The Warhawk faithful went into ULM’s matchup versus Alabama Saturday with memories of the school’s upset win over the  Crimson Tide in 2007 lingering in their minds.

But several differences existed going into that game in 2007 and the one Saturday night.

Alabama in 2007 featured a new head coach in Nick Saban that ended up going 6-6 on the season and had not yet established itself as a football dynasty.

The Warhawks caused five uncharacteristic Tide turnovers in that game and stopped several game-winning drives at the end to preserve a 21-14 victory.

Going into Saturday night’s game ULM had to be excellent defensivelly  against a dynamic and talented offensive attack.

It was imperative the Warhawks not allow the Tide run game to be established because that would give Alabama control of time of possession.

It would also force the Warhawks to stack the box opening up the pass game leading to matchup problems with Alabama’s quick outside receivers.

Alabama entered the game with the game plan of running it on the Warhawks and pounding the defense into submission.

Over the course of the game the triple threat of Derrick Henry, Kenyan Draken and Damien Harris accomplished that.

The trio went for 140 yards on the game including one toucdown.

Although ULM held Alabama to over 200 yards below its average of 500 per game, the Tide still established their dominance on the offensive side of the ball.

Offensively, the Warhawks needed to make several big plays and cut down on any penalties.

The Tide snuffed out all of the offensive designs of the Warhawks and forced them into converting only three of 20 third downs throughtout the games.

The running game was nonexistent mustering a measly nine yards throughout the game and only 85 yards in the air.

As dominant as the defense of Alabama proved to be throughout the game, several drops and miscues were made which halted potential scoring drives.

The team also couldn’t afford to make too many penatlies and ended up committing 10 for 90 yards.

Winning the turnover battle was also critical as they were going up againt an offense that was extremely versatile and effective.

The Warhawks threw two interceptions in the game causing only one takeaway themselves. They failed to turn this takeaway into points.

The errors that the Warhawks made are correctable and with improvements made on the offensive and defensive side of the ball, the rest of the season looks promising.