ULM unable to erase deficit to SLU
Dusty Thibodeaux • September 20, 2026
Warhawks fall to 0-3 after 38-35 loss to Southeastern Louisiana
Southeastern Louisiana entered the Saturday afternoon game in FMOL Health | St. Francis Stadium 0-35 against FBS opponents. After 60 minutes, they can now say they are 1-35 after defeating the ULM Warhawks 38-35.
Despite being outgained 511-279 in total offense, Southeastern Louisiana (2-2, 0-1) capitalized on three pivotal plays to secure the victory over ULM. The difference came from a second-quarter fumble recovery by Khalid Moore that gave the Lions a short field and led to a touchdown, a 79-yard punt return by Dkhai Joseph in the third quarter, and an 11-yard pick-six by Richard McKneely in the fourth.
ULM (0-3) answered on its ensuing possession when Austin Carlisle connected with Park Fulghum for a 17-yard touchdown. Fulghum’s one-handed grab finished a six-play drive that was set up after the Warhawks recovered a muffed punt by Makenzie Ryan. The turnover marked ULM’s second special teams takeaway in as many weeks.
Following McKneely’s pick-six, the Lions stretched their advantage to 18 points. However, the Warhawks mounted a late rally, highlighted by Derrick Jameson’s second rushing touchdown of the night. Jameson also converted the ensuing two-point attempt to cut the deficit to 38-28.
After a key defensive stop, Aidan Armenta entered the game and connected with Nic Trujillo on a 47-yard touchdown pass. The score trimmed the deficit to just three points with slightly more than three minutes remaining.
ULM will look to close out the non-conference portion of its 2026 schedule next week when former Sun Belt Conference rival FAU visits Monroe for Homecoming. Kickoff is scheduled for 7 p.m.
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Tulane 20, Kansas State 31 Bill Snyder Family Stadium Sept. 19, 2026 Tulane flew into Manhattan and scored the first offensive touchdown Kansas State had allowed all season. Seven plays, 90 yards, Kadin Semonza keeping the option and walking in from nine. For a quarter, the Green Wave looked like the version of this offense Will Hall and Russ Callaway have been selling since January: stay on schedule, hit a shot, finish. Then the call sheet forgot who the best players on the field were. Kansas State won 31-20. Tulane is 1-2. The box score will say 260 total yards, 13-of-26 for 165 from Semonza, 6 sacks, 4.4 yards per play. Those numbers are real. They are not the whole story. The story is who touched the football after that opening drive, and who never did. Destyn Hill: zero catches. Garrett Mmahat: zero. Jaylin Lucas: 7 touches. ABS: 1 catch Hill is the preseason All-Conference receiver, the 61-yard threat, the guy this staff is supposed to feature when a front loads the box. Mmahat and Stephens are the complementary answers. On Saturday they were mostly spectators in their own offense. Oliver Mitchell Jr led Tulane with one catch for 41 yards, the strike that started the opening touchdown drive and then the vertical game went quiet. Bredell Richardson had three for 40. Anthony Brown-Stephens had one for 22. Maurice Turner caught the late 25-yard touchdown. Jaylin Lucas, who ran for 214 yards against South Alabama a week ago, finished with three receptions for five yards and was not the feature back. That is not a “they just missed throws” problem. That is a usage problem. What the first drive proved: The opening series is the tape this staff should pin to the wall. Semonza threw into double coverage to Mitchell for 41. The Wave stayed aggressive. They finished with an option instead of a hopeful fade. Kansas State’s defense, which had not given up an offensive touchdown in two games, blinked. Everything after that looked like a team that did not trust the same answers. The run game still produced pieces. Turner 7 carries for 64, Johnnie Daniels 10 for 59, but the identity never settled. Semonza was credited with 10 rushes for minus-27 yards, which is what six sacks look like on a stat sheet. Kansas State logged 12 tackles for loss. Once the Wave fell behind the chains, Jordan Peterson’s front lived in obvious passing downs. That is exactly the trap my preview said this defense wanted. Semonza does not have to throw 40 times. He has to stay on schedule and get Hill, Brown-Stephens, and Lewis (When Healthy) the ball when the box is loaded. Saturday he completed 13 passes. The three receivers who should stress a secondary combined for zero of them. Design, protection, and the difference between a drop and a plan. Give the defense and the drops their share. Hall said after the game that Tulane “had our