By DOUG IRELAND, Journal Sports
MONROE – With a new athletic director and a 10-game losing streak ending his third season as football coach at ULM, Terry Bowden’s status was already shaky.
A 52-21 loss to UL Lafayette Saturday apparently was the final straw. ULM athletic director John Hartwell informed Bowden Sunday morning and announced later that “he will seek new leadership for the Warhawks’ football program.”
ULM assistant and former Grambling head coach Broderick Fobbs was named interim head coach later Sunday. Fobbs is a Monroe native and Grambling graduate who was assistant head coach and running backs coach for the Warhawks this season.
Bowden was the 16th head coach in school history, and the seventh since ULM left the Division I-AA (now FCS) Southland Conference in 1994 and joined the Sun Belt Conference. There’s been only one highly successful season since, coming in 2012, when the Warhawks posted their only overall winning record in FBS history, reaching the Independence Bowl after an early-season win at Arkansas.
ULM did win a Sun Belt Conference title in 2005, but finished with an overall 5-6 record including a 5-2 league mark.
“I want to thank coach Terry Bowden for all he has done over the last three years for our football program and our university,” said Hartwell in a press release, which noted he has begun a national search for a new coach.
Hartwell was named AD at ULM in January. He had previously served in that role at Troy and Utah State.
Bowden’s teams went 4-8 in each of his first two seasons and 2-10 this fall. ULM was 5-19 in conference play in those three seasons.
“Although our record took a step backwards due to critical injuries,” said the 67-year-old Bowden in a social media post, “I feel we have continued to make progress in becoming more competitive in the Sun Belt Conference.”
The Sun Belt has emerged as a quality Group of Five conference while Bowden’s been at ULM. This year, 12 of the 14 members have qualified for bowl games.
Bowden’s overall 10-26 record made ULM “the first place (he) … didn’t turn around as he’d done at so many other stops in his career, highlighting the difficulties of this situation,” wrote college football reporter Chris Vannini in The Athletic.
ULM’s $435,000 head coaching salary is the lowest publicly available figure of any FBS program, reported Vannini.
Among potential candidates mentioned by Vannini were Tulane offensive coordinator Slade Nagle, a former assistant at Northwestern State and McNeese, and Nicholls head coach Tim Rebowe, who coached at ULM as an assistant from 2001-03. LSU quarterbacks coach Joe Sloan was a finalist before Bowden was hired, when Sloan was on Skip Holtz’ staff at Louisiana Tech.
Highly-regarded ULM offensive coordinator Matt Kubik, a former Tech quarterback and Northwestern State assistant, was also under strong consideration for the post before Bowden was hired, as was Fobbs.
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