The Tulane Green Wave will kick off spring practice with a former quarterback as their new head coach.
In the recent golden era for Tulane Green Wave football, there have been two leaders at the top who have made their mark, former coaches Willie Fritz of the Houston Cougars and Jon Sumrall of the Florida Gators. New head coach Will Hall has assumed leadership duties for the Green Wave, but spring practice will offer the first glimpse of what that looks like in a full practice setting when it kicks off next Tuesday, March 9. It’ll offer the first look at the third consecutive quarterback competition for the Wave. However, it’ll be the first offense that is built with an offensive-minded head coach since the team began sustaining success.
Fritz was a former defensive back at Pittsburg State University and was a defensive coordinator and special teams coordinator before snagging his first head coach role. Sumrall was a former linebacker for the Kentucky Wildcats, and was a defensive coordinator and special teams coordinator before snagging his first head coach role. That doesn’t really mean anything; there are certainly notable stylistic and personality differences between offensive and defensive-minded coaches. There’s no reason to correlate the sustained success with a defensive and special teams-oriented background. It does, however, make this latest era a curious one to watch develop.
Defense wins championships, but explosive offenses are becoming more and more of the name of the game, particularly when looking at the evolution of the game at the NFL level, which is the ultimate goal for these college football players. It certainly offers a different recruiting pitch, especially to quarterbacks, with Hall telling Crescent City Sports that he plans to “build the offense around [our] quarterback,” whoever that might be.
Does that indicate that this quarterback competition won’t continue into fall camp? It’s a bit hard to imagine designing an offense around a quarterback who isn’t named until a month before the 2026 season.
“We always want at least one quarterback who can move around a little bit — a dual-threat guy,” Hall continued. So, mobility will be something to watch out for in the spring sessions, though that’s a trait rather limited in a practice setting. It’ll be a competition that features returning transfer Kadin Semonza, who was MAC Freshman of the Year, and Zeon Chriss Gremillion, who transferred from the Cougars. There are also freshmen Jay Beamon and Cade Scott and early enrollee Trace Johnson, son of former NFL quarterback Doug Johnson.
If this Tulane offense plans to start and end with the quarterback, that’ll be the position to watch once spring practice kicks off, one that may be a bit more explosive than years’ past.