The Tulane Green Wave are slowly building a core of returning players.
The name of the game in today’s college football is to have to rebuild and retain every year now. The good news is, the transfer portal only has one window now that will open in two days on Friday, Jan. 2. The bad news is that may cause a lot of guys to sort of panic dip their toes into the portal waters, knowing they only have one opportunity to do so. Or, for Tulane Green Wave players, they may be riding the momentum of the College Football Playoff when their stock might not ever be higher.
Then there’s just general attrition from graduating seniors that are out of eligibility. That can quickly decimate a starting roster with enough departures, which is why it’s critical for teams to build and develop depth. Sure, teams will go to the portal to recoup talent, the Green Wave included. But the time that incoming players will need to understand and learn the system they’re joining will take a bit of assimilation that returning players won’t have to worry about as much, especially defensively. New defensive coordinator Tayler Polk will want to leave his own mark on the unit but probably won’t reinvent the wheel too much.
That likely means that Tulane will stay in their 3-4 scheme on defense that has a Bandit who lines up on the line of scrimmage. However, they’ll need a new starter in that place. Mo Westmoreland is a graduating senior, and Harvey Dyson declared his intent to enter the transfer portal. Between the two of them, that’s 11 sacks from 2025 lost and a lot of production. But importantly, there was a third player on the depth chart behind those two at the role: Jah’rie Garner.
The redshirt junior recently announced Tuesday night that he is returning to the program for the 2026 season under new head coach Will Hall. Garner appeared in all 14 games for the Green Wave in 2025 and showed promise and talent after working back from an ACL injury. He posted 14 total tackles, 1.5 tackles for loss, and one fumble recovery. While those numbers don’t jump off the stat sheet, they certainly show what he could do in limited time. It’s a big returner for the defense with all the talent lost at the Bandit role.
There’s nothing teams can do about graduating seniors. Tulane, at minimum, was already set to lose Westmoreland as a result. Defensive lineman also can be paid a premium in NIL in the transfer portal, so it’s always a position teams will need to reload at. Luckily for the Wave, they’ll start with one returner already poised to run it back at the role.