Until the last two years, Willie Fritz had been a remarkably good coach when it came to turnovers, the single most volatile stat in football. A team can be plus 15 one year and minus-15 the next with the same staff in place, but in his case, no team he coached from his first year at Central Missouri in 1997 to Tulane in 2017 had a negative turnover margin.

That is an amazing 21-year stat of consistency, which ended, barely, last year when Tulane was minus-1. This season the Wave is minus-4 and will need an incredible turnover game in the bowl game to avoid a second straight negative turnover ratio. The problem is not ball security but the inability to get takeways. Tulane's 14 takeaways are two lower than Fritz's worst total of 16 which was set in 11 games at Sam Houston State in 2010.

Here are the year-by-year stats, from most recent to oldest:

2019: minus-4 (14/18)

2018: minus-1 (18/19)

2017: plus-8 (19/11)

2016: plus-9 (27/18)

2015: plus-6 (27/21)

2014: plus-8 (20/12)

2013: plus-4 (25/21)

2012: plus-10 (30/20)

2011: plus-28 (42/14)

2010: plus-4 (16/12)

2009: plus-4 (21/17)

2008: plus-7 (21/14)

2007: plus-9 (34/25)

2006: plus-2 (20/18)

2005: plus-10 (25/15)

2004: plus-2 (21/19)

2003: plus-13 (30/17)

2002: plus-7 (30/23)

2001: plus-7 (34/27

2000: plus-13 (34/21)

1999: plus-4 (29/25)

1998: even (23/23)

1997: plus-7 (26/19

Fritz was plus-160 through 21 years, an average of about plus-8, before the downturn in the last two seasons. His teams failed to force 20 turnovers only once before he came to Tulane but will have failed to do it three straight years after the bowl game, which probably is a reflection of the upgraded talent level in the AAC.

As for penalties, which generally are not a revealing stat in terms of wins and losses (as many years as not, the 10 teams with the most penalty yards in the FBS have better records than the 10 teams with the fewest penalty yards, although that will not be the case this season), Fritz's teams have been average before Tulane's dramatic rise in flags the past two years. Penalties are not usually a volatile stat, with teams generally averaging around the same number of penalties each year, but Tulane has broken the mold.

Here are Fritz's year-by-year penalty stats starting in 2008. It becomes more difficult to access those numbers before 2008, with national rank in penalties followed by the number of penalties and the yards:

2019: 122—97-833

2018: T90--88-805

2017: 58—70-579

2016: T81—77-661

2015: T24--67-629

2014: T22--57-556

2013: 39—76-641

2012: 88—112-1021

2011: 73—101-1017

2010: T72—76-701

2009: T92—84-680

2008: T48—67-579

Until this year, no Fritz team had ranked in the 100s in penalties, and Tulane is No. 122. It also will rack up 100 penalties for only the third time in Fritz's career if it gets at least three in the bowl game, and the other two years came when Sam Houston State played 15 games in 2011 and 2012.

Tulane was 64th in the nation in penalties and 48th in Fritz's first two years, but 94th and 122nd the last two. I'm not sure if that means the players he brought in are not as coachable as the players he inherited--it seems unlikely considering everything the coaches and players have said about buying into his system--but the numbers are damning.

If Tulane's turnover ratio had been as good as it was in Fritz's first two years the last two seasons, the Wave would have won more than six games. I don't feel like penalties were a big factor in losses last year despite the high number, but they definitely were a major hindrance this season.

Tulane is planning a much bigger weekend for next weekend, the last one before the Dec. 18 early signing day. This weekend, it is all players already committed plus one very interesting uncommitted prospect (see below) in Highland CC LB CJ Harris, whom Rivals.com lists as Curtis Harris, as does the Highland CC website.

ALREADY COMMITTED

Justin Ibieta
Noah Taliancich
Duece Watts
Phat Watts
Brandon Brown
Reggie Brown
Elijah Champaigne
Ethan Barr

UNCOMMITTED

CJ Harris, a no-star, 6-0, 218-pound LB from Highland CC (Kansas).

