We’re 25 days away from football signing day and I can’t pin down who is and who is not committed. Kids tweet that they are committed; they respond to interviews confirming their commitment; Coach Fritz tweets his now familiar “Roll Wave!” and you’d think it’s done. Then you notice one day that the kid’s twitter account no longer shows the picture of the “Angry Wave” or the notation, “Tulane Commit.” That sounds pretty conclusive to me. But, the four recruiting sites list wide variations in compiling their committed lists. And determining the reason for a commitment or decommitment is next to impossible.

By my count, we have at least nine kids who committed to Tulane this year and who are no longer committed. This includes Ryan Guthrie who committed one week, visited Syracuse the next, and signed there. Did he just love the freezing conditions and snow storms? Darius Campbell and C. J. Sturdivant were early decommits. They don’t seem to have any P5 offers and I don’t think they’ve committed elsewhere but I don’t know. Kaylan Wiggins, the QB from Florida, decommitted amongst a flurry of accusations that Tulane reneged on his scholarship offer. Again, who knows? Did they simply point out that his potential to play QB was no longer there due to other plans and he felt betrayed? Or did they flat out “yank” his offer? Anyway, he committed to Florida International, not an obvious “step up.”

Evan Reese, DaVontavean Martin, Caleb Sampson, Kris Reed, and Luke McCleary have apparently decommitted in recent weeks and the status of Jataevean Toles appears to be in doubt. And what’s up with Gage Mallory? According to 247, he committed, decommitted, and recommitted all within a six week period back in June-August, but they don’t list him as currently committed and describe his interest as “cool,” even though other sites list him as a commit. At best he’s a very “soft verbal.”

Anyway, with the exception of DaVontavean Martin, none of these guys apparently has received an offer from any P5 schools, though some indicate "interest." What’s going on? My guess is that Tulane has “cooled” on several of these players and whether we “pulled” an offer or pointed out our reduced interest either directly (told them) or indirectly (stopped communicating), they got the message. But, that’s just a guess and not likely to be the universal situation. Some of these kids simply wanted to take a longer look elsewhere. They may or may not return to the fold, if a spot is available by then.

Our long history as a 4th quartile (bottom quarter) football team with losing records against weak schedules clearly harms us. Within Louisiana, peer pressure: “Why would you go there?” is a problem. Almost everywhere, we’re fighting for guys without P5 offers due to the “cache” of playing for a P5 school, and our second-rate facilities don’t help either. Our “game day” experience doesn’t compare to most schools playing BCS football, not just the “big time” schools that draw 90,000 each weekend. We don’t fill a stadium that by most counts doesn’t seat more than 22-25,000 people. Seeing 8-9,000 folks lounging around until half time can’t impress a 17 year old kid.

One would hope that an academic degree from Tulane would be a positive but I’m not at all sure. Kids talk about choosing LSU, Southern Miss, or UAB because of the “strong academics.” What are they thinking? Do they understand what "strong academics" even looks like? And while many of us love New Orleans and couldn’t imagine spending four years in a place like Starkville, Mississippi, the latter appeals to a lot of kids and the former is a turn off. There's a lot to like about a "university town." It’s a personal thing.

I’m still struck by the number of kids who commit to Tulane and call it the “University of Tulane.” I remember when C. J. did that at his first press conference and I cringed. How much research did they do on the school if they can’t even get the name straight? How could they possibly know the "good" that many of us take for granted?

According to Guerry’s recent interview with Coach Fritz, we can expect 22-24 kids to sign on February 1. Hopefully, after this next weekend's visits, we'll start to see the picture clear regarding exactly who they will be.

Roll Wave!!

Sunday probably will be another rough one for Tulane against a decent Memphis team that is playing with more cohesion under Tubby Smith than it did with Josh Pastner.

Here is what Dunleavy, Cameron Reynolds and Malik Morgan said after practice yesterday coming off one of the roughest stretches in Green Wave basketball history, and that's saying something.

