Terry Bowden was once the head coach of the Auburn Tigers, so there is no love lost between him and the Alabama Crimson Tide football program. Following his Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks scoring a single touchdown to Alabama’s 63 points on September 17, Bowden didn’t back down from any gamesmanship when discussing the blowout loss.
“Team morale is the most important thing you deal with, not losing your confidence when you go to some of these games,” Bowden said at the post-game presser this past Saturday per AL.com’s Nick Alvarez. “They don’t know this, but Alabama just built us a weight room today by playing us. So there’s some good that came out of this game.”
Bowden’s loss to Alabama moves his personal coaching record against the Crimson Tide to a 3-3 tie. Auburn had won all three home games Bowden coached for in 1993, 1995, and 1997 but lost the two games played in Birmingham in 1994 and 19996. Bowden was fired from Auburn before he could play Alabama in 1998 after just five games after a 1-5 start to the season.
Terry Bowden’s Guys Weren’t Fooled Going Into Alabama Game
Any Group of Five team stepping up to face a Power Five ‘blue blood’ needs to have its fair share of irrational confidence heading into the matchup. It’s how Appalachian State made a name for itself in 2007 when it upset Michigan, and then again in Week 2 when the Mountaineers upset Texas A&M.
Terry Bowden, however, wasn’t going to let his guys get it in their heads that losing to Alabama would be a failure by any stretch. Entering the game as 49-point underdogs on the spread, that would have been head coaching malpractice.
“You can’t lie to these guys,” he said during a September 13 press conference. “They know who we’re playing. I’ve talked to them about having the audacity to believe that anything can happen any given Saturday, but have the tenacity to play as hard as you can every snap and never give up. The truth lies somewhere in between.”
Terry Bowden On The Second Quarter Against Alabama
Things got out of hand pretty quickly when Louisiana-Monroe traveled to Tuscaloosa for a mismatched Week 3 clash between the defending SEC Champions and a Warhawks program that notched less wins the last three years than Alabama did last season.
By the end of the fourth quarter, the Crimson Tide had gone up by 4 touchdowns after a deep touchdown pass from Bryce Young to Traeshon Holden, a pick-six and a blocked punt accounted for the first three scores in just five minutes of play. With that said, ULM showed some life against Alabama in the second quarter when Warhawks running back Malik Jackson found the end zone on a 12-yard red zone carry.
Terry Bowden lauded the effort from his guys at the start of that second quarter during the post-game scrum. “I was really proud. There was a quarter there that was kind of fun,” Bowden said. “… If we get that and we’re kind of down there and we get the first score of the second half and it gives us a little better start. But they just piled it on. Couldn’t stop them. They’re an outstanding team just as Texas was.”
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ULM Coach Dismisses Alabama Despite Blowout Loss: ‘They Built Us a Weight Room’