Louisiana has won 15 of its last 18 games against ULM, including the last three. Tonight the Ragin' Cajuns make the drive north from Lafayette to find a Warhawks team that has finally started winning, and still hasn't done it at home.
The Wooden Boot is what they're playing for. Since 2002, the winner of this game has taken home a wooden, boot-shaped trophy, and the Cajuns have won it 16 times to the Warhawks' eight. It has been in Lafayette since last November, when Louisiana won 30-27 in overtime.
ULM opened the season 0-6. Since then the Warhawks have won two of three, both on the road, and last Saturday in Jonesboro they beat Arkansas State 19-17 for their first win there since 2001. They did it on the ground, with a season-high 268 rushing yards. Aidan Armenta ran for two touchdowns, Abram Murray put them ahead with a 40-yard field goal with 1:49 left, and first-year Gavin Howard sealed it with the first interception of his career.
The missing piece is a win in Monroe. ULM is 0-4 at home this season, and a Thursday night in front of a national audience is as good a stage as any to end that.
The Cajuns had to sweat out their own win last week. JJ Garner took the opening kickoff 100 yards against South Alabama, later broke a 65-yard touchdown run, and Louisiana ran for 312 yards, its best of the season. Even so, the Jaguars got within two, hit the upright on a late field goal try and had one more chance before Micah Johnson intercepted Bishop Davenport with 1:29 left. That sixth win made Louisiana bowl eligible for a ninth straight season, the longest run in the Sun Belt.
The Cajuns may be without running back Anthony Regan Jr., who had to be helped off the field after a hard fall on a 26-yard run in that game. His status for tonight is unclear. Garner has scored a rushing touchdown in six straight games, so the load would shift his way, with quarterback Lunch Winfield, who leads the team in both passing and rushing, carrying his share too.
That sets up the night's real question. Louisiana is third in the league in rushing, and once the Cajuns get inside the 20 they almost always come away with points, 30 times in 31 trips. ULM sits near the bottom of the league against the run. The Warhawks' own ground game has come alive lately, with Austin Carlisle working alongside Armenta, but this week it runs into one of the better run defenses in the conference.
The division race adds a little more for the Cajuns. Louisiana is second in the West, but Louisiana Tech is unbeaten in league play and has already beaten them, and a Tech win Saturday settles it. ULM can't reach six wins this year, so for the Warhawks this one is about the Boot, a first home win and something to carry into next season.
There are familiar faces on the visiting sideline, too. Four Louisiana players grew up in Monroe, and three Cajuns assistants once coached at ULM, so plenty of people in red will know their way around the place.
The projection is Louisiana 30, UL Monroe 20. The Cajuns run the ball better, stop the run better and take the ball away more often than they give it up, while ULM has turned it over more than its opponents. But the Warhawks are playing their best football of the season, they're at home on a clear, cool night, and three of Louisiana's last four games were decided by four points or fewer.
The market, for the record: Louisiana is about an 11.5-point favorite, and the total is 48.5. The projection (Louisiana by 10) sits a little under the line.
What breaks it: ULM runs the way it did in Jonesboro, keeps the ball away from Garner and Winfield, and turns this into a fourth-quarter game at home. The other way it breaks: the Cajuns score early, ULM has to throw, and Louisiana's secondary gets the chances it took against South Alabama.