While it's hard to compete as a Group of Five program in today's college football, the Tulane Green Wave are finding ways to be an exception.
Everything changed in college football once the NIL era began alongside the transfer portal losing every guardrail. It may be for the better and for the worse all at once. Just look at the Indiana Hoosiers winning the National Championship. Since the NIL era began in 2021, the Tulane Green Wave have seen more program success than ever – and have been able to sustain it. That’s been despite two coaching changes, three different starting quarterbacks, and simply the reality of being a Group of Five program in a game of resources to compete.
There are 30 teams that have won 42 or more games over the span of the NIL era from 2021 to present. Impressively, the Green Wave are tied for the 15th-most wins in that five-year stretch with 45 wins alongside SMU, Iowa State, and Tennessee. What makes that more astounding is the fact that it includes the 2021 season where Tulane went 2-10. They then pulled off the greatest single-season turnaround in college football history, went 12-2 to win the Cotton Bowl, and have just kept winning ever since. To put in perspective how much NIL has changed things, the first NIL deal the Green Wave gave out was to former running back Tyjae Spears for $200.
The only G5 programs with more wins in that span are JMU and Boise State. Coincidentally, or not, including the Green Wave, those are the three G5 teams to make the expanded College Football Playoff 12-team field as the highest-ranked conference champions. So maybe none of those inclusions were a fluke, and maybe it’s easier said than done to get to the CFP. Sustained success might be a correlative factor, even a necessary one at the G5 level, and if that’s the case, Tulane has that on their side.
They’ve been able to retain an impressive core of veterans, with many of those graduating from this last season being with the program since their freshman year, like Bailey Despanie and new wide receivers GA Bryce Bohanon. They’ve done that in spite of having three coaches in Willie Fritz, Jon Sumrall, and Will Hall. They had to replace Michael Pratt, who quarterbacked three of those seasons, and then his replacement, Darian Mensah. They now are looking for the successor to Jake Retzlaff. From a recruiting perspective, the conversations they had with Pratt back in 2019 are a completely different story from what Tulane is able to offer prospective players. That's a winning culture that can't be bought.