Skinny: Rivals lists him with offers from Toledo and Tulane. 247 Sports lists his only offer as being from Arkansas State. This was his only year at Highland, and he had 37 tackles, 3.5 tackles for loss, 1 sack, 1 forced fumble and 1 blocked kick this year for a team that went 6-4, but here's the caveat: he did it in only four games, racking up 9 tackles in the opener, 11 tackles in the second game and 13 against Coffeyville in game 4. He hurt his finger bad after two games and tried to play through it, registering only 4 tackles in the third game, and the coaches/doctor made him have season-ending surgery after the fourth game. All of his tackles for loss came in the first two games. He played his senior year of high school (2017) at powerhouse program Warner Robins (Ga.), primarily at safety where he had two interceptions and three forced fumbles for a team that reached the state championship game, but he would play LB at Tulane.

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That's not the most interesting part of his story, though. He has epilepsy and was ticketed to go to Auburn as a preferred walk-on in 2018 before the Tigers pulled the offer because he was taking medical marijuana to treat the epilepsy. I think he went to a prep school in 2018.

https://www.fox26houston.com/news/football-player-with-epilepsy-fights-for-college-career

Former LSU and NFL center Alan Faneca dealt with epilepsy, as did Samari Rolle. If properly treated, it's not a condition that prevents players from excelling in football.

Considering his ability, I think he would be an outstanding get. The two schools recruiting him the hardest other than Tulane are Arkansas State and ULL. Ole Miss was close to offering him before it fired its coaches.

Guerry-

Do you have a list of expected visitors for the weekend? I know that Noah Taliancich, Ethan Barr and CJ Harris (JUCO Safety/LB) have tweeted that they are visiting this weekend. Any others of note?

Both Tyler Johnson and Jorien Vallien are now in the transfer portal. I didn't see where Johnson announced anything, but I just may have missed it. 247 has him in the portal, though, and he's off the official roster.

Tulane hosts Southern Sunday and should win easily. I talked to Ron Hunter this week after Tulane's 2-1 performance at the Myrtle Beach Invitational.

On the injury front, he said Nic Thomas practiced Wednesday after missing the last two games in Myrtle Beach to rest his injured hand, which was still giving him problems. He said Thomas experienced no pain in practice.

K.J. Lawson missed Wednesday's practice because he had wisdom teeth removed but he will play Sunday.

Here is what else Hunter said:

On what learned about team in S.C.:

"We needed to play away from here and travel together and play power five schools, not so much for ourselves but just for our team. To really completely buy in, you have to have success, and so that’s what was great about this weekend. I needed adversity and you can’t create, and we got that in one weekend, so all of that was good and that’s something we can build on. The next program for us as a program is how do you handle success. Most programs, that’s a hard thing to do. That’s why you see mid-majors have great years and fall off. One of the things that we’ve done at Georgia State and even at IUPUI, we sustained it, and so that’s the message. How do we sustain success at this program."

On Jordan Walker hitting big shots late after he benched him early against Utah:

"That’s been the fun part for me this year is I’ve gotten on guys and they’ve aall handled it extremely well. And it’s been a different guy, different nights. Jordan completed it, but we don’t have that if we don’t have Christion Thompson and the second half he had. So that’s what’s been great and how they responded, whether it’s K.J. We have a mature team and I keep saying that. That’s been the fun part about it. I love having four guys in double figures. I like having different scorers because how do you scout us. Who do you try to shut down. Are you going to shut Teshaun down or Christion or K.J. I’ve really enjoyed that part."

On whether he really threw Christion Thompson out of the locker room at halftime of second game:

"I came in and he was sitting here and I threw him out. That was the first thing I did. My assistants went out and talked to him. I told him he wasn’t going to play in the second half. That part I was kidding about, but I wanted to send a message to him. Then I went out and talked to him and two minutes before the half was going to start, I sat him on the bench with me and I said, OK, now we’ll see what you’re made of. I said we can talk about this afterwards but you’ve got to play harder. What was great about it was he was sick all weekend. He had the flu. I’ve been saying from the very first day we’re not making excuses, and I would not allow him to make an excuse. Whether you’ve got a cold or you’ve got the flu, there are no excuses. We’ve made too many excuses in this program over the last few years."

On guys not wanting to lose down stretch to Utah:

"What was great is I loved the timeouts because there are times when you get to the last two medias of the game, the players are talking in the timeout about what they are going to do. It shouldn’t be about me saying what they are going to do. In the Mississippi State game we didn’t quite have that. We talked about it. They were waiting for Coach to say something. This time they took over the timeout, and that’s when you have a good team, when the players can take over a timeout and say, hey, I’ve got this covered, I’m going to do this. I actually kind of smiles because of the growth of our team in a couple of days."

