It may not mean anything, but Tulane's practices have been surprisingly upbeat this week considering the Wave is guaranteed a losing season. It looks like Lazedrick Thompson will not be able to play against East Carolina. He was in tennis shoes and did not practice at all today. Sherman Badie may not be able to do much, either. He practiced today but is not close to 100 percent on his ankle.

The news for the receivers is better. Charles Jones practiced today. He is not 100 percent, but he looked good enough to play. Justyn Shackleford (shoulder) and Leondre James practiced at full strength.

Here are CJ's comments after practice today:


On Ruffin McNeill's success at East Carolina:


"He's done a great job. He's taken that program, which really wasn't going anywhere, and he's taken them to bowl games. He's getting guys in there, draftable guys. He's done a great, great job."


On what it will take offensively to beat ECU:

"We are going to try to do a similar plan to what we did last year. We maybe get a little more aggressive sometimes, but he has a quarterback, he's done it all right. He's got a great quarterback, great skill, a big offensive line, the defense is playing well. They had more seniors last year, and these young kids have come in and are really playing well for him."


On if Tulane can be expected to match ECU's offense:


"I don't know if we expect it, but I sure do. You get to the point where our kids have pride about what they're doing. They are running around well. Our defense has been playing well all year. If we don't turn the ball over, we may create some hay."


On D being able to slow down ECU:


"I have confidence in the defense. This thing is being built by defense first. Speedy and Jon and Jason and Twon will tell you any defensive recruit I'm taking. They should play good and I think they will."


On players maintaining enthusiasm:


"That's why you don't just come out and set a bunch of goals, and every time a player looks up and we didn't get this one, we didn't get this one and we didn't get this one. That's not what we're doing right now. We're not at that stage in this program. What we want to do is continue to improve and continue to get better. If we do that, we won't have to say we want to win a national championship. We'll just go out and win it."

Assigned a story on why Memphis is succeeding in year three of its coaching staff while Tulane is 3-6 in year 3 under CJ, I was denied access to Justin Fuente, so I had to work around that.

The obvious answer is experience--Memphis has an incredible number of fourth- and fifth-year starters. But Sam Scofield gave a great quote about the Memphis offense and how the coordinator completely changes the game plan from week to week depending on how the opponent plays D. I didn't get the whole quote in because it was too technical, but he described entirely different play calls and routes being run by receivers against man-to-man defenses and zone looks.

Here's the story:

Link

on Jameis Winston.

Kevin Hart Tells Jameis Winston to 'Stop Doing Dum

Darion Monroe said all the right things after the Memphis game, and so did Royce LaFrance, but they did not reflect the feelings of the entire defense when they refused to blame the offense for a tough night that turned a good defensive effort into a 31-0 deficit by the end of the third quarter.

I'm hearing the defensive players had some heated discussions with the offensive players during the game, which is understandable and unavoidable when one unit is outperforming the other so dramatically. As usual, everything is OK three days later, in part because players respect Tanner Lee. He had a awful, awful night, but it wasn't for lack of preparation or anything outside of football. For whatever reason, he struggled from start to finish after having a good week of practice and entering with a lot of confidence.

I talked to CJ briefly after the coldest practice of the year today. His thoughts on the practice:

"The offense practiced really well today," he said. "On defense there were too many mistakes, but they'll get it ironed out."

Although Tulane can't get to a bowl now and is guaranteed a losing record, CJ said it would not affect preparation for East Carolina this week.

"No. We never even talked about it all year. We never mentioned it once in a meeting. Never. We just gotta keep playing."

With freshman contributing at every offensive skill position, I asked CJ if he was disappointed with the production of his freshman defensive ends. Aside from starters Tyler Gilbert and Royce LaFrance (who has been up and down himself), the Wave has not gotten much from the rest of its ends, including redshirt freshmen Ade Aruna (six tackles) and Quinlan Carroll (two tackles, now injured) and true freshmen Daren Williams (eight tackles) and Peter Woullard (redshirting).

CJ disagreed with the premise.

"No, not at all (am I disappointed)," he said. "Tyler was playing so well and Royce is playing so well. You look at the stats and you have to play those guys."

