I realized during last Friday's scrimmage that a lot of the numbers on the roster we were given were wrong or have been changed, making it extremely difficult to keep an accurate depth chart with all of the new players on the roster. I got some answers today, which will help down the road, but hopefully we will get an accurate numerical roster by the weekend with spring drills having reached the midpoint with practice 7 today and practice 8 on Thursday. Notable number changes are Kam Hamilton to 6 from 70, Kevin Adams to 7 from 23 and Dickson Agu to 2 from 28, with transfer bandit Harvey Dyson (Texas Tech) wearing 23 instead of the 6 we were given. There are others I still haven't figured out, like who is wearing No. 12 on defense at cornerback.
Jon Sumrall has been praising his defensive line since the start of spring drills, and the first-team guys today were Gerrod Henderson at end, a guy I have listed as Santana Hopper at defensive tackle (but Hopper is a 265-pound end transfer from Appalachian State), Tre'Von McAlpine at the nose and Dyson at joker. The second-teamers were DeShaun Batiste at end, Elyte Nairne at tackle, Elijah Champaigne at the nose and Mo Westmoreland at bandit. I did not see Adonis Friloux, and he was declared unavailable for interviews after someone requested him. There definitely is plenty of depth up front, but with so many new guys (the only returning starter is Hamilton, and I did not see him practicing), it is a wide-open competition for playing time.
The first-team linebackers were Sam Howard and Chris Rodgers, and I expect that to be the case when the season starts with Dickson Agu, who is sidelined with a minor injury right now, also in the mix. Howard is a no-brainer, and Rodgers is a playmaker. Speaking of playmakers, Missouri State transfer Dallas Winner-Johnson made some today, getting an interception of Donovan Leary on fourth down in an 11-on-11 drill and making a "tackle" in the backfield earlier. He was the first player I noticed on day 1 because of his unusual height (6-5) for a linebacker, but now I'm noticing him for his ability.
"He was a productive player at the FCS level," Sumrall said. "He's got great length and can run. Sometimes those long guys need to continue to work on staying low and playing with leverage is a challenge. Every room you like having guys that have different strengths. We didn't have a ton of length at linebacker on the roster. We don't have any tiny guys, but he definitely presents a different element. If the offense wants to get in three detached to the field and he's playing in the apex, that stick throw to No. 3 is a little bit more tricky because he can stick an arm out and it's like go-go gadget arms. He sticks it out and keeps going. He's very talented. He has a lot of development left. He has a really high ceiling. Some guys have high floors and low ceilings. That was me. I didn't have very much to go talent-wise but I was going to be pretty good. He's a guy that has a really high ceiling. He can be really, really special with time."
I asked him about Winner-Johnson's difficulty with leverage considering his size.
"It's hard," he said. "When you're taking on blocks, that's the biggest time it affects you at linebacker, if a guard or a tackle is getting up on you and while you're length can help keep people off of you, you also can play too high and lose your center of gravity and base. That's something he's having to continue to focus on. I've seen improvement in the spring and he will continue to grow, but he's flashed. What bodes well for him is he's flashed in the periods of live football. In the normal practice setting he's looked all right, but when we're just playing the game is when he flashes and makes a play."
Johnson and Jean Claude Joseph were on the second team. Jesus Machado, of course, is gone, but he was not working with the first team in the first two weeks of spring drills, and I believe that is what convinced him to enter the portal. I asked Sumrall about that.
"When I got here, Zeus was contemplating the portal in December of '23," Sumrall said. "We got to the end of conversations and he decided to stay. He had the ACL injury in the bowl game against Virginia Tech, very unfortunate, and then last year rehab focus was the main thing. His recovery at the start of last year was a little slow. He lacked confidence getting back into the swing of things. He and I met last week and he wanted to talk. I'm for Zeus, love him to death, grateful for what he's done for Tulane football, hate to see guys leave, but at the same time when they ask you questions about where am I, what's my role, I deal in truths. like, hey, you've got to earn it. No one's given anything. I coached the guy that owns the NCAA record for most tackles in a college career (Carlton Marshall at Troy) and I told him like every year you have to earn your job. I'm not going to give you anything. I don't care who you are. I think sometimes you feel like you need to look somewhere else. I hate it. I love Zeus. I wish him well, but we have to move on. He's working back into being confident with his knee. I told him I don't care if he's played one snap for me or 100 or 1,000, for as long as I live I'll help you the rest of my life even if I don't like the fact you're leaving. That's a different deal. Four years ago this transfer portal stuff right when I became a head coach, I probably lost my mind on some things when guys left. Now I'm like, hey, man, I'll help you. What do we need to do? I was communicating with a couple of schools last night trying to help him that had questions on him."
Carlton Marshall was a walk-on at Troy when Sumrall was the linebackers coach. By the time Sumrall returned as head coach, he became Sun Belt Defensive Player of the Year, making 22 tackles against Army and 18 against Marshall on his way to 577 for his career.
"When I took the job and he had one year of eligibility left, people were trying to get him to transfer," Sumrall said. "I said, hey, you've got to earn your job again. I know you and you should earn it, but you have to earn it."
The centers had problems with snaps today as guys rotated to the spot, including Shadre Hurst. My sources tell me Hurst is still going to play guard but they want to give him some work at the position he would have to play in the NFL. Elijah Baker began as the first-team center today, with Jack Hollifield on the second team. Landry Cannon and Reese Baker continued to work with the first unit on the right side, ahead of the multitude of transfers. The second-team line had, from left to right, Tristen Fortenberry, John Bock, Hollifield, Dominic Steward and Jayce Mitchell. That leaves Robbie Pizzolato (Nicholls) and Jude McCoskey (Indiana State). I need to find out the status of Liberty transfer Jordan Hal, who was not around when I wrote down all the numbers for individual drills before Friday's scrimmage.
Bryce Bohanon turned in the play of the day, catching a short pass from Donovan Leary and juking a DB ( I did not catch the number) out of his shoes on his way to the end zone as the offensive players on the sideline stormed behind him to celebrate. That is not the type of play Bohanon was known for in the past, but he is serious about making a major contribution as a receiver this year. He, Shazz Preston and Anthony Brown-Stephens have stood out the most to me through the first seven practices at wideout, but Bohanon is the most consistent. Preston needs to bring it every day.
Tight end LeRon Husbands went down during the 11-on-11 work and they had to move the action downfield while trainers looked at his left knee. It could be a serious injury, or it might not, but his absence would leave Tulane with Anthony Miller and Justyn Reid as the only healthy scholarship tight ends. I did not see Guisean Mirtil, who missed all but a couple of practices last spring with an ACL injury as an early enrollee from high school.
The prettiest pass of the day was an unlikely combination of Kadin Semonza to walk-on Trevor Evans, who caught pass inside the 10 on a deep out and turned upfield to cross the goal line for a touchdown. I don't have a handle on the three quarterbacks yet. I'd say TJ Finley has been the most consistent, but my concern with him is he apparently always has been a good practice player. He won the job at Texas State two years ago, but at the end of the year, they aggressively recruited his replacement from the transfer portal, prompting him to leave. Then he won the Western Kentucky job last year before suffering a season-ending injury early, which is impressive considering that program throws the ball around as much as any in the country. But he has not found a home at any of his four previous stops as the guy they trusted going forward. He's a heck of a lot better than Keon Howard, who turned out to be a stiff, but the similarity is Howard twice won the job at Southern Miss and again at Tulane with his practice play. It will be interesting to see how the current three-way battle plays out.
