There’s an unavoidable elephant in the room heading into the Tulane Green Wave’s matchup against the Duke Blue Devils.

As the Blue Devils’ game notes put it, it’s a “homecoming of sorts” for quarterback Darian Mensah. The Green Wave team is more than aware of that.

But we’re in a unique era of college football where, quite frankly, half the starters on Tulane weren’t on the team last year to have any real emotions surrounding it.

And even to those who were here last season, the overfocus on Mensah’s return almost overshadows the preparation by the team this week.

Tuesday’s media session after practice with head coach Jon Sumrall, quarterback Jake Retzlaff, and safety Jack Tchienchou revealed some interesting perspectives surrounding that dominating storyline.

I was curious whether Retzlaff has any sort of chip on his shoulder because of all the talk of his predecessor, and whether he wanted to make people forget about the last guy under center.

His answer was refreshingly grounded and candid as someone who, frankly, doesn’t have much reason to care about all that.

“Not really, to be honest with you,” Retzlaff said. “For me, I know he is a good player, and I know he played here. I know the history behind it. I wasn't here when he was here. So, for me, it's just going against Duke's defense this week. Everybody likes to draw the comparison between quarterbacks, but in reality, I’ve got very little to do with what he does on the field on Saturday.”

For every defensive line starter but Kam Hamilton on Saturday, they’ll be looking to sack a quarterback they’ve never faced in practice.

But when speaking with Tchienchou, it became clear that whether a player on this roster was here last year or not, the defense definitely wants to quell all the noise.

“I mean, yeah, I've played against him,” Tchienchou said of Mensah. “I've picked him off. He’s scored on us. It's gone back and forth before. But I feel like we know that he's going to throw the ball. He wants to put the ball in the air, and it's kind of going to be on the back end to make things right. There's kind of a chip on our shoulder. This game's going to come down to whether our defense can cover or not.”

Tchienchou also explained that there aren’t ill feelings towards their former quarterback, and they’re just focused on his abilities as a player.

“I think the emotions will be high in terms of the student section and stuff, but at the end of the day, we're playing football,” Tchienchou said. “We're going to do our job and play ball at the end of the day.”

There’s never been a media session that was dominated by questions about one player on the opposing team more than Tuesday’s.

The elephant in the room was pointed out several times. But in this new age of college football, the team has adapted and moved on, and have a sound perspective on how to mentally handle this matchup.