Opinion: The Writing is on the Wall for Tulane Football

In what was ultimately one of the most embarrassing, lopsided losses in program history, the Tulane Green Wave dropped a 60-10 contest to the Tulsa Golden Hurricane on Saturday in front of a frustrated Homecoming crowd at Yulman Stadium.

It was a flat-out disgusting performance, one that isn't even worth listing the numbers for. Tulane fell behind 32-0 by halftime and 46-0 at the end of the third quarter. The Green Wave knocked in a field goal with 13 minutes left in the contest and added a garbage-time, moral-victory touchdown in the final second of play, but the team was truly never competitive. That's inexcusable. 

Everyone knew that Tulane was on a downward slide from the very first few weeks of the season. From never-ending quarterback battles to come-from-behind wins against teams that the Green Wave was heavily favored against, far too many things rang alarm bells early. Nobody would've expected that it could be so bad that the Green Wave would take 50-point losses to middle-of-the-pack American Conference teams. 

It's beyond time to be brutally honest about the state of football in Uptown, because the writing has been on the wall for weeks, and it's only getting clearer. 

Will Hall has not done anything to indicate that he could stand a chance of turning this team around -- not just this season, because that opportunity is gone, but in the future. He hasn't built a strong staff around him. Outside of a few exceptions, most players are struggling much more than expected. High school level mistakes are made week after week, with no indication that there has been any improvement. That will never equate to winning football. 

Ahead of the season, it was fine to suggest that though Hall struggled during his tenure with the Southern Miss Golden Eagles, he would do much better in Uptown. After all, Tulane was entering the year off a College Football Playoff appearance and, though it lost some standout players to the transfer portal, it had an impressive slate of returners set to make some noise this year. That's enough to keep a program afloat, even through a coaching change, right? Obviously, that's not been the case. 

Maybe, just maybe, Hall is simply not equipped to be a head coach at this level. Is that too far-fetched of a concept? Maybe this was a hasty, emotional decision by Tulane, and rather than conducting a full-fledged coaching search, the program went with the "well-liked nice guy" rather than going out and finding a coach that would meet the team's standard. 

It's time to salvage what's left of this program and put it in good hands moving forward. There's plenty of damage to survey, and it's most likely going to take quite a bit of time to fix things. Don't keep moving forward with something that is only tearing Tulane down.

Though there's an obvious decision to be made, there seems to be lots of doubt that a decision like that will even be considered. If that's the case... then the Green Wave will be left in the dust as other teams find ways to evolve and improve.