On what wants to see the most going forward:

"Just consistency offensively. We keep talking about being consistent. The really good teams stay consistent and you don’t play down to the level of the other team. You play up, and that’s what I’m trying to get us to. Be consistent and outside noise doesn’t matter."

On forcing so many turnovers in S.C.:

"When our defense is working, that’s what it’s supposed to do. It’s something all my teams have been able to do. We want to create points off our defense. This program is based on our defensive principles. I’ve always said the less plays I call a game, the better our play because we’ve got guys who can score in transition with great hands and quickness."

On Nobal Days:

"Nobal Days, his hands are unbelievable. He’s not the best athlete, but he’s got some of the best hands I’ve ever seen."

On Days' missed dunk

"He wanted to crawl into a hole but his teammates wouldn’t let him, and that’s what was great on the floor. You could hear Jelly yelling at him, Teshaun started getting on him, pick your head up, we’ve got another possession. What was great was we got a stop on the next possession and then we came down and scored. Again, that’s what I’m talking about with adversity. Those are the type plays you can’t create in practice. He had his head down, and if you look when he came off the floor I kind of grabbed him and said, let’s go, we’ve got to keep playing. But don’t think I didn’t tease him after the game. I usually don’t text parents, but I texted his family and said, ‘How about that dunk?” But we don’t have the success we’re having if it’s not for Nobal Days. Everybody is going to get the credit, but he’s doing all the dirty work that doesn’t show up in the stat sheet. There was a clip where they had in a four-minute stretch they put two seven-footers and just pounded him and pounded him and he was just coming back every time."

On willingness to play a freshman, which he rarely does:

"He’s a stud. Sometimes stud doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re getting 20 and 10. He’s one of the smartest players I’ve ever coached. I thought my son had the highest basketball I.Q. I’ve ever coached. This kid’s close to him. He understands angles. He understands things. I love how he thinks the game, and sometimes almost overthinks it. One thing I say to him that I don’t say to other guys is don’t overthink it, just play, but he’s been absolutely terrific."

On guarding against letdown against Southern:

"That’s why we got after them today. Look around the country. Look what happens to Duke. Look what happens to Kentucky. I explained why these things happen. There’s a fine line between the player who plays at Duke and the player who plays at Stephen F. Austin or Southern. There used to be these great gaps. Those aren’t there anymore, and so if you don’t come to play (you are in trouble). That’s what we talked about here. How do we handle success? The next big test for me is how do we play next week coming off a little success."

RON HUNTER

"I'm not happy with our performance today. I was on our guys about the preparation. I thought we just thought we could show up to win, and I did not like that. The only positive thing that came out of today was R.J. (McGee) was really good. He got his chance. What I love about our freshmen is that every chance they get an opportunity, they've come in and rung the bell.

"I'll say that. I'm also going to say that Ray (Ona) Embo will not be a member of our team anymore. He decided to go back to France and be with his family, and that's all I'm going to say on him, and so next man up. He called me and said that he wanted to go back to his country and spend time with his family."

It did not take you long to get angry today. You called a timeout in the first two minutes after going down 4-0 and screamed at your guys. What were you saying?

"It was just that. I appreciate yesterday and I appreciate today. I'll be honest with you. It was almost something you've got to be careful what you wish for because I wanted that to happen, to be honest with you, so I could send that message. Again, as you're trying to build your program, it's not about necessarily who we're playing. It's about how we play. We had this long layoff. I don't like long layoffs. We were playing good basketball, and so you have to be a mature team to know how to handle it. If you look around the country, you see the the teams that aren't mature and they lose when they play these."

They had no one who could check K.J. Lawson, and he showed his full repertoire on the offensive end. How tough is he to guard?

"Every day he's getting comfortable. He's not the best athlete in the world, so it's taken a little time for him to kind of get going, but he's a hard guard because he can hit the 3 and he can score at all three levels. We wanted to go at him today. He was really good today."

He has some moves and counter moves with some tough-angle shots he is comfortable with on the baseline that you don't see too much anymore.

"He's got that old-man game. He looks like he can go out in the park and play with me and some of those older guys."

You mentioned R.J. How impressed with him are you?

"When things happen, I don't care what happens in life, it's an opportunity. I've said that to my own children, so whenever you get an opportunity, you never know when that opportunity's going to come, and I've preached that from day 1. So he took advantage of an opportunity. Defensively is what he's really good at, but I don't think any of us were surprised because he practices that way. We've played him out of position because on the scout team we need a point guard and he's got to play that point guard role. He's going to help us."