DUNLEAVY

On bad defense (Tulane is last in the AAC by a wide margin in field goal percentage defense and one of the nation's 10 worst teams in defending the 3-pointer):

"You have to see the man and the basketball at all times. Our guys are too much of the time not knowing where the ball is. How can you do the things you’re supposed to do and be in the place you’re supposed to be when you lose sight of the ball. That’s the first premise of defense."

"There is such a big differential between the first half in front of my bench when I can talk the defense to them. I can see it and I can talk to get them to do what they need to do, and they’re good at it. Then they go down to the other end and left to their own devices of guys seeing and reading and communicating, and we get down 15 to 20 points. As you get two or three years into something, it’s clockwork, but that’s kind of where it is. I know it works because I see them doing it, particularly when they are in front of me, but when we get into the second half we fall apart at times. We don’t communicate it, we don’t see it and we don’t say it. That’s the frustrating part of it to me.

"It’s a long-term picture, but the movie keeps getting shorter. We’ve got to start getting it and applying it to the full 40 minutes. It’s all fundamental stuff. Boxing out. The last game we had, the last minute of the first half it’s a 7-point game and we fall asleep on the last two possessions and it gets to 12 points, and then the second half we lose by 25. Even when it was close, we had so many mistakes on double teams. We had two great double teams and we let a guy split our double team to kick it to the weak side for 3-pointers. We were in the perfect position to get something done and then didn’t stay with it. We took some gamble or some chance and it just blew up on us. It’s so extensive from how many mistakes there are that the only way I can really do it is to send an email and follow up in certain cases with certain guys and build on it."

On most lopsided loss last Sunday to Cincinnati since 40-point defeat to Butler to open 2006-07 season:

"The good news is they’ve forgotten about that one already. That one’s gone and we’re moving on to the next one. You can’t get the last one back. You can only go get the next one and just keep working and getting guys to be tighter, play harder and get a full 40 minutes in."

On Colin Slater's struggles after a strong debut against North Carolina:

"He went home for Christmas and got sick, but he’s fully healthy. There’s a lot to learn. There’s a big difference in the size and quickness. The space and openings you see are not there as long as they may have been in high school. It just changes the game. At all levels it’s about how you see the speed of the game, and the more experience, the slower it gets for you."

On refs calling games tight this year, keeping Tulane in constant foul trouble:

"Cincinnati’s a very physical team, and my guys are getting called for boxing out too hard. I’m like, OK, then foul all my guys out because guys are either coming over their back for offensive rebounds or if I’m holding a box out. I’m watching their guys boxing out and how aggressively. I just sent film into the league about guys grabbing arms first and holding and yanking and doing all kinds of things. I’ll live with it. We’ll figure it out. The bottom line is getting the box out, holding the box out and going to get the ball."

On whether he will change defensive schemes:

"The scheme’s aren’t going to change. The execution needs to change. This is just fundamental basketball as far as boxing out, how you double team, how you stay tight on a double team. This is something that players have been taught from grade school."

On Sammis Reyes getting 11 rebounds against Cincinnati:

"He played strong minutes in the first half and strong minutes in the second half. They were totally legit. He played good defensively and did a great job on the boards. He was the one bright spot in that game."

MORGAN

On what wrong since North Carolina game:

"We just have to focus on the little things that we do. We take teams out of their offense a lot, but we just have to find a way to finish the last 30 seconds of the play. We just have to finish the games."

On Tulane's poor second halves:

"We just have to find the toughness to be able to compete for 40 minutes. We can’t play a game for 20 minutes. That’s how you get losses. We have to come together for these next couple of games."

On the defensive issues:

"Just communication from everybody on the court and on the bench."

On opponents hitting 41 percent of 3s:

"We just have to run people off the line. We have to know that a lot of teams have at least two good shooters and somebody that’s a really good shooter, you have to draw a lot of attention to. We have to be able to find our man earlier and not lose anybody."

