There is not a long history between the Texas Longhorns and the ULM Warhawks. But, it will be the last non-conference game before Texas’ Southeastern Conference debut against Mississippi State.

In 2009, the Warhawks visited Austin for the first time and left with a 59–20 loss. Then, in Texas’ opening game 13 years later, they played at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium for the second time in hopes of getting a better performance out of the team, but the result was a 52–10 loss.

Now two years later, ULM will make the trip from Monroe in the fourth week of the 2024 College Football season and try to avoid a third blowout win. For Texas, this game will have more importance than usual. 

Compared to the 2022 ULM team, this year’s group has some fresh faces. A catastrophic 2023 season started with two wins and went downhill, not winning another game for the rest of the season. Former ULM head coach Terry Bowden, who also led the team in 2022, was fired and Bryant Vincent stepped into the role in December 2023. 

Vincent is no stranger to the game. He served as interim head coach for the University of Alabama at Birmingham after being an offensive coordinator and quarterback coach in the program for four years. He was most recently the offensive coordinator at New Mexico and is bringing along six of his Lobos to Louisiana.

Regardless of the strength of the new head coach, Texas is still expected to comfortably win this game.

It’s unlikely that Vincent will manage to turn a 2–10 record team around in just a few months, but the ULM team has some solid names that will look to cause trouble. Junior running back Hunter Smith led in rushing yards and is familiar with the Texas atmosphere after playing at the field in 2022. Senior linebacker Carl Glass Jr. was also part of that roster as a sophomore. 

Junior quarterback Hunter Herring transferred to ULM from Louisiana Lafayette in 2023, coming from high school ranked as one of the top quarterbacks in the country. Despite not being familiar with the Austin crowd, if played right, he could be a key figure for the Warhawks.

Vincent’s team would have to hope for Texas errors in both offense and defense to get the lead or a win. 

Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian should treat this game as a way to explore different areas of the field. Coming into a conference as strong as the SEC, the team should have enough depth to control both offense and defense, and a non-dominating performance could shatter expectations.