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.”

Good morning, I noticed a lot of posts lately asking for updates regarding recruiting. I am more than happy to share what I can with you all, sometimes I am asked not to by my sources as it could cause some issues, but otherwise if I see or hear something I share. But if you want the most up to date stuff you should really check twitter. A lot of kids will keep you abreast of their recruiting and there are a few sites which you can follow that give regular recruiting updates...and of course you can always follow me...@SirrLance.
I usually retweet most Tulane related news...a few other sites worth a follow...
@JuCoFootballACE - Juco football recruiting site
@TUJoinTheBuzzFB - A Tulane football centric site
@CoachWEFritz - Coach Fritz's personal twitter account...be on the lookout for a 'ROLLWAVE'
@John_C_Fritz - No relation to CWF, just loves Tulane football.

I will get every word put this week, but here were the highlights

Tulane hopes to announce juco signings by 11 a.m. tomorrow. Of the three who are committed, we know two visited other schools over the weekend, and they are after at least three more, so it is unclear how many will sign.

Fritz said the class, counting the ones who date back to last year, can accommodate 25 to 27. Currently Tulane has 19 or 20 commits. Fritz said they are going after really good players but need t close the deal.

Bradwell will stay at RB and Fritz said Bradwell was excited about the opportunity.

Spring practice may be delayed this year so they can have more bodies available. Fritz said 4 or 5 guys might be able to practice if they held it later, but he did not name them due to student confidentiality concerns.

Of the guys who no longer are on the listed roster, Fritz said they were giving every junior with a chance to graduate in May the opportunity to stay or transfer somewhere to get more playing time.

He said Parry Nickerson would go through the NFL Draft Advisory Board process, saying that was a good thing, and mentioned one or two other players might do the same thing. What Nickerson hears from that group will go a long way in determining his future.

His staff will return intact and he still believes his offensive system can win. I asked the first question. Was surprised there were multiple questions about the second. Why in the world would he think his system doesn't work after one year with no QB, few WRs and no offensive line?

He believes the UConn win was big, giving the team a sense of what happens when it is committed and plays well. He pointed out he never had lost more than three in a row before Tulane's five-game skid leading up to the UConn game. He lost three in a row in his first year at Central Missouri and Sam Houston State before making big leaps in his second seasons.

He wants more walk-ons the program and is actively pursuing them to help with the numbers os the roster. ED comment: I hope they are not taking too much time on that task because of the cost of attending Tulane.

He very much wants as many of the 2017 class as possible to enroll early to help with numbers in the spring.

He does not believe in redshirting players even when there is depth. The four guys who did not play this year were either at positions of great depth (defensive line) or injured.

They will not sign the maximum 25-27 if the players aren't worthy. He said he cannot afford to waste any scholarships and will hold them until next year if the quality of the potential signees is not high enough.

Here is what has happened to six Tulane basketball players who still would have eligibility left if they had stayed over the past three years. Not included: Dylan Osetkowski, who is sitting out a transfer year at Texas, and Taron Oliver, who apparently has not enrolled anywhere after leaving the team in the offseason.

1) Jonathan Stark, Murray State

--After sitting out a transfer year, Stark is on fire, averaging 22.6 points, 6.0 assists and 3.8 rebounds while hitting 28 of 57 3-pointers (.491). After a promising freshman year at Tulane, he struggled with the physicality of the AAC as a sophomore, lost confidence in his shot and sulked a lot despite hitting a spectacular game winner against Cincinnati. I always felt like he could be a terrific point guard for the Wave. Murray State is only 4-4, though, a disappointing start for a team that competes for the NCAA tournament every year. Stark scored 27 points in his last game, a victory against Ohio.

2) Payton Henson, Vermont

Although Henson shot horribly his whole two years at Tulane, the Wave could use him this year. He He is hitting 54.8 percent of his shots and 40.0 percent of his 3-pointers while leading the Catamounts with 12.7 ppg. He also averages 6.2 rebounds. Vermont is 6-3 and will be a contender in the American East.

3) Josh Hearlihy, Vermont

Some players are lost causes. Hearlihy, who was impossibly awkward in brief playing stints at Tulane despite having decent court vision, is one of the last men off the bench at Vermont, averaging 1.3 points in 9.4 minutes while hitting only 4 of 13 shots.

4) Kajon Mack, Tennessee Tech

Mack chose to leave after attending Dunleavy's opening press conference. He had one year of eligibility left and, having graduated from Tulane, was eligible immediately at Tennessee Tech. He is averaging 10.0 points, 4.1 rebounds and 3.0 assists but shooting poorly, hitting 37.9 percent overall and 10 of 32 3-pointers. His scoring average is second on the team. Tennessee Tech is 4-6.

