Pete Thamel dropped the news Wednesday: ULM is naming Aidan Armenta its starting quarterback ahead of Saturday's trip to Mississippi State, and it's not exactly a leap of faith. Armenta's thrown for 2,921 yards over his last two seasons of college ball, a track record that made this less an open competition and more a formality.
Sources: Louisiana-Monroe is naming Aidan Armenta the starter at quarterback, as ULM opens the season at Mississippi State on Saturday. Armenta has thrown for 2,921 yards in his last two years there. He's a transfer who began his career at New Mexico.
The path here is a little winding. Armenta started his career at New Mexico, a redshirt freshman behind an offense run by coordinator Bryant Vincent. When Vincent left to take over as ULM's head coach, Armenta followed him to Monroe — the classic assistant-poaches-his-quarterback portal move that's become standard operating procedure in college football.
It worked out. Armenta took over as ULM's starter last season and made 11 starts, completing 58.5% of his throws for 1,629 yards and 12 touchdowns as a redshirt sophomore. That's not gaudy, but it's a full season of live reps running Vincent's system — exactly the kind of continuity a rebuilding program wants heading into a Power 4 road opener.
And Mississippi State is the extreme end of that test. The Bulldogs and Warhawks haven't met since 1997, and this one kicks off Saturday night in Starkville with Mississippi State looking to make a statement out of the gate. ULM, meanwhile, is coming off a rough 2025 and has leaned hard into the transfer portal — Vincent added 45 new roster pieces this offseason — chasing the program's first winning season since 2012.
None of that turnaround happens without stability at quarterback, which is exactly why naming Armenta the starter days before kickoff isn't a surprise so much as a formal confirmation of what Vincent already knew. He's the guy who followed him across conferences, learned the offense, and banked a season of starts — now he gets to see what that looks like against SEC competition on the road.