Tulane Defense Roars in First Fall Scrimage With Dominant Presence up Front

New Orleans, La. – The Tulane Green Wave are settling into their starting looks on the defensive line for a room that saw a lot of turnover between the transfer portal and graduating seniors this offseason.

The Green Wave lost Kam Hamiton and Jordan Norman at defensive end, Tre’Von McAlpine at nose tackle, Santana Hopper, Elijah Champaigne, and Eliyt Nairne at defensive tackle, and Harvey Dyson and Mo Westmoreland at bandit.

It’s a room that is betting a lot on recruitment and development, which was majorly done under former coach Jon Sumrall and trusted by the current staff under Will Hall.

Josh Lewis was third team at defensive end last season, and he made his way up to first team ahead of Reshad Stirling to start off Saturday’s scrimmage.

He lined up next to Derrick Shepard at nose, Ed Smith at defensive tackle, and Jah’rie Garner at bandit, who has made a presence during camp and made some plays on Saturday.

He was also a guy who was third team behind Dyson and Westmoreland but has played his way up the depth chart and is a player spoken highly of by both Sumrall and Hall.

Geordan Guidry has been nursing an injury this week but has been lined up behind Smith.

That line along with the second level linebackers made their presence felt during the first scrimmage of fall camp, with coach Hall pointing out their juice early on and their good run pressures that finally pushed back on that strong element of the offense.

Hall also noted that it’s difficult to fully judge them when they can’t be let loose to the quarterbacks who haven’t been live since spring camp.

But it’s been nice to see the defense really start to take form and that always starts up front in the trenches.

It’s still an unproven room until the team takes the first snap, and it’s not heavy on upperclassman outside some of the starting four or so up front.

While they improved on stopping the run, it’s not Tulane’s run game at full strength without Jamauri McClure of course.

But that room has multiple capable proven backs who will give opposing defenses real fits, and they weren’t able to totally dominate the Green Wave’s side on Saturday.

The offense came back later in the scrimmage and particularly in the redzone lockout period, but it would be concerning if one side totally dictated the tone of the first fall camp scrimmage.

The defense just set it early, and it started up front on the defensive line.