New Tulane Coaching Staff Continues To Take Shape With Important Promotions

The Tulane Green Wave have started to shape their staff under new head coach Will Hall, with several retentions and promotions from within taking place just days after their elimination from the College Football Playoff. The team’s new defensive coordinator is 30-year-old linebackers coach Tayler Polk, who will become the youngest defensive coordinator in the country. The staff will be incredibly important to have in place and be ready to recoup talent in the transfer portal.

But a program’s culture starts and ends with its strength and conditioning program. If you ask players from the Cotton Bowl team that pulled off the greatest single-season turnaround in college football history who they credit most with the turnaround, it’s former director and strength of conditioning, the late Kurt Hester. When Jon Sumrall took the job at Troy, he asked the players which coaches he should keep. He planned to bring in his own strength coach until the players pleaded to keep Rusty Whitt.

Now that Whitt is sticking with Sumrall and heading to the Florida Gators, that’s a big void to fill for the Green Wave. They are promoting associate director of strength and conditioning, Colin Kenyon, to the director of the program. Kenyon has been with Whitt since 2019. Kenyon was the assistant coach under Whitt at Army in 2019, and came with him to the Troy Trojans, and later followed him to Tulane. That 7-year stint certainly instills a lot of the grit and toughness values that Whitt promoted in the Green Wave football team, especially with Kenyon spending time at Army.

In addition, a team’s success starts and ends in the trenches, and Guerry Smith of NOLA.com reports that one of the targets for open positions is Cody Kennedy at offensive line coach, who worked under Hall as his o-line coach when Hall was the offensive coordinator at Tulane from 2019 to 2020. Kennedy was going to follow Hall to Southern Miss but instead went to Arkansas to be the offensive line coach for three years. He then took the same job at Mississippi State in 2024 but was fired at the end of last season. He was seen at practice at Tulane observing through spring and fall.

Lastly, Football Scoop reports that the Green Wave are targeting Texas special teams assistant Chris Forestier for special teams coordinator, as Johnathan Galante is following Sumrall to Florida as well. Forestier has been with the Longhorns in his role for two seasons, and was previously at Houston, and an assistant at LSU for six years under Ed Orgeron and Brian Kelly.