ULM Coach 'Very Excited' For Opportunity to Play Longhorns

Bryant Vincent spoke on the task of traveling to Austin, facing the No. 1 team in a recent press conference

The ULM Warhawks opened their 2024 season on a rainy Thursday night in Malone Stadium. Bryant Vincent secured his first win as the new head coach of the Warhawks as they defeated the Jackson State Tigers , 30-14. / Michelle Tripp/ Special to the The News-Star / USA TODAY NETWORK

Despite being a nearly seven-touchdown underdog, ULM head coach Bryant Vincent echoed how excited he and his team are to face the No. 1 ranked Texas Longhorns

"It's very exciting, what an opportunity," Vincent said. "Our players get the opportunity to go in front of over 100,000 and play the No. 1 team in the country."

Vincent's ULM team is fresh off a win versus UAB, shutting down the Blazers 32-6 before entering an early bye week. The Warhawks will play its final out-of-conference game, and first away game, in Austin this Saturday, facing a Longhorns team that just recently catapulted itself into the No. 1 team in the country.

"They're coached extremely well," Vincent said. "They're big, they're long, they're powerful. They're experienced and we're excited about the challenge."

The Warhawks are familiar with the Longhorns, having lost in Week One of the 2022 season in Austin, but Vincent is brand new to the style of play Sarkisian brings. Vincent enters his first year in Monroe after replacing Terry Bowden, who coached the War Hawks two years prior.

Vincent spent 12 seasons working in Alabama for both the Blazers and South Alabama, even working as the UAB interim head coach in 2022, before joining the New Mexico coaching staff as an offensive coordinator.

In just one season with the Lobos, Vincent took the team with the worst offense in 2021 and 2022 into a more respectable team, doubling the team's points per game in one season and closing in on an offense in the upper half of the nation.

Vincent's best accomplishment was the development of running back Jacory Croskey-Merritt, who turned an 1190-yard, 17-touchdown season as a senior into a chance to become the starting running back at Arizona a year later.

Vincent has brought success on the ground game to ULM, where two running backs have already eclipsed 100 yards and the top three ball carries are averaging five yards or more per carry. Vincent feels confident in his run game but knows how big a task it will be to stop the passing game of Texas, even with quarterback Quinn Ewers out, and backup quarterback Arch Manning in.

"I think they're both two NFL quarterbacks," Vincent said. "The thing that I respect about Arch (Manning) is he came in and he understood that he was a true freshman and that he was behind Ewers. He just developed, he grew, and when you do that and you get your opportunity like he did, that's when you make the most of your opportunity. That's a little bit lost in college football today."

Vincent hit home that the main focus of his team this week was to see where they were at as a program ahead of a tough Sun Belt schedule. Vincent even talked about the pressures of going on the road the first time, especially against a team like Texas.

"Until you're actually on the road you're not on the road," Vincent said. "To accomplish the things that we've set to accomplish, becoming a bowl champion, a conference champion, you have to go on the road and win games in hostile environments."