re: How would you fix ULM football?

quote:

---

As a first step they need put Louisiana on their uniforms and in the End zones and on their courts. I do believe that nationally the crap USL has pulled has hurt them. They have every right to brand themselves Louisiana as much as USL

---

Well dumbass they actually have done that in the past. It failed miserably, just like ULM not leading a single quarter of football last season.

You sure?

lol

quote:

---

Have Saban take it on as a satellite school for his next round of assistant coaches.

---

I would be down with that. Let Slade and Phil Mathis go coach and once they show they are worthy, bring them back to the mother ship and let the next batch of NE LA studs that Bama recruits and graduates go coach at ULM.

quote:

---

You just triggered a bunch of usl fans... expect angry letters soon....

---

On the contrary, speaking for myself only personally, I find it extremely entertaining to read the same rambling complaints from posters like him.

Funny thing is that the more we continued winning, the more triggered and insecure some fans of other schools became in regards to the athletic branding.

I want to see more posts from Ralph and NOLA Sports about our name.

quote:

---

needed to be a change up top at president which happened. I liked Dr. Bruno as a person but he got in the way of the athletics program too much and pissed off too many alums.

---

This.

And I think hiring Bowden and having Rich Rod come in as the OC will be yall's best shot in a long time at rebuilding to become a top half contender in the Sunbelt.

quote:

---

Reach out to boosters to invest into better facilities? Hire a young innovative coach that’s not a washed up old-timer like Terry Bowden? Build a stronger relationship with the community? Or just pull the plug and drop back down to FCS?

---

all of the above

They actually won in I-AA

okay what young innovator would want a job thats proven to be career suicide for the last 2 decades?

quote:

---

LA Tech is usually solid,

---

usually solid? Tech has clearly been the 2nd best program in Louisiana the last couple of decades. Obviously USL has had a couple really good teams and nice stretches, but it hasn’t been sustained as long as Tech’s.

A couple of advantages Tech has over ULM:

1) money—it all comes back to this one way or another. Besides the Davidson’s supplementing the Tech AD for decades, Ruston also has a lot of other wealthy families that have consistently contributed. And it being a Technical university with a very well respected engineering department, I’d imagine the average income for a Tech grad is noticeably higher than that of a ULM one. More grads with more disposable income equals more donations.

2) ULM is a commuter school. Such a high percentage of their students come from the many neighboring high schools (Tech only has Ruston and tiny, private Cedar Creek in town) that I really think it has a huge impact on school pride. Obviously not all ULM’s students are living with their parents for 4 years, but they get places spread throughout Monroe and just aren’t on campus a lot.

And when they are, the campus is too spread out, and not more contained like Tech’s. That leads to more people knowing each other at Tech, being more involved in student groups and activities, and fosters a culture of family. Which creates more school pride (ULM grads—Tech too, for the most part—would stay home and watch LSU on tv before heading out to the Grove and Malone) and a bigger willingness to continue to be more involved years after graduation and, donating money.

3) branding—Tech’s red/white/blue uniform scheme is objectively more aesthetically pleasing than ULM’s maroon and yellow. It pops. And I’m not sure when they upgraded, but the last 5 years or so, Tech has had some of the cleanest unis in college football. But one of the biggest—and most overlooked by most people who have no idea that this was ever a thing—decisions Tech ever made was to embrace the “LA Tech” moniker. 20 years ago, the administration HATED it. It drove them crazy when their score would run down the ESPN ticker using LA Tech instead of the more sophisticated “Louisiana Tech.” And it was stupid, but they had no idea how stupid it was.

I don’t know who made the decision to not only quit fighting the “LA Tech” moniker, but to actually lean into it and embrace it, but that guy or gal—or group, whether inside or outside—maybe made one of the most important decisions in the history of that program, if not the entire university. The sporting world was trying to brand them for free, and they fought it kicking and screaming for years like tards. Nobody cared about Louisiana Tech—it seemed like some generic directional school. LA Tech, though, is much more noticeable to eyes and ear.

That branding was helped even earlier when they went with what was, at the time, a gimmicky offense when they hired Gary Crowton and he had Jason Martin throwing the ball all over the field at 1st, then Tim Rattay just destroying records at the time throwing to eventual Biletnikoff winner Troy Edwards. (BTW, that dude had 102 catches for 1707 yards and 13 TDs receiving as a SO and followed that up with 140 catches for 1996 yards and 27 TDs receiving as a JR. And this was in ‘97 and ‘98).

And they continued adding to the branding after Crowton left with smart hires of pretty good coaches with recognizable last names—Jack Becknell, JR, Derek Dooley, Sonny Dykes, and Skip Holtz. And they’ve had some nice wins over some bigger named schools. All of this has led to being in much better conferences than ULM which leads to more tv and bowl revenue, which brings us back to the insurmountable issue ULM will always have—they simply don’t have enough money.


This is not an indictment of ULM or even a praising of Tech, really, it’s just an explanation of why ULM has so many innate disadvantages than Tech does even though it’s located in a bigger city surrounded by more high schools and is just a mere 30 miles down the road. It is what it is.

1. Drop to FCS & dominate the landscape. Embrace the NDSU small town lifestyle. Take every kid in LA, Arkansas, West Mississippi, & Western Tennessee with borderline GPAs. Keep them in basic ULM courses to someday become HS coaches/teachers & keep them as out of trouble as possible (I mean, not hard in Bible Belt Monroe). Continue stacking trophies for the rest of time. Don't EVER go back up to D1.

1.B. Ride this hire of Bowden + Rich Rod as long as the road possibly can go. Prop them up with coaches' shows, social media, hype videos, etc. Basically, be FCS on a Diet D1 Budget. A consistent 40K will show up to every home game & you'll travel well for the rest of time.

If you're going to stay in D1:

Repeat 1.B.

2. Raid every top JUCO program in the mid-west that you can & offer those players full rides + immediate playing time.

3. If they're NOT going to brand as "LOUISIANA" also, then they need to brand as "MONROE" / "MONROE WARHAWKS". Get away from Louisiana-Monroe because it's too much to say & too much of the sports world wonders just where the heck it is.