On recovering from blowout loss to Cincinnati:

"I don’t think its tough to get motivated because you really want to get that taste out of your mouth. We come to practice every day of the week and just work hard and try to build on what our miscues were and try to lessen our mistakes for the next game."

On benefits of beating Memphis last year at Devlin:

"Both teams are completely different. Same names, different programs. We have new coaches and new teams."

REYNOLDS

Ob what went wrong since North Carolina game:

"We have to play better on the defensive end. We can score with anybody. It just starts on the defensive end. Coach preaches defense and rebounding. We get outrebounded almost every game, so that’s where it’s going to start for us—defense and rebounding."

On defensive issues:

"Really it’s getting the nail taken care of. We play good perimeter defense but once they get to the nail, no one’s on the nail, and that’s how they get the lay-ups and the wide open 3s. Once we get the nail covered, everything’s going to be fine."

On teams hitting 41 percent of 3s:

"We just have to close out to the hot hands and make sure we contest every single shot. Coach keeps track of the percentage of contested shots and uncontested shots, and the contested shots, they don’t make them, and when we’re not there, they knock them down. We have to play way better defense."

On poor second halves:

"We just have to play a full 40 minutes. We can’t just come out and play the first half and then lay an egg in the second half. We have to bring the focus to play a full 40 minutes. That’s the next step."

On recovering from lopsided loss to Cincinnati:

"We have to keep on fighting to the end. We can also take some positives out of it and fix what we think is wrong. Everybody just has to stay up, and after the game we can talk about how we can not let that happen again."

On refs calling a lot of fouls:

"We have to move our feet. You can’t blame it on the refs. You have to move your feet, stay solid and don’t put it in the refs’ hands."

I assume we will have a recruiting weekend this weekend. Any idea who is coming this weekend?

The home game with LSU, a game at East Carolina and another home game against Houston. The network also will televise the first day of the AAC tourney involving the 1, 4, 5 and 8 seeds.

http://theamerican.org/news/2017/1/6/BASE_0106175300.aspx

Again, I apologize for not finding out more, but I was not expecting a call from Fritz. I'm working on a Nico Marley story that should appear in The Advocate on Friday, so the focus of the interview was on him not getting an All-Star game invite.

Are you disappointed you could not get Marley into one of the three college All-Star games considering what he accomplished in his college career and how he was first-team All-AAC the past two years?

"We sent something to all the NFL teams and also the All-Star games. I know those all-star games are based more off of pro potential than college production, but we'd hoped that he'd have a chance to at least show what he can do. The guy had a phenomenal career. There are so many things with him that you can't measure. Obviously he's going to have to play a different position than what he played for us, but I don't know why it's not worth at least looking to see if he can do it or not. I don't know. I've never coached in the NFL, but I know he was a great one for us and I just hope he gets an opportunity. If he gets an opportunity and it doesn't work out for him, that's the way of the world. There's plenty of great things he can do, but I just think he deserves an opportunity."

How big of an adjustment will it be for Marley at strong safety, which is likely where he projects as he tries to keep playing?

"It would be something different. He'll have to backpedal, which he hasn't done that much, and some man coverage stuff. He'd be really dynamic in the game, and he can learn to do those other things."

The last play of Marley's college career was a forced fumble and fumble recovery. How fitting was that, and how much is he a guy who is more than what meets the eye?

"He's one of the smarter players I've ever coached, and I've been coaching for a long time, and he's a playmaker. A lot of guys can see it, but he can see it early and get all sorts of indications and pull the trigger. I've told the story before, but I had a buddy of mine who coached at one of the schools we played (Houston) this year, and he told the kids on the sideline, hey, if you don't get the signal of what the offensive play is we're calling, just listen to No. 2 (Marley) and he'll tell you what we're running. I remember that particular game. He probably called about five or six plays, and he was running towards the play prior to the ball being snapped because he knew where it was going to be. He sees things ahead of time, and when he does see it, he's got enough confidence in what he sees to pull the trigger."