How much are you looking forward to USM on Wednesday and your first true road game?

"I'm really looking forward to it. I was looking forward to this game because I wanted to see how we would handle the week off and be able to respond after having success. This one I think we'll handle well because we love that underdog role. It will be just us, and that environment's a great place to play. When these guys are locked in and focused, trying to keep them locked in and focused all the time is going to drive their coach crazy."

You are down a point guard now. What's the plan?

"You know me. We're down a point guard, but we've got a better athlete and a better defender, so it becomes an advantage for us to be honest with you. It was hard for R.J. to get on the floor, so the next guy stepped up. The point guard situation, I've got enough guys that can do that. Teshaun can play it. Christion (Thompson) can play it. Nic (Thomas) can play it i I need to. R.J. plays it on the scout team. What we needed was a big-time athlete who can defend, and so adding him to the rotation is going to make us better, and of course we pick up TY (Tylan Pope) in about 10 days, so that's going to even make us stronger. We hope to get big fellow (Ibby Ali) back soon, so when we get healthier and strong. That's why I'm trying to get us to play the right way every time because right now we're not 100 percent yet. Wait until we get to the point we're 100 percent."

K.J. LAWSON

How did you feel today?

"I still don't feel 100 percent because I just got my wisdom tooth pulled and I didn't practice the first couple of practices when we got back, but it felt good to play. I did that against MTSU. I had 16 in one half, so I wasn't really worried about that. I'm just trying to play basketball."

Coach says you have a little bit of an old man's game.

"I just learned my jump hook from the best, Herb Wright, Lorenzen Wright's dad. We always trained and worked on jump hooks and different type of angle shots. It just comes from preparation, but it was a great team win today."

Coach was on you guys at the first timeout and was very loud is his anger. What were your thoughts?

"We've just got to come out ready to play and communicate from the jump. We can't let teams get comfortable. Coming from a big tournament we were kind of playing to the level of competition at the beginning. Hat's off to them. They are a great team, but we shouldn't let teams play with us. When we looked at the scouting report, they took Nebraska to overtime because teams let people get comfortable and hang around."

What did you think of R.J.'s performance?

"That was great. I'm happy for R.J. Like coach says, he plays aggressively in practice. He shoots the ball a lot, so to see him get some knockdown shots, because he can shoot and he can defend. That's one thing we know about R.J. He's not the average freshman. We know he's looking to be aggressive."

TESHAUN HIGHTOWER

What do you think of the way K.J. was playing offensively?

"I love it. I love it. Just go to him. Nobody could stop him, so we just kept going to him."

SOUTHERN COACH SEAN WOODS

What are your thoughts on K.J. Lawson?

"He can play, you know what I mean. He hit tough shots, but that's why he's a pro. I tip my hat off to him, and that's what it took to beat us. A pro beat us tonight."

The red zone struggles were new. The pressure on SMU's QB was new. The rest we've seen before in the second half of the season as the Wave lost for the fifth time in five games against a backloaded schedule.

Tulane's six victims this year have a 22-45 record pending Army's result at Hawaii tonight.

The six teams that beat Tulane are 56-15.

There was nothing inconsistent about this year. Tulane beat the teams it was better than and lost to the rest, making the same mistakes along the way in wins and losses. Memphis, UCF and Auburn are more talented than Tulane. I do not think Temple, Navy and SMU are more talented than Tulane, although all three games were on the road. Houston with D'Eriq King I would argue was more talented than Tulane, and the Wave won that one at home.

WILLIE FRITZ

"Hats off to SMU. They did a good job. They have a good squad. We had some chances. We made some turnovers that were really costly and gave them some short fields. They got a couple of touchdowns out of them. There were some times we were driving and doing a good job between the 20s, but when we needed to make a play when we got in the red zone, we just didn't do it a couple of times."

When the fourth quarter started, you went for it instead of kicking a short field goal down 21-17. Was that an easy choice?

"Analytics tells us to go there. There's more value with the touchdown obviously, and it looked like we had a nice throw into Darnell (Mooney). I couldn't tell if the DB broke it up or we just didn't get catch it. I wanted to be aggressive there. Then at the very least they still had a long field to go."

Your defense had gotten off the field until that point, but SMU converted four third downs on its next drive. Was that stage the key?