Here is David Pierce's first signing class.

Anyone have any thoughts on it?

Link

A nice story on Ryan Grant from the Washington Post today. He appears to have a good shot to make the roster. Interesting to hear him talk about contributing on special teams.



Link

Everyone who picked LSU got ripped off by the overtime rule, as the Tigers, 6 1/2 point underdogs, lost by 7. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I almost never bet on games. If I had the Tigers in that situation and lost my bet even though I was right, I wouldn't sleep that night. Meanwhile, the few of us who picked against Tulane (including me) were wrong by at least 25 points.

Week 9

ny oscar 8
GretnaGreen 8

LSU Law Greenie 7

MNAlum 6
WaveON 6
jjstock2005 6

winwave 5
captcrown1 5
Wavetime 5
Golfer81 5

St. Amant Wave 4
dew99 4
Guerry Smith 4
DrBox 4
Rcnut 4

OVERALL

dew99 47

GretnaGreen 46

DrBox 43
LSU Law Greenie 42
Golfer81 39
jjstock2005 39
WaveON 39
captcrown1 38
MNAlum 37 (missed 1 week)
winwave 34
p8kpev 33 (missed 1 week)
St. Amant Wave 32
ny oscar 32 (missed 1 week)
Guerry Smith 31 (missed 1 week)
Wavetime 30
buck2481 29 (missed 2 weeks)
Rcnut 26
OUG 20 (missed 3 weeks)
ressinge 19 (missed 4 weeks)

Here's are the questions and answers:

We caught up with TheWaveReport.com publisher Guerry Smith and asked him some questions about this weeks game.

1) Has having a on campus stadium helped Tulane at all?

GS- Sure it has. The atmosphere in the Superdome was deader than dead and made home games a depressing experience for fans and players. The students had no connection to the team at all, and that has completely changed at Yulman Stadium with a terrific student turnout for the first four home games. Quarterback Tanner Lee spoke enthusiastically about how many more students were coming up to him to talk football before the season started, and his teammates have reiterated his point all year.

Will the on-campus stadium magically transform Tulane into a perennial AAC contender? No. That is a long-term process, but the Green Wave's chances are better on campus than they were in the Superdome.

2) The Green Wave got a huge win last week over Houston, have things started to turn upwards for them?

GS- Maybe. That will be determined by what happens in the next three weeks, when Tulane faces AAC leader Memphis at home, AAC favorite East Carolina on the road and Temple at home. Tulane's offense is almost freshmen at the skill positions. Lee is a redshirt freshman. Leading running back Sherman Badie, who rushed for more than 200 yards against Tulsa in the season opener, is a redshirt freshman. Dontrell Hilliard, who rushed for more than 100 yards against Cincinnati and had 192 combined rushing/receiving yards against Houston, is a true freshman. True freshmen made 19 of Tulane's 21 receptions against Cincinnati and 18 of 24 receptions against Houston. The future is bright, but the present will be determined by the play of all of those freshmen, so it is hard to predict what will happen from week to week. Tulane had not scored more than 14 points in any game since week 3 before getting 31 against Houston. The defense has underachieved a bit for most of the year, but it forced four turnovers against Houston and ranks among the nation's top 10 teams in causing turnovers.

3) Who are some players on offense that Memphis will need to keep an eye on?

GS- Lee is extremely talented with an NFL arm. He threw a nation's most nine interceptions in the first four games but has been much more careful with the ball since returning from a shoulder injury that sidelined him for two-and-half games. Coming off his three-touchdown performance at Houston, he has had his best week of practice in preparation for Memphis.

The running back trio of Badie, Lazedrick Thompson and Hilliard may be the best in the AAC. Badie and Thompson played sparingly against Houston due to ankle injuries, but Tulane did not miss a beat with Hilliard. Badie is a speed back with three runs of 73 yards or longer. Thompson is the power back. Hilliard is a combination of both and has really good vision.

The young receivers have been inconsistent, but watch true freshman tight end Charles Jones. He has good hands and has been particularly effective in the red zone.

4) Who are some players on defense that Memphis will need to watch for?