Parry Nickerson got his grade back from the NFL draft advisory board. Do you know what his decision is yet?

"Parry has decided he wanted to come back. Maybe it (the projection) wasn't going to be high enough to be worth his while. There's a lot of things that Parry can do to improve his stock and his opportunity to play at that next level."

So he's definitely going to be back at Tulane?

"Yes."

How much will the the three junior college guys that are coming in--Jonathan Banks, Dominique Briggs and Jabril Clewis--help the team right away.

"All three of them will compete to start. Obviously Jonathan at quarterback. Jabril Clewis is a little bit bigger guy than we've played with (at wide receiver) with good speed, and the good thing about Dominique is he can play both center and guard. You can't have enough guys that can snap the ball. He's a big body. All three of them come from really good programs.

With Junior Diaz at center, do you envision Briggs starting off at guard?

"He's going to work both this spring, and then we're going to put the best five out there. We certainly think Junior is one of the guys, but you gotta have depth at that position (center). John Leglue did a great job for us this year, but he was really out of position having to go from tackle to center."

How big do you anticipate your signing class being when it's all said and done?

"We have five right now (counting Stephon Huderson and Corey Dauphine) and then we're probably going to sign somewhere between 22 to 24 guys, somewhere in that vicinity."

Tulane has the worst record of any team in one of the top 10 RPI conferences at 3-9.

No one else in the American is worse than 5-6.

The worst record in the Big East is St. John's (6-7)

The worst record in the ACC is 7-6 (Boston College)

The worst record in the Big 12 is 6-5 (Oklahoma and Texas)

The worst record in the Big Ten is 6-6 (Nebraska)

The worst record in the SEC is 5-6 (Missouri)

The worst record in the Pac-12 is 4-9 (Oregon State)

The worst record in the Atlantic 10 is 4-8 (St. Louis)

The worst record in the West Coast is 4-8 (Pepperdine)

The worst record in the Mountain West is UNLV (7-6)

You have to go down to the No. 11 league, the Colonial, to find James Madison at 1-11.

Also, it is interesting that Tulane has played the team with the worst record in the Big East (St. John's), the Big 12 (Oklahoma) and the SEC (Missouri).

Nico Marley is in South Florida full time now getting prepared for Pro Day after graduating from Tulane in December after a remarkable four-year career. Obviously, he has tremendous hurdles to overcome to get a shot because of his size, which precludes him from playing linebacker at the next level. The Senior Bowl, the East-West Shrine Game and the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl all passed on giving him an invitation despite his stellar production.

Wednesday, he spoke about his plans in a phone conversation after a workout

What are you doing now to prepare for the NFL draft, and how disappointed are you that you did not get an invite to one of the three college All-Star games?

"I'm at Bommarito Performance Systems right now in Miami. It's one of the best pre-draft training places, so I'm confident about that and I'm confident he'll (Pete Bommarito) get me where I need to be. As far as the postseason games and all that, am I disappointed? No. I can't say I'm disappointed because I put everything out there. It's for them to decide if they like it or not. I think I did a good job the past four years--Freshman of the Year, honorable mention my sophomore year and then first-team All-Conference two years in a row. I don't think I did anything those four years to hurt my chances.

"I've gone my whole career with people not believing in me. I didn't expect them to all of a sudden start (believing him him.) I had one Division I offer and two Division 1-AA offers, so no one believed in me over there. Even when I got to school, I wasn't supposed to start every game of my career. I was last on the depth chart, and then even through those three years we got a new coaching staff. The film was there, but when fall camp came around, I'm not saying it should have been all my spot, but it wasn't like I'd done anything (under these coaches). People haven't believed in me ever. I mean, my family always believed in me, and coach Fritz supported me. Everybody knows I can play, but I've never been on a pedestal. They said I was just a good high school player. Then it was, oh, he was good in Conference USA. All right. Did that. Now he's just a good college player. I'm not here for people to believe in me. I"m not even here to prove them wrong. I just know what it is now."