5) Keith Pinckney, Old Dominion

Nothing has gone right for a recruit who was fairly high regarded when he enrolled at Tulane. After looking like a dear in the headlights for his entire freshman year as a backup point guard, he bolted along with Stark and went to Northwest Florida State Community College, where he said a broken wrist in the offseason set him back on a deep team He averaged 4.3 points and 2.4 assists as his team reached the quarterfinals of the national JC tourney. He transferred to Old Dominion this summer and has two years of eligibility left. He has not played yet. Not sure if he is injured or just not good enough to crack the lineup.

6) Ray Barreno, Portland

Barreno did not look like a D1 player on his high school highlight reel and has not shown he is one at Tulane or Portland, either. He is averaging 2.1 points as a senior but had all but one of those points against Lewis and Clark. His average against D1 teams is 0.1.

Yeah, I know, there's not much interest in Tulane basketball after the dreadful start, but some of you might be interested in the stated mindset of Dunleavy and his players.

DUNLEAVY

After watching the film, how much of St. John's torrid shooting was not good defense on your part and how much was lights out shooting on St. John's part?

"Well, it was a combination of course, but unfortunately, there first couple of buckets, I thought we were doing well the first couple of possessions, and then we had a couple of I guess you could say unlucky plays in a sense. They saved the ball from going out of bounds twice on the same play and ended up getting an open 3 in a scramble situation. Melvin (Frazier) had a steal, came up with a shooter in the corner and they threw it to the guy in the elbow and he knocked it away for a potential breakaway, but the point guard came over and beat him to the ball, then threw it to his guy in the corner for a wide open 3, so a couple of their guys who really hadn't had good looks got buckets that way, then they got another one in transition off a mistake. So our defense didn't initially give it up, and then what happened is you had guys make shots. Coming into the game we knew they were really good shooters, and from there they caught fire. Then when we had good defense on them a couple of times, it didn't matter."

The shooting percentage of your opponents is far too high. What do guys have to do to correct that?

"The first part of good defense is good offense. Our best defense is when we score. When we've scored and teams have had to play against a set defense, we've been OK. We've been pretty good actually. But the games that have created issues have been we've reached a point in the game and the other team has a quick run-off on us, and it's based on bad shots and turnovers. That's the area of the game that coming in I was trying to correct--shot selection, turnovers, the chances that our guys take with the ball at times are real cavalier, and it's just not good percentage basketball, and invariably we're paying the price. For the most part the teams we've played have been fairly high level teams with good talent, and you can't let those teams get away from you. The fact is that most of the time they want to speed the game up, and we've let them speed us up in a way that's nothing positive for us. We want a fast game when we've got numbers when we're playing against a better team. We want to have the advantage numbers, 2 on 1, 3 on 2, 4 on 3. That's when we're creating high percentage shots with board coverage. We're coming down in transition and shooting shots like, I'm open, well sometimes there's a reason why you're open. An open shot with no board coverage is as good as a turnover if you don't make it."

There have been a whole lot of shots lately with no board coverage.

"As I have tried to make the guys understand, a good shot versus a bad shot has to do with time of game, momentum of game and score of game. The same shot can be taken by the same guy twice, and one time I'm saying good shot and the next time I'm saying bad shot and it didn't have anything to do with the ball going in the basket or not. Clearly bad shots that go in, you feel a little bit better about, but bad shots are bad shots, and they can put you in a real bad way."

Southern's Shawn Prudhomme is averaging more than 20 points and shooting better than 50 percent from the field and 3-point range. What is his game like?

"He's very efficient. His numbers from the 3-point line have been amazingly good, his field goal percentage the same thing, he gets to the free throw line and he's very athletic. I haven't seen all their games, but in the games I've watched he's done a nice job of letting the game come to him. I haven't seen him force it, but clearly his guys look for him and get him the ball."

Guys could start hanging their heads after the last few games. How do you make sure they don't?

"My conversation with our guys has been virtually I look at this whole season as almost a training camp for us. We have no chance of getting to the NCAAs unless we win our conference (tournament) championship, and we have to build on experimenting at times during the season with things that can work for us and coverages that might work for us. It's a learning process. I still think that guys are improving. Not that statistics mean anything, but we've had a number of guys get career highs in a bunch of different areas. They just have to keep working that part of the game and understanding what they are efficient at doing and we have to just put it together to where we can play a full 40 minutes of being disciplined at both ends of the floor. This team at times has had bad mental lapses as far as understanding a little bit about who they are as players, what their real skill level is and how that translates to our team and our needs."

Frazier looked pretty good against St. John's coming off his back injury.

"Yeah. Your work with a bad back is never done. You've got to keep taking care of it, but I thought he played free in that game."

FRAZIER

Defense has been an issue all year for this team. Where do you need to tighten up the most?

"We just need to pay attention to our defensive coverages and guard the ball really. We just have to do what the coach says. It's there, but we have to finish the defense off."

Is it individual mistakes?

"That, too, but it's a team effort on defense. We just have to really pay attention to details that coach is telling us to do that we're not doing."