GS- Tulane's secondary is talented at every position. Redshirt freshman cornerbackParry Nickerson, the reigning AAC Defensive Player of the Week, had two interceptions against Houston to run his team-leading total to six. The other corner, junior Lorenzo Doss, has not lived up to his preseason All-America candidacy but has 14 career interceptions. One safety, Sam Scofield, leads the team in tackles, and the other, Darion Monroe, was a four-star recruit who de-committed from Texas A&M to sign with Tulane. He will be extra motivated this week after getting kicked out of the Houston game in the first half for targeting. The fifth DB, former Memphis starter Taurean Nixon, is the fastest player on the team.

The other guys to watch are linebacker Nico Marley, an energizer bunny with a nose for the ball, and tackle Tanzel Smart, a physical lineman.

5) What type of game are you expecting, any predictions?

GS- I am expecting a very close game, and I like Tulane's chances to win. The teams that have troubled the Wave the most have gotten huge plays in the passing game with speedy wide receivers who take advantage of the secondary's aggressiveness and some coverage issues in the front seven. Memphis will need to play better offensively than it did against Temple. If the Tigers win comfortably, the storyline will be their domination up front on both sides of the ball, with the conference's No. 1 rushing unit and No. 3 unit at stopping the run overpowering Tulane.

This is a gigantic game for Memphis considering the rest of the schedule. It will be interesting to see if the Tigers channel their intensity properly or come out tight. Tulane played it best game of the year by far against Houston and needs to win out to become bowl eligible. As far-fetched as that sounds with a trip to East Carolina still on the agenda, the players believe they can do it.

Tulane 24, Memphis 23.

Many people believe that one of our biggest issues this year is the number of true freshmen we've had to field compared to other teams. Coach Johnson reiterated this problem again this week in his post game comments: "If you look across the country, you're just not going to see as many true freshman as we have playing." And, the national "play-by-play" guys reiterated this issue numerous times during the Cincinnati game. So, I thought I'd check and see how many of our true freshmen are actually contributing.

Clearly, three of our WR's are true freshmen as are two of our TE's. Our kicker is a freshman and our #3 running back is a true freshman. And, on defense, Sean Wilson, a true freshman, is a key contributor. That's eight true freshmen playing significant time. Four others have played lesser roles. So that's twelve out of the 24 scholarship freshmen we have on the roster.

Is that a lot? Is it more than most teams? More than any other team as CJ seemed to suggest? I don't know and the effort to check it is too much. But, to make a "spot check," I looked at LSU. You know, the team that no one should sign with because "they'll never see the field."

Well, I was surprised. So far, LSU has played 15 of their 25 true freshmen and at least eight have played significant time-- probably more than our eight. Hmmm?

Some of this has already appeared in another form here, but this was my notebook that appeared in the Advocate today.

Link

I thought yesterday was the early signing period for basketball. I saw UNO signed 3 people via Nola.com but I never say anything from anyone about Tulane signing anyone.

Did we? I thought we had a few commitments

It was a shorter list than recent weeks, including only two seniors not already committed to Tulane (and only one senior who has not committed anywhere)

Kazmi Antoine, OLB, West Jefferson (5-10, 185, 2016 class)--in Rivals database

Raul Aranda, WR, West Jefferson (6-0, 172, 2015 class)--not in Rivals database.

Cliffort Chattman, S, McDonogh 35 (6-4, 165, 2016 class)-- in Rivals database

Jamal Crawford, DT, McDonogh 35 (6-3, 328, 2016 class)--in Rivals database

Sci Martin, DE, McDonogh 35 (6-3, 193, 2016 class)--officially he only has offer from Tulane, but reportedly has offer from Oklahoma as well

Darius May, RB, McDonogh 35 (6-0, 173, 2016 class)--in Rivals database

Stanley Morgan, WR, St Aug. (6-0, 185, 2015 class)--four-star recruit who has committed to Nebraska and is the No. 27 WR in the nation according to Rivals. Had offers from Florida, Georgia and Ohio State as well as a host of other power five conference programs.