Are you training to be a safety now?

Discussing with a couple of people, and I have some great people in my corner, they think I should make the move to safety--down safety, strong safety--so that's what we're looking towards right now--but mainly just focusing, getting my body right and getting everything correct and getting into (Tulane) Pro Day shape. I'm not getting into a combine, so it's Pro Day shape."

Are you done at Tulane?

"I graduated in December. I took 19 hours in the fall, just like regular people, too."

What do you have to prove the most to make the adjustment to safety?

"The same thing that everybody has to do. You have to run a good 40, you have to test well. I'mjust looking for one person to give me a shot. One other thing. All the players that are in the All-Star games, they got there because they deserve it. Being a college football player is no joke, so I respect everybody."

Parry Nickerson will be back for his senior year, Willie Fritz confirmed today.

"He just decided he wanted to come back," Fritz said. "Maybe it (his projection by the NFL Draft Advisory Board) wasn't going to be high enough to be worth his while. I think there's a lot of things that Parry can do to improve his stock and his opportunity to play at that next level."

I talked to Fritz for seven minutes on the phone for a story I'm writing about Nico Marley not being invited to any All-Star game, but he also talked about Nickerson and the three juco signees. I will transcribe the conversation soon. I did not ask him about the spring dates because I was in the car running an errand when he called unexpectedly (I thought I was just going to get a quote about Marley sent to me by the sports info office).

I am on my annual family vacation in Denver and will be back next week.

It will be interesting to see if Tulane has any answer for Tacko Fall. UCF had won 10 in a row in the series before the Wave's 2-point win in the AAC Tourney.

Here's hoping for better days ahead for Tulane football (likely), basketball (hard to say) and baseball (hopefully Jewett will build on Pierce's success.).

And thanks to everyone on this board for providing good posts and debate in the past 12 months.

So a 9-win Nebraska team's story going into their bowl game is "let's get it over with so we can get to the Tanner Lee era". CJ wasn't able to get absolutely anything out of what amounted into a lot of NFL talent, and I'm talking about Rob Kelley and others too. Lee was a huge loss for the Tulane program.

And

http://www.omaha.com/huskers/footba...cle_dafb15c1-0fe0-5eb7-b9f1-73c9c52ef2ae.html

You name the number of cornerbacks on the roster, and Francis was last on it.

His announcement on twitter today makes sense for all parties. He needs to go somewhere he can play.

He's already accepted the job. Well he's smart enough to stay at his natural talent level, at least. He really isn't good enough to do much else.

My Tulane source has told me Banks and Jabril Clewis signed.

Dominique Briggs' signing was tweeted early this morning by @JuCoFootballACE, the site Charlamange8 referenced in the other thread.

Guthrie signed with Syracuse, which sadly in today's college football world, was sort of inevitable after he took an official visit there over the weekend. P5 vs. non-P5.

There is a possibility of another JC wide receiver today, and of course, Petal RB Stephon Huderson signed and will enroll as a freshman in January.

Here is a Q&A with Clewis that explains his background. He was a three-star recruit coming out of high school according to Rivals. He caught 34 passes for 600 yards at Grossmont (Calif) JC this year.

http://www.recruitingnewsguru.com/f...s-taking-on-leading-role-with-grossmont-juco/

The Advocate forgot to post my game story on its website last night, which is the third time that has happened in the last month. I posted it here, unchanged.

Anyone associated with the basketball program will probably be happy about that. In a decade of bad performances, last night's topped the list, trumping even the season-opening loss to Alabama A&M last year.

