In today’s age of college football, the Tulane Green Wave have a rare group on their team as they head into Saturday’s regular season finale that will also be their Senior Night. Of those seniors, five will be walking that were on the roster for the 2022 Cotton Bowl. Three of those five were with the program in the 2-10 year – and helped cultivate the greatest single-season turnaround in college football history.

For guys like safety Bailey Despanie, that 2-10 season in 2021 makes everything mean more as the team chases a fourth chance at a conference title – something never done in the American. 

“It definitely makes it sweeter for me and those guys [on that same team],” Despanie said. “We put so much into the program to get it back to this position. I feel like we accomplished that. But the job not finished.”

Not to mention that back-to-back wins all but guarantee a spot in the College Football Playoff. With NIL, the transfer portal, and so much player movement, that’s almost impossible to find a group who stuck through a two-win season and a coaching change over the course of several years. It’s almost impossible to believe that players like Despanie could see this future in 2021 and decide to see the tough times out.

“It took a lot,” Despanie said. “It took a lot for our administration, the coaches, the players. I feel like everybody bought into our Tulane culture and I feel like that's the majority of the problem solver right there. Everybody just bought in, and we’ve just been playing Tulane fashion football ever since then.”

Now, the team has gone to three straight championships in a row – and lost the last two of them. That’s stung – both Despanie and guard Shadre Hurst talked about having a bad taste in their mouth from the way those seasons have ended.

“After losing two, really getting that first one, winning the first conference championship, winning the Cotton Bowl set the standard that really set the standard for those years moving forward,” Hurst explained. “Losing these past two conference championships really put a bad taste in my mouth. The hunger, the desire is there. We really, really want this. I feel like we can't be denied.”

To that point, the win over Army didn’t do much to get rid of that bad taste.

“We always knew it was always a goal to make the conference championship,” Despanie said. “It was never a goal to beat Duke, to beat Army. It was always a goal to make the conference championship. That definitely stayed in the back of our mind and having that taste in our mouths out. It feels good to have our opportunity to host the conference championship, but we still got to go win though this weekend.”

The seniors are one win away from history, and sticking it out to build a culture and program in today’s state of college football is a lasting legacy they’ll leave in tandem.