Tulane will practice four teams times in its open week, and today, the only one open to reporters, was practice No. 2. It was a relatively light workout, but Darian Mensah looked sharp on several of his throws. I expect him to play even better in the second half of the season than he did in the first half, and as long as the offensive line holds up, this will be the Wave's highest scoring team since 1998. Mensah has three playmaking wideouts in Mario Williams, Dontae Fleming and Yulkeith Brown. Makhi Hughes is the best running back in the AAC, and the backup running backs are the best reserves at that position in the league.
The defense is deep, too. Jalen Geiger had an interception against the scout team today, and his interception at the end of the ULL game is the only one by a starter among the last five. Jack Tchienchou had the pick-six near the end of the first half against the Cajuns, and reserve defensive tackle Eli Champaigne, reserve nickelback Javion White and reserve linebacker Chris Rodgers (another pick-six) accounting for the three interceptions against UAB. I would not count on reserve safety Joshua Moore joining that club. He showed stone hands today when he dropped an easy interception against the scout team. I did some research today and learned the last defensive tackle to make an interception for Tulane was Taurean Brown on Nov. 13, 2004 against Army. I was still in Gainesville covering Florida back then, so I don't know of him, but does anyone remember his 18-yard return against Army in a 45-31 home win? The AP game story, which is available on the Tulane web site, did not mention the play.
Tristen Fortenberry and Gabe Fortson are the only scholarship players on the scout-team offensive line. All of the other linemen played against UAB with the exception of Jayce Mitchell, with Elijah Baker, Landry Cannon, Darion Reed and Reese Baker getting action in the fourth quarter. Kaleb Thomas is a regular reserve, and I assume Dominic Steward played a little bit before the fourth quarter as well.
Jon Sumrall, Chris Rodgers and Yulkeith Brown talked after practice today. Rodgers was shaky, likely hardly ever have done interviews before, but Brown was really outspoken.
SUMRALL
"Good to get the win last week. It's nice to be in a bye week with the win. It's always better in a bye with a win. Our guys did some really good things last week in the game. A lot to improve on this week to make sure we're heading for the stretch run of the season. We're half-way in in the regular season with six games left, so a lot of improvement on our end is needed this week to take the steps forward to have the type of year we want to have and a lot of work to be done. We're not anywhere near a finished product and we have not arrived. We have a lot to improve upon."
On his bye week mindset:
"Yesterday was a really intensive day on ourselves, and then some correction things on defense today that maybe have caused issues for us. The first part of this week we looked at ourselves predominantly and this afternoon, and tomorrow we'll start to look more at, OK, what's coming the rest of the year. We'll give next week's game its due diligence. We might give it an extra day, like a Thursday practice, but really it's about healing, recovering and then maybe looking at OK, who's not getting as much as they should and who's getting more than they should, maybe recalibrating some rotational stuff. And then we will look ahead and not just just next week, but what do we have coming down in the next five weeks, six weeks of the season that we need to be prepared for, the things we haven't seen. Maybe what offensively we have not seen and what defensively we have not seen that we have to be prepared for. So it's evaluation of ourselves, it's taking care of our guys that play a lot of snaps, it's maybe getting some young guys ready who haven't played as much naps to maybe be called upon down the stretch. With guys' availability, maybe looking at some different packages personnel wise, and it's what do we have coming down the stretch that we haven't done or seen from an opponent that we need to be prepared for."
On hurricane approaching Tampa:
"I talked to (USF coach) Alex Golesh on Sunday. He wanted to talk about a couple other issues, and we talked about that as well. I think they are going to Orlando maybe today for a couple of days to try to at least move away. Our thoughts and prayers are with all of those people who are in the way of where that storm is headed. You have to have contingency plans. If we had a serious storm like they have now, our plan is Birmingham where we would evacuate to. When we were tracking the storm we had, it didn't look it was going to be quite as severe, so how much do we keep things as normal as possible but keep our guys safe. Every storm's different. Where it hits in the week is a challenging thing, too. They were playing a Friday game but now they've moved it back (to Saturday at 2:30). You have to be prepared, and luckily our administration has done a lot way ahead of win a storm comes to help us have contingency plans. We were very fortunate to not have to fully evacuate town. We evacuated to our team hotel here locally, which we're very fortunate to be able to have that opportunity, but our thoughts are with those people in the path of the storm and with the South Florida program."
On Bauman:
"Nothing torn, nothing fractured. Some bumps and bruises in there, but all things considered a very positive prognosis. He'll be out this week. He would have been limited anyways to get his body back. He could be available next week. We'll see. We're not going to rush it. We'll be smart and do right by him, but he was very fortunate on the hit. It looked nasty the way his knee or leg got kind of contorted. His cleat wasn't in the ground. If his cleat had been stuck in the ground, it would probably be worse news, but very grateful we got positive news on the injury. It's not as significant."
On Bauman as safety net for Mensah:
"Well, a smart guy who's in the right spot. A big guy who you don't to throw a perfect ball to every time for him to find a way to make the catch. He's got a great catch radius. I'd like to throw the ball to a guy like that, too, if I was playing quarterback, so I think he's been a nice comfort for Darian. Alex has been extremely reliable and dependable, has great ball skills and catch radius and just does the right stuff. He has very good poise when the ball's in the air. Some guys panic when the ball's in the air. Some guys are just very calm. Darian's felt comfortable getting him the ball and it's been a good weapon for us in the pass game. Alex is blocking it, too. He's had a really good year so far."
On his Saturdays during a bye:
"So Thursday and Friday will be recruiting. I'll go recruit Thursday and Friday, somewhat local, and Saturday my son's got a real big fifth versus sixth grade scrimmage at 10 a.m. I'll be at that, and then I'll watch other people work and probably grill out Saturday night and just relax. not sweat about too many scores. We'll watch other people play. It's kind of been weird this year. We've had so many 11 and noon kicks that I've watched a lot of games at my house on Saturday nights, which has not been normal. I feel like I've watched more college football this year other than our games than normal. But this week for the whole staff it's important that guys get to see their families a little bit more."
On what a game is like at his house:
"I usually look at it from a very intensive football perspective. When I watch a game, I'm probably not the most fun guy that you watch a game with. I'm thinking about how I would coach the situation in the game a lot of the times. It depends on if I've had a drink or two or not, too."
On going back to Jacob Barnes:
"We worked through that today. Our field goal period, all we did was kick extra points. We need to start making every extra point, so we kicked only extra points today, no field goals. Jacob's been in that fire a little bit more. Head's done some good things. He's been a little erratic as you've seen. He's made some big kicks, too. He's been really good in the kickoff roll. We'll work through it. Jacob's back to pretty close to full strength. There could be a formula where Jacob kicks extra points within the 40s range. If it had to be a really long one, like 50, then we might throw Head in there because he's got a huge leg, but you've got to get it dialed in to where it's going through the uprights every time. But Jacob's available and we'll try to maybe get him back into that fold."