The different last night and in Tulane's bad loss to UNO was effort. After a good start, the Wave had no effort for whatever reason outside of Melvin Frazier, who played hard from start to finish, and Ryan Smith, who always plays hard but whose game limitations were evident when McNeese State switched to a zone. Horrible execution rather than effort had been the problem in most of the other losses, but this was a matter of simply not working on offense or defense after the Wave fell behind.

On Friday, Tulane gets a crack at Texas State, which beat McNeese State earlier this year. A loss there would put the Wave well on its way to a historically bad season, but there's still time to get better. If Tulane had played against North Carolina the way it played last night, it would have lost by 60.

With the decomitment of Reese, Sampson and Martin, I now count TU with 13 recruits in
the 2017 class. Maybe someone can help me with the following questions:
Do The Juco's Banks, Briggs and Clewis count against 2016 or 2017?
Huderson enrolled early - 2016 or 2017 class?
Why are so many jumping ship?
Can we get enough quality recruits to make up for those who have decomited?
What class will Dauphine count against?

So I was looking at the Tulane 990 tax return for the fiscal year beginning 7/1/14 and ending 6/30/15 last evening…..

Fitts started at the beginning of the fiscal year but was paid only $562k as shown on the tax return. That doesn’t make sense. Crigler made $1.1 million which is pauper's money for NYC/Darien but perhaps he has few other options. From 30,000 feet, that appears to be a very large and expensive office to only be managing a $1.2 billion endowment. Coach Curtis Johnson was paid $1.4 million..good riddance to him! The real icing on the cake was the $1.9 million paid to Cowen. WTF is that all about? When Cowen started Tulane was ranked in the 30s. His entire tenure we dropped to and remained in the 50s and now with him gone, we are back up to 39th. Why do we throw good money after bad?

Just looking at the numbers..

A couple of times in the last month, I've made comparisons to Temple and Memphis when it comes to Tulane recruiting.

Here is a side by side comparison of the three schools in recruiting from 2012 to 2014, the classes that formed the backbone of Temple's and Memphis' success in 2014 through 2016 and Tulane's failure. This is a major reason I don't put too much stock in the low ranking for Fritz' current class. Recruiting is vitally important, but an eye for talent and development are undervalued.

TEMPLE

2012: 82
2013: 84
2014: 59

MEMPHIS

2012: 77
2013: 90
2014: 83

TULANE

2012: 86
2013: 77
2014: 82

Temple had a really good class in 2014, but the junior and seniors on a veteran-laded AAC East champion team in 2015 came from classes that were almost identical in rating to Tulane's classes that went 3-9.

Memphis tied for the AAC title in 2014 despite having worse overall classes than Tulane from 2012 through 2014 and one that was not ranked in the top 100 in 2011.

This year, Temple won the AAC and Memphis went 8-4. Tulane went 4-8.

You'd be hard pressed to explain the dramatic difference in performance based on the respective recruiting classes over the years. Temple and Memphis got the most out of the players they recruited, hit some home runs with guys like Matakevich and Lynch and attracted players who fit what they wanted to run on offense and defense.

It's not proven yet, but I believe Fritz and company can do the same thing.

A couple years back, CJ complained about the math requirement at Tulane, specifically the “requirement” to take Calculus. I checked into at the time and found the claim to be unfounded. Students in a B.A. curriculum DID NOT and DO NOT have to take calculus. Yet, I notice it keeps coming up, so I rechecked.

According to page 4 of the current (2016-2017) Newcomb-Tulane curriculum guide, http://www2.tulane.edu/advising/upload/CURRICULUM-GUIDE-2016-17.pdf, the “quantitative reasoning” requirement can be fulfilled by a number of math courses or, even, “successful completion of Symbolic Logic (PHIL 1210) for BA and BFA students only."
If one checks out the Math department (http://www2.tulane.edu/sse/math/academics/undergraduates/requirements.cfm) for more details about the potential satisfying math courses, one finds that the Math 1110, an introductory statistics course with NO Calculus, fulfills the requirement, as does Math 1140, which is a similar course with no calculus for those interested in business.

