ULM head coach Terry Bowden has two former HBCU head coaches on his coaching staff this season.
Former Grambling State head coach Broderick Fobbs is the running back coach at ULM while former Southern University interim head coach Jason Rollins is the team’s special teams coach.
“I’m so fortunate to have gotten Broderick Fobbs and Jason Rollins on this staff,” Terry Bowden said. “They’re both fine mentors and family men who love to coach the game. But because of their unique background before ULM, being head coaches at an HBCU, I know they’ve had to do a lot with less. Financially, they can take a budget and realize winning or losing is not about if you have the biggest budget or not. You find a way to do good with what you’ve got.”
Fobbs was the head coach at Grambling State, his alma mater, from 2014 through 2021. He went 54-32 overall, leading GSU to back-to-back SWAC titles in 2016 and 2017, and an HBCU national title in 2016. The three-time SWAC Coach of The Year was let go prior to the Bayou Classic in 2021.
“It’s amazing that someone who never had a losing season for something like to happen,” Rollins said of Fobbs. “It’s COVID. When you play a spring season, then six or seven weeks later you’re getting ready for a fall season, you’re playing 16 games in one calendar year with 63 scholarship players. It’s tough with limited resources. It’s tough on the players and the coaches. Then with the transfer portal hitting at the same time, you’re losing some of your better guys and your depth.”
Rollins had a much shorter tenure at the helm of the Southern program. He took over the program following the spring 2021 season when former head coach Dawson Odums left town for Norfolk State. He led SU to a 4-7 record before Dooley was hired as the team’s new head coach following the season. He says having been a head coach taught him a great deal.
“Being a head coach, you know what you want from an assistant,” Rollins said. “You know you need good people around you. Guys who want to take your culture and make it your own. See your vision and make it their own. Coming back as an assistant, you know exactly what a head coach wants. You can be the assistant you’d want for yourself. You work hard, toe the line and get everything done that he wants done.”
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