2020. During the prior season, Bowden had assisted Clemson as an unpaid intern while pursuing a graduate degree. Bowden, a son of College Football Hall of Fame coach Bobby Bowden and former head coach at Auburn, signed a four-year contract with ULM worth $1.4 million. Conference affiliations National Junior College Athletic Association (1931–1950) NAIA Independent (1951–1952) Gulf States Conference (1953–1971) Division I Independent (1972–1977) Division I-A Independent (1978–1981, 1994–2000) Southland Conference (1982–1993) Sun Belt Conference (2001–present) Championships National championships The Warhawks have one national championship, captured in the 1987 NCAA Division I-AA Football Championship Game. Led by first team All-America Stan Humphries, the 1987 Indians squad completed the regular season with an overall record of 9–2. The losses came against Lamar and Southwestern Louisiana of Division I-A. The Indians also finished 6–0 to capture their first outright Southland Conference championship. En route to the championship game in Pocatello, Idaho, NLU defeated North Texas, Eastern Kentucky, and Northern Iowa. Played at the MiniDome in Pocatello, the Indians faced off against the Marshall Thundering Herd for the I-AA National Championship. In the championship game, Marshall took a 42–28 lead into the fourth quarter only to have Humphries lead the Indians to a pair of late touchdowns and capture the championship with a 43–42 victory. Conference championships The Warhawks have won five conference titles, three outright and two shared, and four of them while known as the Northeast Louisiana Indians. † Co-champions Rivalries Louisiana The Battle on the Bayou is the annual rivalry game between Louisiana–Monroe and Louisiana-Lafayette. A wooden boot-shaped rivalry trophy was created in 2002 to be awarded to the victors. Both schools are members of the Sun Belt Conference. The Battle on the Bayou is a rivalry not just in football, but in all sports when the Cajuns and Warhawks meet. Louisiana - Lafayette holds a 29–25 edge in the series through the 2019 season. Louisiana Tech ULM and Louisiana Tech are located 35 miles apart from each other on I-20 in North Louisiana. The matchup began in 1953 as a conference game, following Northeast Louisiana State's move to the Gulf States Conference. After the Gulf States Conference dissolved at the end of the 1970 football season, Louisiana Tech joined the Southland Conference, while Northeast Louisiana remained a football independent school, and the yearly game continued as a non-conference matchup. The game once again became a conference matchup in 1982,