opportunities” and “just didn’t come down with the ball a few times.” Dawson Johnson had a chance inside the Kansas State 10. Brown-Stephens had a deep ball that would have moved the sticks inside the 30. Both drives died into Cooper Helmke field goals, a school-record 58-yarder at the half and a 53-yarder in the third. Helmke was excellent. Field goals are not how you keep pace with Avery Johnson. Johnson accounted for 379 of Kansas State’s 428 yards: 227 passing, 152 rushing, two scores, including a 66-yarder that flipped the game after Kansas State stuffed Daniels on third-and-1. The Wildcats converted 10 of 16 third downs. Five of those were third-and-5 or longer. Tulane has now watched Duke, South Alabama, and Kansas State live on third down with mobile quarterbacks. That is a defensive problem. It became an offensive problem the moment the Wave stopped answering with explosives of their own. Hall’s postgame point was fair: “The difference in the game was their explosive plays.” Kansas State created them. Tulane created one real shot to Mitchell, a late screen-and-go to Turner, and two long kicks. That is not enough against a 3-0 Big 12 team in its building. Protection matters here and should not be waved off as “just play calling.” Six sacks and 12 TFLs mean the offensive line, still replacing last year’s front with Reese Baker as the veteran piece, lost the point of attack for long stretches. You cannot call deep shots if the pocket is gone on second-and-7. You also cannot keep calling the same early-down answers after the first series fails and then act surprised when Hill is covered and Semonza is running for his life. Those two things live together. Bad protection shrinks the playbook. A timid playbook makes the protection look worse because every down becomes obvious. This is Year 1. It is also Week 3. Context still counts. Hall is in his first season as head coach. Callaway is in his first season calling this offense. The quarterback changed after Duke. Jamauri McClure hasn’t played yet, Zy Carl Lewis is banged up and the line is young. Kansas State had not allowed an offensive touchdown and was stuffing people under 200 yards. None of that is fake. None of that excuses zero targets finding Hill, Mmahat, and ABS in a game Tulane trailed from the second quarter on. None of it explains why Lucas, after a 214-yard night, was used as a checkdown instead of a space player. If the plan was run-and-play-action, the play-action never stressed the secondary. If the plan was to protect Semonza, six sacks say the plan did not hold. If the plan was to feature the skill players this roster actually has, the reception list says otherwise. Tulane was 2-for-2 in the red zone and still left points on the field because drives that should have been touchdowns became 50-yard field goals. The Wave won the first-down battle 18-20 and lost the yardage battle by 168. That is what happens when you move the chains without threatening the paint. What has to change before Southern Miss: Southern Miss comes to Yulman next Saturday. That game will not wait for the offense to “find itself” in October. The fixes are not mysterious. Get Hill the ball. Period. Motion him, stack him, isolate him, throw him the glance and the go. If Kansas State took him away, show the coverage that took him away and attack the vacated spot with Lewis/Brown-Stephens/Lucas. Use Lucas the way South Alabama had to defend him, as a runner and as a receiver in space, not as a 1.7-yard dump-off. Involve the tight ends on purpose, not as leftover checkdowns. Dawson Johnson and Vance Bolyard cannot be afterthoughts for a third straight week if this is a West Coast / 12-personnel offense. Stay ahead of the chains so Semonza is not a sitting duck on third-and-long. The sacks will not vanish overnight. The down-and-distance can. And when a drive reaches the plus-30, call the play that scores. Helmke should not be the leading scorer because the offense keeps settling. Tulane did not lose this game only because of officials, only because of Avery Johnson, or only because of one missed tackle on third down. Those things happened. The offense also spent three quarters declining to put its best players in the spots to win. The opening drive showed the version that can win in the American. The next 50 minutes showed a version that is still calling around its talent instead of through it. This was a winnable game, teams too talented to be playing like this. That can be fixed. It has to be fixed this week. Sponsor: @RedshirtLtd http://Redshirtltd.com CODE: RDW 10% OFF Licensed Tulane Lids #RollWave Make sure to follow Patrick Harkness on X
