Louisiana-Monroe, a brief look

Louisiana-Monroe (4-8, 3-5)--The Warhawks looked at times to be turning the corner and becoming a team that the Sun Belt will have to worry about in the future. Other times ULM looked out classed and bad. Behind upcoming junior quarterback Kolton Browning, the ULM passing offense accounted for just over 235 yards per game. The rushing game was average at best with 153 yards on the ground per game led by upcoming junior Jyruss Edwards and his 667 yards and 11 touchdowns on the ground. The Warhawks struggled to score when needed and only averaged 24.6 points per game, good for 78th out of 120 teams. It took ULM 6 games to finally break the 20 point barrier but from games 6-12, the Warhawks averaged nearly 30 points per game giving hope for the upcoming season.

Defensively, the Warhawks held their opponents to 25.4 points, good for 59th best in the country. ULM struggled to hold down some of the more explosive offenses they faced but for the most part kept the team in the game till the end. 6 of the top 10 tacklers for the Warhawks were seniors and must be replaced for the upcoming season. Two 2011 sophomore defensive backs stepped up in last season and combined for 125 tackles, playing some stand out defense as the season progressed. With the building blocks of Eddie and Newsome, the defense will be young but will have some talent.

Louisiana-Monroe is the third head coaching stop for coach Todd Berry. Berry first coached at Illinois State from 1996-1999 and took his team to the I-AA semifinals. He left Illinois State with a 24-24 record and took the job at Army. His time at Army was utterly forgettable going 1-10, 3-8, 1-11, and 0-6 in his final season before getting fired. After a few years of being an assistance coach, Berry took over the ULM job in 2010. He has gone 9-15 in his two season but his teams have shown signs of improvement.

Overall, the offense needs to be more like the team that scored nearly 30 points in their final 7 games than the team that scored just over 17 points in the opening 4 games of the season. With the quarterback returning for his third year as a starter and the running game looking better behind Edwards, the offense does look to make that step in 2012. The defense must fill in those gaps of the 6 departing seniors. With 5-7 and 4-8 seasons to start his career at ULM, coach Berry wants to make that next step and the main goal is to become bowl eligible in 2012.