"Yeah. We got them in some long-yardage situations and we didn't slam the door shut. You gotta do that. One of them was a third-and-8. You gotta get a stop and make them punt."

How much did the two turnovers deep in your territory hurt?

"That's huge. That hurt us. Any time they start inside the red zone it's going to be tough on you."

You'll find out your bowl game in a week. What are your thoughts?

"Well, right now we are just disappointed. We wanted to get that seventh run and that was a big goal for us. We knew it would be tough. SMU's had a great season, but we felt we had some opportunities to do it. We didn't."

You forced a couple of fumbles early and couldn't fall on the ball, making you 4 of 17 on recovering fumbles this year, which is a bizarre stat.

"We just didn't quite it. That's kind of been the story here down the stretch. We just didn't make the plays when we needed to. Normally when you get a forced fumble, it's 50 percent you get a recovery. We haven't had that ball bounce to us."

it was another slow start, although it didn't look as bad as the others.

"We moved again between the 20s, but it's got to equate to points."

What are your thoughts on Justin McMillan today?

"I thought he played well. Obviously you've got to go back and look at it. Keyshawn McLeod got hurt early and we got a little bit of pressure against him (McMillan). I thought coach (Will Hall) did a good job of scheming it up so we hit that a little bit with that mismatch there, but I thought Justin played well overall. I'd have to go back and look at it and check and see."

Are you still planning to redshirt Tyjae Spears?

"Yeah, he had one more game to play, and we thought he'd give us a spark, which he did. He did a really nice job."

Where do you go from here?

"We've got to regroup and we've got to win the bowl game. It will be the first time in the history of the school that Tulane's won back-to-back bowl games, so there's another goal out there for us to accomplish us. We have to regroup."

SMU barely had 200 yards of offense going into the fourth quarter. What do you feel like your defense did well?

"Well, part of it's they had short fields, so they are not going to get a lot of yards on that, too, but we limited their effectiveness running the ball and when they took some shots down the field, most of the time we did a good job of staying over the top and playing it."

As always, the Tulane game counts double, home teams are listed first and the point spreads come from VegasInsider.com consensus.

SMU (-4) Tulane
Memphis (-11) Cincinnati
Michigan (+9) Ohio State
Minnesota (+2.5) Wisconsin
LSU (-17) Texas A&M
Auburn (+3.5) Alabama
Oklahoma State (+13) Oklahoma
Houston (+8.5) Navy

Happy Thanksgiving to every subscriber.

Although the football team has struggled against a tough schedule in the second half of the year and still has some work to do to become a real AAC contender, I believe Tulane has the best combo of football and basketball coaches it has had in my lifetime (Perry Clark already was past his high point by the time Bowden/RichRod arrived). Good times are ahead.

After several missed opportunities, I went out to the fourth game of Tulane's fall baseball world series last week and talked to Travis Jewett after it was over. Keagan Gillies was very sharp in relief with a series of easy innings. Other than that, I really had no lasting impression from the five innings I saw.

Tulane returns seven hitters who have played major roles in the past, which is good, and seven pitchers who played significant roles last year, although most of them were ineffective.

The hitters are Hudson Haskin, David Bedgood, Grant Mathews, Jonathon Artigues, Frankie Niemann, Ty Johnson and Luke Glancy.

The pitchers are Gillies, Justin Campbell, Connor Pellerin, Trent Johnson, Krishna Raj, Robert Price and C.J. Whelan. Other than Gilles and Campbell, none of these guys were effective last year.

By my count, Kobi Owen is the only significant player with eligibility left who did not return other than the guys we already knew about who went pro or departed (Josh Bates).

There are 18 newcomers on the fall roster, including Hudson Haskin's brother Parker.

Tulane split two games with ULL on the road and swept a pair from South Alabama at home. It's hard to read much into those, and I did not see any of them.

I get the impression the players really like new coaches Jay Uhlman, who replaces Eddie Smith, who left to be a volunteer assistant at LSU, and Anthony Izzio, the new volunteer assistant. Tulane has a lot of issues entering Jewett's fourth year, but no one seems to miss Smith much. His role may have been overstated in Tulane's excellent hitting last year. We'll find out next spring.

TRAVIS JEWETT

Fall's almost done. How do you feel about what you've seen?

