A marquee LSU matchup means a lot for Louisiana football, but sustained winning matters more for Tulane's program long-term.
The Tulane Green Wave announced an important scheduling note down the line earlier this week as they have a non-conference game set with the LSU Tigers now for the 2030 college football season.
In the days of the sport that we now live in, having a marquee out-of-conference matchup can be crucial for a Group of 6 program like the Green Wave if a win is attainable.
It’s impossible to predict where the Tigers or Tulane will be in 2030 with the way the college sports landscape is nowadays.
The SEC can be an incredibly hard hurdle for a G6 program to climb for a win.
The Green Wave haven’t beaten an SEC program since 2006 when they toppled the Mississippi State Bulldogs 32-29 in a close contest in Starkville.
It certainly begs the question of whether that type of win is attainable.
Ironically, Tulane will have to not only face LSU, but also the Bulldogs in a rematch in 2030.
This year, the non-conference slate features the Duke Blue Devils, South Alabama Jaguars, Kansas State Wildcats, and Southern Miss Golden Eagles.
Two Power 4 teams seem to be the sweet spot.
Next season, they’ll just have one ACC team in the Wake Forest Deamon Deacons, with the Golden Eagles returning and the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns and Nicholls Colonels finishing out the 2027 slate.
2028 only has one team scheduled, the Iowa State Cyclones out of the Big 12. 2029 is the same slate.
That leaves a lot to be desired until the 2030 season for marquee matchups on their face.
But it does feel like those are some attainable wins for the Green Wave, and history has shown for those to matter.
Tulane didn’t necessarily make the College Football Playoff for beating Duke and the Northwestern Wildcats.
But they wouldn’t have gotten there for simply running the table in conference play had they lost there, as a lot of last season was determined by tiebreakers for the conference championship that included being the highest ranked CFP team.
Scheduling the game against LSU is great for the state of Louisiana. Regional battles matter.
But they may matter more for the state than the program. It does signify that Tulane intends and expects to be a successful football team.
They haven’t faced each other since 2009, and the Green Wave program is lightyears different from where it was back then.
The last time they beat LSU was in 1982.
Should Tulane be on track to beat them four years down the line, that would mean that they’ve figured out how to sustain winning, and that’s more valuable than the opponent name on the schedule card.
