The college football coaching cycle is sheer madness this season, and it is only Week 10. With the axing of LSU Tigers’ head coach Brian Kelly, that makes 12 FBS programs – eight of which are Power Four – to let go of their coach before the end of October.

For successful fans of Group of Five teams, that means palm-sweating time – just usually not this early in the year. It’s nothing new for Tulane Green Wave fans, who have experienced this for three consecutive seasons.

Unsurprisingly, head coach Jon Sumrall is at the top of every list, the most recent being the Tigers’ vacancy, from ESPN national writers to local coverage, including by LSU Roundtable's Dylan Sanders.

“Watching him give press conferences and coach on the sidelines, he just gets it,” Sanders writes.

The ESPN story doesn’t even have a picture of Kelly – it’s one of Sumrall. Such is the life of the G5. It’s a bunch of noise ahead of a crucial stretch for the Green Wave, one that doesn’t need to entertain these distractions at this point.

It’s one thing when these situations start to trickle in around the final regular season game and start to louden around the time of Conference Championships. It’s another thing to have all this hoopla brought up when there are five conference opponents left on the schedule.

Some of that frustration, perhaps, was felt in Sumrall’s elaborate answer when asked Monday about the coaching carousel cycle.

“I'm so focused on where we're at as a team, maybe even more so than ever,” Sumrall said. “I was a maniac at practice two days ago, and people probably felt like I was on drugs because I fear complacency. I fear distraction. I'm the head football coach of Tulane. I'll talk about Tulane; I'll talk about us playing UTSA. I'll probably get asked this tomorrow I'm sure too. UTSA is 22-0 at home in conference games since 2020. I got enough problems with this football game to not be distracted by anything other than them.”

In his remarks, Sumrall mentioned that he preempted this in July by addressing it with players directly. He brought up the sage point that it’s also a decision players will have to make at the end of the year – Tulane lost half of their roster to the portal despite retaining their head coach.

“I told the guys, let's let the season be the season,” he continued. “Let's not allow BS distractions of somebody putting out a speculative article about who could be a candidate here or who could transfer where. Let's just play football games and have fun doing it together.”

The nearly two-minute response can be found in full here.

Sure, a head coach is never going to outright say that they were entertaining offers. But it really felt like now was not the time. For players that were on the roster last season, they know what it’s like to potentially have outside noise play a factor in how the year ends.

For those who weren’t, well, they understand college football comes with player movement as much as it does head coaches. That’s how they ended up in a Green Wave uniform.

Not to mention, the impending transfer portal window that previously forced early head coaching changes was moved back to January, allowing teams to have a better shot at finishing what they started.

It was clear on Monday that Tulane’s season’s finish, starting with a tough road contest in San Antonio, Tx., is the only thing on Sumrall’s mind.