Texas football coach Steve Sarkisian couldn’t help but laugh at what he saw from the quarterback at Evangel Christian Academy, a Shreveport, La., high school powerhouse in the early 2000s.
Sarkisian, then an assistant coach at Southern Cal, recruited and coached John David Booty, who was under center for Evangel Christian. When faced with an opposition blitz, Booty’s response was to back up farther in the shotgun, undaunted by the additional distance, looking for more time to load up his cannon of a right arm.
“They’d be about 9 yards deep and let it rip,” Sarkisian said.
By the time Booty finished at USC, he ranked fifth in career completions (518) and passing yards (6,125).
When Sarkisian and his Longhorns (3-0) host Louisiana-Monroe (2-0) on Saturday (7 p.m., ESPN+, SEC+), he’ll be greeted by an offense led by a familiar name.
General Booty, John David’s nephew, is the starting quarterback for the Warhawks, helping bring that program into a new era under first-year coach Bryant Vincent.
“General can throw it; he can let it rip, and it’s very natural for him,” Sarkisian said. “It’s not like he’s working too hard to throw the ball and make reads and throw under duress.”
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Booty has helped bring some much-needed stability to a ULM offense that floundered under former coach Terry Bowden. From 2020 to 2023, the Warhawks never averaged more than 22.3 points, coming in under the 20-point threshold twice.
Things look different under Vincent. ULM scored 30 points in a season-opening victory over Football Championship Series opponent Jackson State and then pounded Trent Dilfer’s UAB team 32-6 in Week 2.
And the Warhawks have done that by keeping things simple for Booty, who transferred in the offseason from Oklahoma. (He didn’t throw a pass in two seasons as a Sooner.) Booty has attempted a grand total of three passes 10 yards or farther down the field through two starts. It’s not the gunslinging approach Sarkisian remembers from Booty’s uncle, but it’s working.
He is completing 63.3% of his passes, with 191 yards and one touchdown on the season. After turning the ball over 18 times in 12 games last year, ULM has not yet given the ball away.
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Though potentially skewed by the game script, the numbers show that the Warhawks operate one of the most run-heavy offenses in the country. ULM has run the ball nearly 45 times per game this season to rank 12th nationally. By contrast, only the three Division I service academies are attempting fewer passing plays per game than the Warhawks’ 15.5.
True freshman running back Ahmad Hardy leads the ULM backfield. He’s rushed for 161 yards on 33 carries, finding the end zone twice. James Jones, a junior college product, has been slightly more efficient. He’s carried the ball 20 times for 110 yards and a touchdown through two games.
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The Longhorns, though, have proved they can handle that type of approach. Against Michigan, which won a national championship last season thanks mostly to a powerful rushing attack, Texas allowed just 3.5 yards per carry.
In the past two weeks, Texas has been particularly impressive defending the run on third down. In nine opportunities on third down with fewer than 4 yards to go, UTSA and Michigan converted just twice.
“I think we’ve played really good short-yardage defense,” Sarkisian said this week. “That’s something that we take a lot of pride in. We’ve been good the last couple years. We lost a couple of really good players that made some of those plays: T’Vondre Sweat, Byron Murphy. But you turn around and you come to this year, and we’ve been playing really well in short yardage again. Alfred Collins, most notably, has been playing really well there.”
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