B.S. students, as one might expect, are required to take calculus. Also, those going for a business management degree also must take calculus, though Architecture does not. To the best of my knowledge, when I graduated 50 years ago, every department required calculus to graduate, though I don’t have first-hand knowledge of the Business School at the time.

Regardless, if calculus is the problem, take a program resulting in a B.A. There are a lot of them.

Roll Wave!!!

I was doing research on Jonathan Banks today and realized one of his top receivers at Independence was former Tulane WR Leondre James.

James did not do a whole lot in the first seven games, but he exploded in the last two, catching 20 passes for 263 yards.

Tulane hopes there will be another receiver from Independence--a teammate of James who as far as I can tell did not play this year--whom you get to know.

Winwave, I see where you had an issue with Fritz saying Tulane always would have low numbers at his press conference this week, and I agree with you it makes no sense on the surface. I didn't really think his comment on attracting more walk-ons right after that made a lot of sense, either. It's not realistic.

I wouldn't read too much into it, though. Regardless of what he said, I expect Tulane to have the size roster it always has had by 2018. They won't get there this year because they don't want to sign guys just for the sake of signing guys and they believe they can win in year 2, which would make Tulane a much more attractive destination for recruits.

This is the first season Tulane had too few bodies during the season since I started covering the team in 2011. It's happened a fair amount in the spring, but never in the fall. And with proper recruiting, it won't be a problem in the future.

I tried to reach Jabril Clewis today but he did not return my texts. I did talk to Banks briefly. Don't have Briggs' number.

You visited Texas State over the weekend. Was it a tough call or not that tough for you to stay committed to Tulane and sign today?

"It wasn't really tough, honestly, because Tulane always treated me well. I wanted to just go and view another place closer to home (he's from Houston) and see it. Why not take that visit, and they offered me as well, but after viewing the spots, I decided to go to Tulane."

Tulane has two QBs coming back but the position is wide open for you to come in and win if you perform well. What do you need to do to win the job?

"I'm pretty pumped up because I feel like this is a good opportunity for me. The coaches told me to just come in and work my tail off. Nothing is given to anybody. No spot can be given to you. I have to go in there and compete and do my best work."

Willie Fritz has had big jumps in the second year of most of his coaching stints. Do you feel like Tulane can make that same jump when you arrive?

"Yes sir. I'm ready to lead the program to nothing but victories. I'm not a fan of losing. I'm coming in to win games. I'm a team player. I want to get good things happening in New Orleans."

Tulane finished near the bottom of the country in passing. How good do you think the offense can be next year with more balance?

"I don't know if people know this about me, but I'm a dual threat quarterback. I'm a pass-first, run-second quarterback. I know we can do well in the passing game as well as the running game."

Did you visit anywhere other than Texas State in the last month besides Tulane?

"In the last month it was just Texas State and Tulane.'

Here's a question I asked Fritz, and here's his answer.

You’ve mentioned many times it’s not easy to change the culture overnight. In recruiting you’re trying to change Tulane’s perception. How hard has that been, and how much progress have you made?

“This is my fifth time I’ve taken over a program that’s a challenge. I embrace the fact we’ve had five winning seasons in the last 35 years. That’s what’s going to make it that much more special when we get this thing consistently winning year after year after year after year. I’ve told kids, hey, you want an opportunity to play right away. Come on. We started seven true freshmen last year. We actually played 18. The four we didn’t play were guys that were at a position where we had a lot of depth or they got injured. So guys are going to have an opportunity with our small roster size, and if we do a great job of recruiting, to play early in their career.

“I’ve had opportunities to go to places where they already had the thing going. My wife thinks I’m crazy, but I’ve always thought to myself, well, they’ve already got it going. I want to go some place and do something they haven’t done. I think it’s a selling point if a kid’s got guts and wants that kind of challenge.”

Curious?

