Veteran Warhawks struggle to find consistency

If Todd Berry has said it once, he’s said it thousands of times in his six seasons at ULM.

To be successful in the Sun Belt Conference, your team has to be mature and stay healthy. Injuries have taken a toll on the roster — as has become tradition at ULM — and in particular ravaged a group of wide receivers that was the strength of the offense.

Coaches can’t control injuries, but they can control the makeup of their teams. Maturity was supposed to take care of itself now that Berry had 17 seniors on the roster, with 10 of those 17 in graduate school.

Instead the Warhawks have shown very little hallmarks of a mature football team.

“The bottom line is we aren’t very consistent right now in any facet of the game,” Berry said. “I’m really proud of some of the things we did last week at Tulsa but the inconsistencies are still hurting us.”

ULM has an identity but not the one it wants

A new set of problems emerged from the wreckage of ULM’s 34-24 loss to Tulsa, a game where the Warhawks came from 17 points down to take the lead in the third quarter only to lose it with 8:41 left to play.

ULM turned the ball over twice in the fourth quarter and Tulsa cashed in both times for touchdowns. The Golden Hurricane possessed the ball over 10 minutes longer than the Warhawks, including a 9:22-to-5:38 advantage in the fourth quarter.

“We had some momentum before those turnovers,” Berry said. “Defensively we kept the ball in front of us but we allowed them to have some first downs and hold the ball an awful lot.

“Offensively we’ve got to sustain some drives and some of those kinds of things to gain field position. Some of it’s been offense and special teams-related but we haven’t created many turnovers either.”

ULM’s defense has only forced four turnovers compared to nine giveaways by the offense for a margin of -5 on the year.

On the flipside of things, Appalachian State — the next team coming into JPS Field at Malone Stadium this Saturday — aren’t dealing with a barrage of injuries and is playing the kind of mature football Berry thought he would get from ULM this year.

The Mountaineers haven’t lost a Sun Belt game in over calendar year after climbing out of a 1-5 hole to finish 7-5 in 2014 and currently sit at 4-1.

Eight of Appalachian State’s 20 returning starters are seniors, compared to nine for ULM. The Warhawks could have two more seniors in the lineup but Rashon Ceaser remains out indefinitely and Tyler Cain was lost for the season in fall camp — both with lower-body injuries.

“At the first part of last season we didn’t catch a couple breaks but our kids just stayed with the process and things started clicking for us,” Appalachian State head coach Scott Satterfield said. “We were fortunate to have most of our guys back and they’ve really taken what we did last year and built off it.”

Penalties haven’t been a chronic issue in Boone like they have in Monroe — ULM is now dead last in the FBS in penalties per-game and 122 in penalty yards per-game — but Appalachian State does rank outside of the top-80 in both of those categories.

The Mountaineers aren’t costing themselves points on special teams like ULM either, and haven’t had a kick of any kind blocked all season.

While Appalachian State hasn’t played the kind of schedule the Warhawks have to this point, opening the season with FCS Howard, at Clemson, at Old Dominion, Wyoming and at Georgia State.

Regardless of schedule, the Mountaineers are first in the Sun Belt in points allowed (11.4 per-game) and second in points scored (35.2 per-game).

“They’ve gotten on a roll and are really playing with a swagger. There’s a confidence that comes with winning and you can see it on the field,” Berry said.

“It demonstrates itself on the video and you can see it on the sideline.”

Follow Adam on Twitter @adam_hunsucker