we’re saying ‘we’ve got to win a game. We’ve got to get a game under our belt and win.’ We opened with Kentucky, but we got to Jackson State and we won it, and it was a tough game. Then all of a sudden the next game, we won a conference game. Then all of a sudden we won two conference games. Then all of a sudden we won (against Liberty). That was the biggest upset I think in the last 10 years of football as a 33.5-point underdog.

We began to win some close games. Of course, you get your sights set high when you win games like that. It’s kind of a two-edged sword when you have close games. If you don’t make the last play, you lose those close games. We lost to Texas State and Arkansas State at the end, two games we were in like South Alabama, like Troy, but because we weren’t the better team or the dominant team, the team who made the last play won.

We got our nose pointed in the right direction. We got much better, and I’m excited about year two. We’re moving along as far as being competitive in the Sun Belt. We’re competitive, but now we’ve got to see if we can go out there and challenge for a conference championship. Whether that can be done in two years or not, we’ll see.”

What’s your main goal this spring for Louisiana-Monroe?

Terry Bowden: “When you lose six coaches and both your coordinators, it gets to be Groundhog Day. It gets to be the same process as last year. In a lot of ways, we’re having to put a new offense and defense in. In that way, it’s not your normal thing where the next year you’re in phase two of running your offense or phase two of running your defense. You’re really looking at a different offensive and defensive coordinator.

I’ve got Vic Koenning as a defensive coordinator who has done this a lot of times in a lot of places. Matt Kubik, who’s been very successful as a coordinator in our conference, they know what they’re doing. They know how they want to get it done. We have had a great year of inserting the offense and inserting the system, so we didn’t have to step backwards too much. We were able to come along, get caught up, and get our new systems in.

The biggest thing is we have a much better feel for who we have on our team. We probably had 20 late portal transfers come in last summer that were not here in the spring. Over half of those guys started. Whatever happened in the spring was not indicative of what we did in the fall. This year, we’re trying to say we’ve got the basics of our offense and defense here. We’ll probably, like a lot of people before April is over, pick up a portal transfer or two that jump in before the date of which you can’t have free transfer ability. We’ll probably pick up one or two once we, like a lot of schools, identify where we just might need a player or two. We might pick up a few but the numbers won’t be the same as last year.

Year one to year two, we’re coaching guys in the spring that we expect to be playing in the fall. That was not the case last spring.”

Who would you describe as your current impact players on offense and defense?

Terry Bowden: “You start with the quarterback situation because Rich Rodriguez’s son, Rhett, graduated and moved on. You’ve got Chandler Rogers and Jiya Wright. They are both very competitive and both fighting at that quarterback position. They’ve both had very good springs and it gives a little different type of athlete at quarterback than we had with Rich’s son. He was very cerebral. He played with his head and not necessarily with an abundance of physical skills. I’ve got a couple of quarterbacks who are talented to run and throw the football and have had some good competition.

Defensively, our best player was Zack Woodard at linebacker. He had meniscus, with the shoulder he had a rotator cuff. We held him back and gave him surgery after the season, held him out in the spring. He should be fine. He didn’t really need to play spring ball because he is probably our best player on defense. He’ll be back as a middle linebacker.”

What’s your current view of Steve Sarkisian and his work with the Texas football program after one year?

Terry Bowden: “They’re paying us to come play them. It’s a money game. You can’t hardly appreciate having a chance to play Texas and Alabama given they’re paying us a lot of money and we’re coming in there and going to play our best. But that’s a power program in a Power 5 conference, and we start at pretty much the bottom of the Sun Belt and work our way up. It’s going to be exciting in the fact that our kids get excited about playing in just a great stadium and great tradition of the Texas Longhorns, but as far as a vaunted task, they are in their transition. I know they’ll do a great job and be an outstanding football team. I’m not so much talking about will they compete for their conference championship or all that. In their relative strength compared to us? We’re going to see a great football team. We’ve got to go out there, play the best we can, and have a great time. When our non-conference schedule, three out of the four are Texas, Alabama, and Army on the road, the task is trying to get through those games. We should have a good lineup for Texas. It’s our first game, so we shouldn’t be beat up until the second game. By the time we get to Alabama, who knows?”