And two Tulane commits:

DT Louis Wings of West Jefferson
DT Brian Webb of Miller-McCoy

On a cloudy, cool Wednesday morning at Yulman Stadium, quarterback Tanner Lee was white hot, looking as sharp as he has ever been. Almost all of his throws were right on target in team drills, drawing praise from coach Curtis Johnson.

"He was on today," CJ said. "He's had some good ones, but this one was really, really good. The more he practices, the better he's getting. I like that about him. He's still on an upward climb, but he's starting to look really good."

Wide receiver Leondre James remained out with an ankle sprain, but Terren Encalade returned from a knee contusion, to CJ's surprise.

"He looked good, too," CJ said. "I told (wide receivers coach) Keith (Williams) before practice that I didn't think he was going to play, but he did everything. He was fine."

Andrew DiRocco, who hit every field goal he attempted in Tuesday's practice except for a 50-yarder than hit the crossbar, missed a shorter one on Wednesday. The story here is it's become news in practice when he misses an easy one. It used to be news when he made any kick.

"He missed one today, but he's doing fine," CJ said. "He's really settled down. He missed one and he looked right at me and I just walked away and didn't say anything. It was like he gave me the puppy dog look. But he made the rest of them. It was good."

Cornerback Lorenzo Doss was jawing at redshirt freshman Sherman Badie a lot in practice, something CJ liked. Badie, who is returning from an ankle sprain that limited him to two token carries against Houston, needs to re-assert himself now that freshman Dontrell Hilliard has excelled the past two games.

"That's the competitiveness," CJ said. "I told them it reminds me a little bit of Miami. You get hurt, you come back and it's just tough. The defensive guys are going to get on you now because we've got this young freshman named Hiliard. But Sherman and Lazedrick (Thompson) looked good today."

Tulane's 31-24 at Houston was reminiscent of some surprising wins the Wave pulled up under former coach Bob Toledo during disappointing years (all of them), but Toledo's teams never backed them up. With American Athletic Conference leader Memphis coming to town on Saturday and league favorite East Carolina next on the docket, Tulane can prove the road win at Houston was the start of a trend rather than an outlier. The first order of business is making sure the players aren't content.

"I told the coaches we have to be on them this week," CJ said. "We were on them probably more than usual today. I was yelling and screaming and doing some stuff. I just wanted to make sure we don't get comfortable. You won, but you're supposed to win. That's what you do. That's what you come out here to do. You don't come out here just to laugh and joke. You come out here to win games. Not that we have a right to win, but you have to play good to win."

With freshmen accounting for more than 50 percent of the passing yards, receiving yards and rushing yards, Johnson knows he needs to show some patience.

"These kids are getting better and better," he said. "They are practicing hard and practicing well. Sometimes it doesn't look like it in the games, but I think they are starting to do what we want them to do. They are just extremely young guys, and there are so many of them that the mistakes are magnified."

Loyola is considerably better than last year, when it was dumpster fire, but Wednesday's night exhibition likely won't tell us much about Tulane.

Loyola beat Carver College to open the season but has lost to ULL 87-60, SLU 97-81 and to Xavier (NO) in overtime Tuesday night. That team will have tired legs when it hits the court vs. Tulane.

We won't much about Tulane until it faces Wake Forest on Monday and we find out if the Wave is capable of more than incompetent post play. The rest of the team has the chance to be good, but it won't matter if the centers can't compete.

I've seen on other message boards that Tulane is second in the nation in red zone defense. Here's how a stat can be totally misleading.

A few weeks ago someone asked that question to CJ at his Tuesday press conference, so Scott Kushner decided to check it out. It turned out that three teams that beat Tulane ALL took a knee at the end of the game while inside the Greee Wave 20-yard line.

That's zero points in three possessions that had absolutely nothing to do with Tulane's red zone defense, which significantly skews the numbers.

I'm not trying to be negative here, but Tulane being second in the nation in red zone defense is a misleading stat.

This post was edited on 11/10 5:47 PM by Guerry Smith

I'm okay with CJ giving his blessing to an asst. to be interviewed for a HC position, but why in the middle of the season? After two pretty good defensive games against UConn and UCF, and a week off, we had one of our worse efforts. Does anyone else feel that, just maybe, the publicity surrounding the interview could have been a distraction and perhaps a disappointment to some of these kids?

