Aidan Armenta started at quarterback in Mobile, completed 25 of 41 passes for a career-high 355 yards with two touchdowns and an interception, and punched in his first rushing touchdown of the season from a yard out. UL Monroe still lost 52-35 at South Alabama in its Sun Belt opener. Both of those sentences are the story of the week, and neither cancels the other.
Start with how unusual that line is. He then missed the UAB game entirely, the reason was never announced, and came back as a relief arm against SE Louisiana. Fans who spent September wondering who the quarterback is now have a reasonable answer.
The ceiling is real, too. Jesse Montalto, hired in January as offensive coordinator and receivers coach, said his plan was to spread defenses out, use RPOs to thin the box and keep a physical run game attached.
The attached run game is not. ULM gained 87 yards on 28 carries, with Zach Palmer-Smith's 54 yards and a 31-yard touchdown the only real production and previously featured back Derrick Jameson missing from the rushing totals entirely. That is almost no volume from a room rebuilt around seven transfer additions.
The defense struggled, too. Noah Flemmings, a first-team preseason all-Sun Belt pick who led the team with 80 tackles and 11 tackles for loss in 2025, again led ULM with nine tackles, with Chris Payne and Marcus Ross at seven each and a sack from Moses Madabuike, but the unit gave up 570 yards at 8.8 per play and 321 passing yards on just 19 attempts. Troy Reffett moved from inside linebackers and defensive run-game coordinator in 2025 to defensive coordinator and inside linebackers coach in 2026. Five games in, the offense now has to score 50 to matter.
Bryant Vincent, who called the SE Louisiana loss "embarrassing," sounded different afterward. He said he was "very proud of our effort and our fight 'til the end today" and that the game "really found out a lot about our football team." He didn't say what. Take it as a coach who liked the fight and not as evidence of anything structural, because the record isn't offering any. ULM is 0-5, 0-1 in the Sun Belt. Vincent went 5-7 in 2024 after a 5-1 start. Sun Belt coaches picked ULM last in the West for a reason, and the program's lone bowl trip is still the 2012 Independence Bowl.
So there is no game this week, and nothing on the national scoreboard changes anything for the Warhawks. No Sun Belt result moves a team that the simulations give about one conference win. The open date is the useful thing here. Louisiana Tech comes to Malone Stadium on Oct. 17, the first meeting between the schools since 2000, and the model puts ULM at 18%. That number goes up if two weeks of practice produce a run game Armenta can lean on. It does not go up because he threw for 355 yards once.
What to watch for on Oct. 17 is who gets the first carry, whether anyone gets eight of them, and whether Reffett's front can make a Sun Belt quarterback throw more than 19 times. Full numbers are in the interactive guide, and the simulation details are on the methodology page.