There's very little to report from an actual Thursday practice, which Jon Sumrall considers a walk-through and in which the players do not even wear helmets, but he gave an update on the status of three injured players for Saturday's game against Rice.
Tight end Alex Bauman is questionable/doubtful, with Sumrall later saying he was probably out. Makes sense. No reason to rush him back off an ankle injury.
Nickelback Caleb Ransaw is questionable, 50-50. ("He's done some but not enough to go yes."). If he cannot go, Javion White is the likely starter, with Jayden Lewis a possibility and Jahiem Johnson and Lu Tillery getting reps in practice at nickel in case they are needed. When Rice goes to two tight ends, Tulane will counter with Dickson Agu or Chris Rodgers or Sam Howard at nickel.
Shazz Preston is "probably available." Sumrall added he would run full speed tomorrow to confirm his status.
"I feel really confident in his availability," Sumrall said. "His availability is high, but what does that look like when he has not been fully cleared all week for practice."
I'm doing a story on Tulane's NIL that will run instead of a straight game preview in Saturday's paper, so I asked Sumrall about this statement on social media last week:
Sumrall on the collective
Here is what he said today:
SUMRALL
on why he posted his comment:
"The timing was the bye week, so my mind wasn't just on winning the game that week. I take the bye week to evaluate how do we get better as the year goes and then how do we build this program for the next five to 10 years. What's the landscape in college football? I've told everybody that will listen to me--facilities are great, you build a brand new building and everyone wants to talk about the bubble, and you don't have any good players, then good luck winning. NIL, rev share, those things are vital. To me it's not facilities and that. It's that and facilities if you want to know the truth. I've been a part of winning a lot of games. When I coached at the University of San Diego, my office was in a trailer. We went 9-2 three times. I've told the administration here I can be in the same office I'm in until the end of time and I'll be fine. I don't need a fancier office. I'm good. So it's about players. Everything we do is about players."
On if he feels good about where Tulane is headed in the NIL environment:
"We've got to push the gas and continue to go. I'll say that. I like what's been started here, but if we just think what we've done is enough to keep winning or keep performing at a high level, we have to keep going. You have to always constantly evolve and adapt and push the gas. If you're not pushing the gas and you're slowing down, then somebody's going to pass you and somebody's going to catch you. There's people in our league that are being very aggressive--Memphis and South Florida being the top two right now. If we don't move towards that direction, then it's hard to win at a really high level. I think we've got really great assistant coaches. They coach great players really well. They coach bad players not very good. We need a great roster. I tell people all the time--players win games, coaches lose them. I've lost a couple games. I haven't won any. You know who wins the games--the players. Players win the game, and so we have to have good players. How do you get good players now? Take care of them. We have the Green Wave Grill. Man, wow. That's unbelievable, right? That's on a different level, so it's about do you constantly serve and develop players."
GASPARATO
On giving up explosive runs and how you fix it:
"It just shows that we can be really good when we do our jobs. When we don't, then everybody we play against has good players and they have the ability to create explosives when you don't figure a gap, when you don't cover your man, when you don't wrap the ball carrier up. Big plays are due to a lack of execution. It's generally not a lack of effort. It's just you don't execute, so whether it's a 5-yard gain or a 25-yard gain, for us it's about doing your job on that play. If you do your job, then big plays are eliminated. We've looked at the explosives, but that's what it comes down to is everybody executing, so there's no special call or magic potion. It's just do your job and make the plays you are supposed to make."
On fixing it:
"For us again, it's about doing our job, so when we execute and do our job and everybody's where they are supposed to be, the big plays will eliminate themselves. We put an emphasis on doing your job as opposed to eliminating those explosives because they kind of go hand in hand from our standpoint."
On Huntington playing bandit:
"He has been a little bit more flexible. He gives us twitch, the ability to come off the edge and create some mismatches. He's got a little different skill set. I know the guy that played here last year was a 300-pounder playing out there (I guess he is referring to Darius Hodges, who was 280 and carried a bit of a spare tire on his belly) and it kind of opened my eyes to who you can play and still be effective with, so our job as coaches is to find the best way to get our personnel to win and be in the position where they can use their strengths."
On Tulane's versatility up front:
"We have a lot of guys with unique skill sets where they can do a little bit of both. We had tinkered with Gerrod (Henderson) playing some bandit, and he looked really good doing it in the spring I believe or maybe in the summer, so we've moved these guys around to try to cross-train them to be ready and available, and it also creates depth. If one guys does go down, then you have the ability to move a really good player into that position, so you're not hamstrung by necessarily a depth chart. You can move your best players around to get them on the field and be a little bit more effective."
I'll finish with this nugget which was fed to me by SID Jason Corriher. Tulane's current string of not committing a turnover for three games is its longest going all the way back to the final five games of 1998. I keep saying this is Tulane's best team since 1998, and here's another similarity between the two teams. But, seriously, how impressive is it that the '98 team, which threw the ball a ton, executed so well with Shaun King and company that it went without a turnover for five straight games. Amazing.