You pride yourself on your defense. How frustrating has it been?

"Very frustrating because I like to play defense and that's where it starts. Defense wins games."

So you feel like the potential is there to be a lot better on defense?

"Yessir. We just need to listen and do what we need to do."

When a team shoots like St. John's did from outside, have you ever been in a game like that?

"No, that was actually my first time playing in a game like that. We played good defense at times but they were just knocking shots down. We just had to continue to play defense and hopefully they wouldn't make it, but it didn't go in our favor."

How do you make sure the whole team doesn't get down? Those are two rough games you've just played.

"It's over with now. We've got to put it in the past and go on to the next one."

What's the most important thing you need to do against Southern?

"We are more focused on (Prudhomme). He's one of the most efficient shooters in the country right now, so we are more focused on playing defense on him and letting the others try to (beat us)."

How healthy are you?

"I'm coming back to 100 percent in this game. I should be there. I didn't know at first until we went to the doctor, and he got it right. It was just spasms in my back."

MALIK MORGAN

Have you ever seen a team get as hot as St. Johns?

"It's been a while since I've seen anybody get that hot, but credit to St. John's. They had a lot of open shots on our miscues and they really nailed them."

The defense has been a problem all year. What is the biggest issue in your mind?

"I think we play pretty solid defense for most of the possession, but we've got to figure out how to finish out the possessions, whether that be getting a loose ball or securing a rebound."

How do you make sure that guys' heads are up?

"We know it's going to be a long season. We can't dwell on the past. We've got to be able to keep moving forward and trusting our process and trusting what coach Dunleavy has in store for us. We just have to keep coming in together every day and stay together."

Did you see UNO beat Washington State by 16?

"Yeah. UNO has a good group of guys that play hard, and they were able to continue a good run."

Southern's Prudhomme is averaging about 23 points. What do you need to do to slow him down?

"He's a really good shooter. We're going to try to cut his water off early. He's going to be someone we focus on a lot when he's on the court. We have to find him early and be able to stay attached to him and not let him get loose."

What is the most important thing you need to do against Southern?

"We just have to play hard. We have to come out and play hard every minute and every possession. Once we see us get a couple of stops in a row, our confidence goes up and we are able to move the ball on the offensive end a lot better. We just really need to learn how to play together."

This was where it began falling apart for CJ and his staff, which had recruited fairly well to that point aside from offensive line, wide receiver and quarterback (I still like Tanner Lee, but he was the only option).

But the 2015 class hit rock bottom. Of the 17 guys in the class on signing day, 10 remain, three started this year, four played any real role and only one would be considered a positive contributor.

Darius Williams never qualified at a position of monstrous need
Andrew Hicks will be a very good player if he can get healthy, which is a big if.
Leeward Brown started this year but needs to get better
Zach Block punted this year but needs to get better
John Washington got moved to offensive line this year. His potential is unclear
Dedrick Shy left after spring drills
Roderic Teamer is a solid starter
Keyshawn McLeod is a backup center and not starter quality at this point
Brian Webb has done nothing to this point
Nigel Anderson left after being academically ineligible in the spring. Also had clearinghouse issues.
Malik Eugene transferred after Fritz and his staff arrived
Darius Black was flagged by the clearinghouse and never qualified
Doug Henry was let go because they knew he would not qualify
Taris Shenall played a lot this year but needs to get better
Jeremie Francis got passed on the depth chart by true freshmen at CB
Keeyon Smart disappeared before spring drills, also apparently due to academic issues
Devin Glenn was a non-factor at RB and WR but is a hard worker with a good attitude

If I were grading on the same scale I graded the positions this week, the class of 2015 would get a big fat F.

There were 13 contestants who entered all 12 weeks and two who entered all but one week. I dropped the lowest score for each person who entered every week, but it did not change who would have won.

Here are the final standings. The score in parentheses is what you had without dropping your low score. Kettrade 1 took a solid lead with an 8-point effort in week 6 and stayed in front from there despite late charges from diverdo and MNAlum.

No one had a zero-point week and no one had a perfect week, which has been true all five years.

1) Kettrade1 58.5 (60.5)


2) MNAlum 56.5 (58.5)

3) diverdo 55.5 (58.5)

4) Rcnut 54.5 (55.5)

5) LSU Law Greenie 53.5 (56.5)

6) Charlamange8 52.4 (55.5)

7) Wavetime 52.0 (54.5)

8) Gretna Green 50.5 (53.5)

9) Golfer81 49.5 (52.5)

10) WaveON 49.5 (51.5)

10) Guerry 49.5 (51.5)

12) ny oscar 49.5 (49.5)

13) winwave 47.5 (49.5)

14) DrBox 46.5 (48.5)

15) highwave 44.5 (44.5)

My story is up on the front page.

Let me know what you think of my grades, and post your own grades here.