Tulane Football Continues ‘The Gauntlet’ Under New Strength & Conditioning Director

As important as players and coaches are in college football, a program is arguably as strong as its strength and conditioning program. There was no magic formula that caused the Tulane Green Wave football team to pull off the greatest single-season turnaround in the sport’s history in 2022. It was a player-led, championship mentality and culture that was born out of the strength and conditioning program led by the late Kurt Hester. Hester’s successor, Rusty Whitt, is with former coach Jon Sumrall and the Florida Gators. The Green Wave are now led under new coach Will Hall by new director of strength and conditioning, Colin Kenyon, who was promoted this offseason.

Their first task is a familiar one for Tulane fans that was started under Whitt and will be continued on by Kenyon beginning Wednesday – The Gauntlet. It’s a daily program that the players will set to compete and beat together. The point is to eliminate mental errors caused by exhaustion late in games, and to simulate that by enduring a gritty battle that they’ll repeat until they defeat each morning. It also helps a program parse out the leaders. Player-led teams are the ones that are great, and a program like The Gauntlet sets to establish a standard and accountability among teammates.

"The mental errors— those are wins and losses," Whitt spoke of the Gauntlet in 2024. "You remind the players that every mental mistake is a blown assignment during a game. The key players, like the Shadre Hursts of the world, need to have enough of that accountability to bring the other guys along with them."

It’s important that Kenyon is electing to continue that program as a mentee of Whitt. Kenyon worked under Whitt from 2019 to 2025, beginning as an assistant at Army and later with the Troy Trojans and the Green Wave. They spent seven years together, and Kenyon also spent important time at West Point learning the mentality of service academy players and a true toughness that Tulane needs to emulate.

American Conference Championship MVP Jack Tchienchou spoke about the importance of the program back in 2024 as well and has seen that January work culminate in back-to-back American title appearances, one championship, and a College Football Playoff appearance.

"Toughness is in everything, so when we lift and you may not want to, you've just got to be tough and get through it," Tchienchou said. "When you're tired, you have to be tough and get through it. It's really a mental thing rather than physically being tough. When you're mentally strong, not a lot of things can break you, so that's what he really tries to harp on."

"It's really difficult waking up that early and getting yelled at and the whistle's blowing in your face," he said. "But once you get through it, you realize how good it was for the team and the benefits it has. I was up close to 4:50 am every morning for that."

The team has to go through a series of physical challenges early in the morning, and they have to repeat the entire Gauntlet the next day if they commit a mental error. It took several days for Tulane to beat it. That type of shared adversity experience really matters to building team camaraderie, leadership, and toughness. If the first-time adversity hits is the end of a critical game and the team has no shared response to it, that won’t see a team come together. As the group of several new transfers start to work alongside the returnees, The Gauntlet will hit the gas pedal on that.