Bryant Vincent, who helped lead Spanish Fort’s 2010 state championship run, was announced as the 17th head football coach of the University of Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks on Tuesday, Dec. 5.

It will be Vincent’s first full-time head coaching job at the college level although he served as the interim head coach of the UAB Blazers for the 2022 season after he had served as the offensive coordinator the previous four seasons.

Vincent takes over a ULM team that started 2-0 but lost its final 10 games in a row and scored more than 40 points only one time. However, at his introductory press conference on Wednesday, the head coach was quick to say all that is history.

“Teams coming into this town, into Monroe, Louisiana, to play this team, this program and this university, they don’t really know what they’re getting themselves into right now,” Vincent said. “They can think about the past, but the past is behind us and today is a new day. This is a new era of Warhawk football and the power is in the people.”

Early and often, Vincent established that phrase, “the power is in the people,” and said one of the bigger reasons he took the job was because of the like-minded nature of those leading Louisiana-Monroe.

“Everything starts with alignment, that leads to success. Everything starts with alignment and it starts at the top,” Vincent said. “My challenge to the alumni, to the former players, to the people in northeast Louisiana, to the people in this room, it is time that we all come together as one. You’ll hear me say this all the time, the power is in the people and if you put a powerful pact together, we can accomplish anything.”

Director of Athletics John Hartwell said in the Tuesday press release that the Warhawk leadership felt as though Vincent was the perfect higher to take the program to new heights.

“We are fired up to welcome Coach Bryant Vincent to our Warhawk family and lead ULM football,” Hartwell said on Dec. 5. “Coach Vincent is bringing passion, positivity and a proven plan to guide our football program to levels of success we have not seen since becoming an FBS program. He is a relationship guy, and that will resonate with our student-athletes, prospective recruits, his coaching staff, the University, northeast Louisiana and all of Warhawk Nation.”

Most recently, Vincent breathed new life into the New Mexico Lobos as their offensive coordinator with former Spanish Fort receivers Jeremiah Hixon and Jacob Godfrey, as well as St. Michael’s Ezra Sexton, on the roster.

This season, New Mexico was 47th in total offense with 410.6 yards per game and 64th — tied with Auburn — in scoring offense with 27.2 points per game across all FBS programs. In 2022, the Lobos registered 228.1 yards per game and 13.1 points per game, the latter of which ranked 130 out of 131 teams.

As interim head coach of UAB in 2022, Vincent and the Blazers finished 7-6, including a 24-20 win over Miami (OH) in the Bahamas Bowl, with an average of 438.2 yards per game and 30.1 points per game.

Before that, Vincent had two stints with ULM’s conference foe at South Alabama where he was tight ends coach in 2011, quarterbacks coach in 2012-13 and returned as associate head coach/co-offensive coordinator from 2015-17. In between, he served another round as UAB’s offensive coordinator in 2014.

His final season on the high school scene ended with the Spanish Fort Toros’ first Blue Map trophy as Class 5A state champions where current head coach Chase Smith was also on the coaching staff. The 2010 Toros recorded the school’s first 13-win campaign and state title in just the fifth varsity season.

Vincent took over after Spanish Fort went 0-10 in its first year and compiled a 39-13 overall record with a 10-2 mark in three trips to the playoffs over the next four seasons. The Toros outscored opponents 339-217 on average in that span and have yet to miss the postseason since their first playoff berth under Vincent in 2008.

And now, for the first time since hoisting the Blue Map trophy in 2010, Vincent is once again a head football coach.

“This is about the players, this is about this town, this is about this university, this is about the people in northeast Louisiana, and I can promise you this: whatever’s in the past is over,” Vincent said. “Whatever’s in the rearview mirror is behind us and the power is in the people.”