This will be very short because I'm pressed for time, but check out the Darion Monroe interview on the front page. He is one of the most engaging athletes I have ever covered, and he talked openly about the targeting call that got him kicked out of the Houston game.

Leondre James did not practice today with a sprained ankle, but CJ was encouraged that the injury was not as serious as he first thought, when it looked worse than either Sherman Badie's or Lazedrick Thompson's sprained ankles. It turned out not to be as serious as either one of them. I will gauge his progress the rest of the week. Terren Encalade was limited at practice with a knee contusion, but CJ said he would be fine. Said CJ about James: "It looks horrible on film. I can't believe he's running around."

Sherman Badie and Lazedrick Thompson looked good in practice today. Tulane is loaded at RB with them and Hilliard and Butler all running well.

CJ on Parry Nickerson starting to run back that game-ending interception before going down. "Next time I just want him to catch it and fall."

I finally got the list of visitors for the Cincy game. Will post it tonight. Apparently we're operating on a 10-day delay around here.

CJ said Tanzel Smart, who drew two personal foul penalties, just needs to calm down and get his hands lower. He keeps getting them in the face mask of opponents.

CJ on force-feeding freshmen into the lineup and then having them develop, like Hilliard: "I guess I've got more patience than common sense."

Because I had no computer over the weekend while it was being fixed (successfully, thank goodness, by a friend who charged me $200 to replace the keyboard after the Apple Store told me it would cost $1,000 and advised me to buy a new one), I forgot to post Sam Scofield's academic honor.

Better late than never.

Link

The win over Houston was probably the best played game we've delivered this year. Since most of us thought the chance of winning was remote and some were predicting a devastating defeat, it feels particularly good this morning-especially against Houston, one of the better teams in our conference.

Our special teams had their best game for sure. Kickoffs, punts, FG/Xtra Points were all good to excellent. Coverage was good, though we did allow a 16 yard punt return. Our return game still lags and I had my heart in my mouth when Veal fielded that punt at our ten yard line, but all was well. I think our coaches and players were well prepared for the exotic "on side" kick by Houston. We shifted with them and CJ made an excellent time out call. That Doss failed to wrap up the kick right at him was unfortunate (OK, bad!), but it wasn't on the coaches as some have suggested elsewhere. Good effort all around for this unit, which, by the way, played seven "walk-ons" against Houston.

Our offense also had its best game. Our running attack was inconsistent in that we gained two or fewer yards on 20 of our 35 rushes (not counting the sack) for a total of only 9 yards. Six plays accounted for 90 of our rushing yards but they seemed to come at very opportune moments. The line is still a "work in progress" but they are clearly improving. Progress is being made but "work" still needs to be done. At least we didn't have any offensive penalties in the game-- a clear sign of improvement.

Our passing game would have been excellent but for the many "drops." I counted six balls that "should have" been caught and two others that "could have" been caught. Considering that Lee went 24 for 35 passing, not too many balls hit the ground. But, Lee wasn't perfect by a long shot. His overthrow for an INT was simply a bad pass. He also threw several poor passes that were caught but eliminated any chance for yards after the catch. I can think specifically of ones to Butler and Marfisi (their only catches of the day).

Pass protection was generally very good (another positive for the OLine) and, whether it was the coverage or simply Lee holding the ball too long, the OLine was not at fault on the one sack we gave up. And kudos to the staff who I thought mixed up the passing attack very well. 23 passes were thrown to wideouts, 5 to Tight Ends, and 7 to running backs. But based on pre-season hype, I'm very surprised that Breaux (no targets) and Encalade (4 targets but no catches) are virtually absent from the passing game, even with the loss of Rush and Shakleford's injury. Veal continues his inconsistent play. He made a great move to get wide open for our first TD but then fumbles a pass deep in our side of the field to surrender a TD to them. Getting Hilliard into the passing game is a real positive and the TD to James was a thing of beauty on both ends of the pass. If we can hold on to more passes, we can still do some damage the rest of this year.

