Tulane Standard and Season Face Massive Test Against UTSA Roadrunners

This time last season, the opponents and situation were massively flipped for the Tulane Green Wave.

They were coming off of a major loss on the road to the UTSA Roadrunners, out of sorts, with the season goals in peril, then went into the Memphis Tigers’ house and beat them in a campaign-defining performance on the way to the CFP.

This time, all of that is happening in the Green Wave’s home Uptown at Yulman Stadium. This time, they enter the second game of this pivotal point in the year in a position of strength.

Everyone had counted out Tulane after their loss in the Alamodome against their top rivals in Tennessee. No one really favored the Green Wave in this year’s contest as they were coming off their loss to the Army Black Knights.

Enter last Friday night, where they completely flipped the script in a dominant 31-17 victory.

Now, they prepare to host the Roadrunners with a real shot at the conference title if they’re able to come out of this harsh conference start with a 2-1 record.

The Green Wave have certainly been lucky to get a bit of a home stretch here after a tough loss in West Point, NY. The advantage of Yulman Stadium has been a real thing for this program.

So is a real rivalry with the Tigers, something that notably played into the energy there on Friday night.

It was finally the game that felt like it broke a dam of sorts. It gets a bit tiring to hear about how good practices have been when nothing was being put together on the football field on game day.

The talk about needing to just execute was getting stale and bit unbelievable. Had the game against Memphis gone differently, that phrase would be falling on deaf ears.

But one thing was made clear in their first conference win. This team can execute. And when they do, it’s a completely different story than what we saw the first few weeks of a year.

Tulane got incredibly lucky to follow up a coach like Willie Fritz with Jon Sumrall, and things immediately kept going as scheduled.

It would be interesting to look into the last few years of college football and see how many successful G6 programs dealt with this turnover. Aka, their coaches kept getting poached and they kept reloading.

Memphis, South Florida, UNT, and Tulane all lost their head coaches last season. Some are faring better than others.

Those programs didn’t also lose a successful coach two years prior and have to look for a third replacement.

There is a point where it’s impossible to nail the next hire. But if the Wave beat the Roadrunners and head into a manageable conference stretch back on top, that puts a lot of things in perspective and should lend a ton of credit to coach Will Hall.