Tulane Recruits, Local Products Play Crucial Role in Memphis Win

In today’s age of college football, recruiting almost feels like a footnote in the era of win now mode. The Tulane Green Wave have not yet discounted that facet of the game, and it paid off in spades in their victory over the Memphis Tigers.

For one, most teams look for their starting quarterback in the transfer portal at this point.

The Green Wave haven’t really followed that formula quite yet.

They went from two recruits in Michael Pratt and Darian Mensah to a technical walk on in Jake Retzlaff.

Then this season, they deviated from that a bit, initially starting Zeon Chriss-Gremillion and Kadin Semonza through the first five games of the year.

Once they felt ready, they put out true freshman Trace Johnson, who didn’t necessarily light up the scoreboard in his first collegiate start, but showed impressive poise, command, moxie, pocket awareness and mobility, and leadership.

He is immediately a win for the Tulane recruiting department. However, past him, there were several more players who made critical plays in this game who did not arrive to campus via the transfer portal.

After the Tigers scored with 3:38 left in the fourth quarter and cut the Green Wave’s lead to 23-17, Tulane had to do more than get a first down or two to seal the victory.

Head coach Will Hall pulled out a surprising but smart move that paid off. He sent in the redshirt sophomore from local John Curtis, Dagan Bruno, to start that series off.

Bruno gained five yards on the carry to set up 3rd-and-5 for Trace Johnson, who was initially targeting Destyn Hill in the air but seemed to have underthrown the pass.

Out of nowhere comes local redshirt senior from Brother Martin, Garrett Mmahat, who cut back to dive and complete the critical third down catch for 13 yards.

Back in comes Bruno, who rushed for nine yards on 2nd-and-20 to set up a manageable 3rd-and-11. Hall made the call to keep Bruno in.

He opened up the playbook and a sincere defensive wrinkle for opponents when he found Destyn Hill for a 10-yard grab to set up 4th-and-1. Johnnie Daniels ran that one home for the final touchdown of the contest.

Bruno and Mmahat weren’t big name transfers. They are locals who have stayed with the program through multiple head coaches and were crucial in the Friday night win.

So was a third key player in the victory, punter William Hudlow, who performed considerably well despite the wind while also benefitting from it a few times.

The local redshirt junior from Jesuit had six punts for 288 yards, averaged 48 yards per punt, with a long of 72 yards, two go for 50-plus yards, and two inside the 20.

All of these players were not only critical for the victory, but as a win in the recruiting department.