On defense, we did a good job of containing their offense, even though they got 437 total yards. Four turnovers were clearly the key. And the five personal foul penalties (64 yards) really hurt, though I thought the Monroe penalty was BS. Nonetheless, the improvement overall from the Cincinnati game was stark. We still took a couple of bad angles and missed some tackles but the difference was significant. Houston had more playmakers than Cincinnati and their sophomore QB is really elusive. And even the 437 yards is kind of misleading in that 124 of their yards came in the last 3:24 of the game when we were in a "prevent." Of course, they took advantage of that to almost tie the game. Fortunately, for us this time, "almost" doesn't count, whether it's us or them.

All in all it was a very encouraging game which still left the coaches plenty to "get on" the kids about. I hope they can come down to earth and really focus on Memphis. It's a winnable game.

Roll Wave!!!

Nice reward for one tremendously talented redshirt freshman.

This post was edited on 11/10 5:44 PM by Guerry Smith

Link

I've relooked at the Monroe play several times now and I just don't see the rationale for either a penalty or the "targeting" disqualification. The announcers claimed "by rule" if the helmets touch, it's "targeting." If so, the rule needs to be changed. From what I saw, Monroe and the receiver were both essentially vertical when they came together and the collision at the chest and shoulder area forced their heads towards each other. I couldn't tell for sure, even in slow motion, whether the heads actually contacted, so even if the announcers' definition is correct, I'm not convinced the evidence was conclusive for a "targeting" penalty.

Last week when Gilbert was ejected, some of our fans protested the call. In that case, I thought it was clear. Gilbert hit the guy directly in the chin and face mask with the top of his helmet. No doubt in my mind. But this case was much different. It will be interesting to see if CJ asks for an opinion from the league and what the response is. The replay booth obviously agreed with the officials on the field, but I still disagree.

Here is the story:

This post was edited on 11/10 5:00 PM by Guerry Smith

This post was edited on 11/10 5:04 PM by Guerry Smith

link

Anyone else watch that game last night?

Teams don't play the same way every week, but if either plays like that at Yulman, Tulane should beat both of them. That was an awful game and neither team had any playmakers on offense.

Kameron Eloph just committed to Louisiana Tech. He's a OG/DT who is highly regarded by all the services ("top 40" consensus in Louisiana) and had a Tulane offer along with many offers from P5 schools. I guess he chose Tech because of proximity (he lives in Bossier City). Anyway, Jimmy Smith commented on him being a possible Tulane "get" a few weeks ago. It just didn't happen.

Although CJ would not confirm it today at practice, saying "write what you want to write," don't look for Badie or Thompson to make the trip to Houston, at least not in uniform. They did not practice again today, and Tulane will go with the four-headed group of Dontrell Hilliard, Dante Butler, Marshall Wadleigh and Sergio Medina.

You can see the picture at Nola.com, but offensive tackle Sean Donnelly and defensive tackle Tanzel Smart got in a fight at practice today (before I arrived). When I arrived, the two of them were walking around the field holding hands, the punishment CJ meted out in exasperation. He said they held hands for about 20 minutes as the circumnavigated the practice field until coaches needed them.

"We had a little bit of an altercation, and it kind of wasted some of my practice time," CJ said. "I took a different approach in disciplining them. If they want to act like kindergarten kids, I just wanted to treat them like kindergarten kids.

Donnelly needed a bandage for his right hand after connecting with something that skin doesn't appreciate.

"If you are going to fight, sometimes you are going to hit the wrong thing," CJ said. "So that's what happens. Now you have to hold hands with it."

CJ admitted he had never forced players to hold hands after a fight, but it is his repertoire of discipline for family members.

"I've done it with my daughters," he said. "It was pretty effective."

Tulane's kicking issues returned at practice today. During a 2-minute drill, they simulated a last-second kick from 40 yards. When the count reached 1 second left, the ball was snapped, the hold was fine and Andrew DiRocco still hooked it well right. It had more height and was more straight than Trevor Simms' 51-yard effort against Cincinnati, but it was not close.