It was not pretty, but Louisiana got the 21-14 win over UAB on Saturday at Our Lady of Lourdes Stadium. Quarterback Lunch Winfield added to his rushing totals this season with 91 yards on 19 carries and two rushing touchdowns. He also went 15/20 through the air for 110 yards. Winfield came into this game as the team's leading rusher and scorer. After three games, the quarterback now has 266 rushing yards and five rushing touchdowns. Through the air, Winfield now sits at 511 passing yards and just one touchdown through the air. Outside of Winfield being a magician on the ground, the team rallied 225 rushing yards also through the help of their four main running backs. Steven Blanco and Anthony Reagan Jr. both combined for 103 yards, with a rushing touchdown by Blanco that helped put the Cajuns up 7-0 in the first quarter. What really worked in favor of UL today was how the defense performed, especially against UAB's rushing attack which averaged 230 yards per game prior to Saturday. Linebacker Conor McPherson led the team in tackles with 11, including two for losses and a sack. The passing game was not much of a help for UAB either, as they only rallied 144 yards. Safety Collin Jacob came up with an interception in the second quarter. In total, UL limited UAB to just 218 total yards and 11 first downs. What Went Right As mentioned above, UL's defense slowed down UAB pretty much the entire game. Of UAB's 12 drives in the game, 10 were forced punts or turnover on downs. UAB also never found themselves in plus territory until the third quarter. There was a drive at the start of the fourth quarter where they methodically moved 74 yards down the field, but eventually resulted in a turnover on downs inside the five. Outside of that, along with the succeeding drive where a great punt return gave them great field position and eventually a touchdown, there was not much success from the Blazers offense. UAB also found themselves struggling with penalties (an issue they've had all season), finishing the game with nine of them for 89 yards. They worked in UL's favor from the get-go, as three of those penalties came on the opening drive in the game. Those costly penalties gave the Cajuns 34 free yards on a drive that resulted in a touchdown early in the game. We can't forget about the running game, led by Lunch Winfield, which has been the horsepower of this offense up to this point. And of course, the Cajuns ended up getting wide receiver Landon Strother back after suffering a broken collar bone in fall camp. It was a big boost for the Cajuns as they have consistently struggled with getting wide outs (outside of their slot receivers) involved in any sort of vertical passing game. Strother finished the game as the leading receiver with 41 yards on five receptions. What Went Wrong Offensively, UL was not able to get inside the UAB 30 in the second half of the game and thus did not put up any points in the second half. A lot of this was due to mental mistakes like false starts and missed assignments. It also did not help that the Cajuns fumbled the ball three times and lost it twice, the first of which was returned by UAB for a touchdown halfway through the second quarter. We also did not see much improvement when it came to the passing game. As we know by now, UL has had a very difficult time getting their wide receivers involved in a vertical passing game. Strother being back helped UL make some big plays down the field, but it is still apparent that the team is still lacking when it comes to playmakers on the outside. Shelton Sampson Jr. and Trenton Chaney are expected to return soon, which may help relieve Lunch a little bit from having to keep it on the ground. Final Takeaways This is a group that is maturing together and are learning to play and fight as one team. Coming into this season, I had a lot of questions when it came to both the offense (mainly the wide receiving corps) and the defense (mainly the secondary). The wide receiver room still has flaws, but it is safe to say that the Cajuns have a talented secondary and a feisty defense in general that want to fight and win games. They only allowed one touchdown on Saturday, and they were not happy about it. But they know they are a special group. Coach Michael Desormeaux in his postgame press conference speech said that there was a lot this team needed to work on if they want to become a championship-caliber team, particularly on offense. Yes, the Cajuns won the game, and it was not pretty, but he said it best: you cannot be sad with a win. It is all back to the drawing board on Sunday as they prepare to face Charlotte next Saturday.