Willie Fritz comes prepared. Before answering any questions on Tuesday in his post-season press conference, he recapped the season and talked about recruiting while uttering 919 words. Here are all of them:

“First of all we’ll start off with the UConn game. I was really proud of our guys. That was a great springboard into the offseason program, recruiting, everything. It was a tough season obviously. The big thing we wanted out of our guys was to compete in that game over in Connecticut, and our guys did an outstanding job of competing their tails off. We played well in all three phases and came away with probably our best game of the season in all three phases in the same game. I’m very proud of our guys to end the season like that and get our coaching staff our first conference victory.

“Just talking about a few individuals, Tanzel Smart and Nico Marley both made first-team all-conference again. I think those are two of the better defensive players that have probably played at Tulane over the last 20, 30, 40 years. A bunch of you have been here for a long period of time and you know more about than I do, but those guys had sensational careers and they are going to be missed without question.

“Tanzel has picked up some accolades. He’s going to play in the Senior Bowl. I feel pretty strongly he’s going to have an opportunity to participate in the combine here in a couple of months. I don’t think he’s going to play in the East-West Shrine Game, but he was picked for that game so he’s going to continue to keep going and hopefully he’s going to be able to be a high draft pick for us.

“And then Nico, we’re really trying to get him in a bunch of those games. I just penned a letter than I’m sending out to all the teams in the NFL and all these all-star games. He’s an acquired taste obviously. He doesn’t look like a guy that is going to be able to play at that level, but he’s proven everybody wrong every level that he’s played at. He’s just an outstanding player, one of the smartest players that I’ve had an opportunity to be around. I’d love to see him get an opportunity, and I’m sure we’ll have some other guys that will get an opportunity as well. I’m sure one of the guys that our players look at when they’re thinking about playing at the next level is Rob Kelley. I think he started about half the time here at Tulane and he’s having an incredible career with the Washington Redskins right now. He rushed for 133 yards about three or four weeks ago and has really solidified himself as their No. 1 running back. All you have to do is get one team to like you, so hopefully we’ll have some guys get some opportunities.”

“Also making second-team All-Conference was Parry Nickerson. He was one of the national leaders in pass breakups and return yardage off of interceptions. I was really proud of him that last game. He sustained a relatively serious injury with a couple of weeks to go (against Houston), and I didn’t know if he’d be able to play in that last game, but he toughed it up and went out there and played well.

“Overall recap about the season. It was a frustrating year in some regards. We came really close. Looking back it we had four games where we had an opportunity to win in the fourth quarter and we didn’t close the games out like we needed to. Part of that is continuing to change the mindset of our guys and competing all four quarters, which we did a great job against Connecticut. We need to continue developing the guys that are here in the offseason program, and then we need to go out and do a great job of recruiting. Everyone that has gone to a lot of games for Tulane over the last few years, I know I saw a lot of difference in the league that I was in and the American. Hopefully y’all have seen a huge difference in the level of play and talent between Conference USA and the American Athletic Conference. We have to get guys in here that can play at a high level in the American Athletic Conference. Our coaches have been working extremely hard recruiting. Since the season got over we jumped on planes and in cars and were traveling all over the place. We’re in on a lot of really good student-athletes, but you’ve got to get those guys. We’ve got a lot of commitments, but all that means is you’re in first place with that student-athlete.

“Tomorrow is a time to sign junior college guys. I think we’ll have some junior college signees to announce tomorrow. At least I hope we will, and we’ll find out about that hopefully by 11 (a.m.). We’re going to try to release something tomorrow in regards to guys that will be joining the program in January second semester.

“Spring ball is going to be here before we know it. We’re kind of looking at when we’re going to have it. Normally I would have that on the calendar already, but we’ve got about four or five key injuries and we may push that back as far as we possibly can in order to have those guys be able to participate. We don’t have great numbers in the spring, and we need to have as many guys available as possible.

“I’ll open it up to any questions anybody might have.”