"I've liked it. If I could start with not just even the play but just kind of the kids, the group, spirited, they're timely, they are around all the time. You go in the clubhouse, guys are in there, you come out on the field, guys are out here, so they are an invested group, so that's been good. The new guys have fit in well, stuff like that. And then what we've done is play good baseball, so that's been nice, for the most part. Our pitching has been kind of leading the way. They've done a good job of any cap that we've run into, it's been contained and it hasn't been multiplied. Those one-inning or two-run innings, that's what they've been. They don't turn into four or six our eight or 10. It's been contained, and because of that we've stayed in range and had some close games. Outside competition against Lafayette and South Alabama we've had success and even in our World Series. Today wasn't really part of the World Series because the other team won. We just kind of switched the lineups and we just wanted to force a little bit of the old tough in Keagan and Pellerin against some of the hitters and just continue to prove that pitching and defense (are the key)."

You have seven hitters back who played big roles in the past.

"And what makes me feel even better is Ty Johnson (who missed almost all of last season after tearing up a thumb on the first weekend). He's had an electric fall. He's just been who he is, on he barrel, on the bases, igniting us well. That's been helpful. He's worth a lot, just defensively, offensively, he can run, he can hit, he can do so many different things. That's been good. You referenced all the other guys and then the (Trevor) Minder kid, the JC transfer (who had a .484 on-base percentage for the JC national runnerup Parkland College in Illinois). I'm not saying he's come in to replace (Kody) Hoese, but kind of, that hole, he's inserted himself well both offensively and defensively. He'll be a left side infielder for us at one of the spots. That's been good.

"Like I said, our pitching has improved this fall, which has been good, and then another spot we've elongated our depth and play is behind the plate. A couple of those junior college kids and Hudson Haskin's little brother, Parker, he can catch and throw. It's allowed us to rest Frankie's knees and cross train him and play him at first base so he can continue to get at-bats. He caught all summer. And then Grant (Mathews) has moved to first base, so those guys are kind of splitting each team so they can play a lot, and then the (Ethan) Groff kid we redshirted last year is a highly talented and athletic and will help us cover more ground in the outfield this year. All in all, I'm pretty pleased and certainly optimistic for what we were able to do and what we look like."

You lost your top two recruits for different reasons (the well documented admissions department hangup on two-way star Justin Campbell--not the one already on the team--that ended with him going to Oklahoma State, and Damon Fountain deciding to quit baseball and get a job in Lake Charles the day before he was supposed to report; both were ranked among the top 200 prospects of the country, which was a massive blow, so has this been a good experience to get out here and kind of forget about all of that?

"Yeah. Yeah. That hurts. There's no doubt about it. I think everybody knows that, but at the same time I tell the kids all the time we have to be present with who's here and what we have and we've got to go forward. Those guys, hopefully they are doing well for themselves. We've got what we got, and I like what we've got. We've got some pieces. We've got a bunch of left-handed hitters. We've got some right-handed hitters. We can run. We can defend a little bit, and obviously our pitching and catching has been elevated and what we've done since we've been here is swing the bat."

I get the sense your players really like the new coaches.

"Jay is really knowledgable, very spirited and has a good way about him. The kids have taken to that well. He's been a good addition."

You have a lot of bats in your lineup. How excited are you?

"Real excited. What I'm excited about is the talent that's in there plus the new guys that have inserted themselves, but what I'm most excited is feeling like (the pitching can hold up). It's not like we come in the dugout and we're chasing five and six and seven. It's more like chasing one, chasing two. We're always obtainable, so that helps the believability. We may be able to bunt a ball this year or hit and run, things I wasn't willing to do last year because we needed all of our outs. We'll be a good hitting team, but that will help our collective offense. We can do some things like a true offense."

As has been Tulane's luck in recent weeks, the Green Wave moved its morning practice indoors because of expected rain--in this case at the Saints facility--and were greeted with sunshine by the time the workout ended and for most of practice if they peaked outside. They probably could have conducted it at Yulman Stadium without a hitch, although the benefit of practicing outdoors is lessened this week because the temperature is supposed to be in the 60s Saturday at SMU.

"I thought we had a really good one today," Willie Fritz said. "Once again, it was 60 percent (chance of rain) and I saw the garage door open at the Saints and I was God Almighty, it's a beautiful day out here, but it was good."

I am doing a feature on Geron Eatherly today. In four years at Tulane, he has snapped for every punt, field goal and extra point except for two or three that legally blind Aaron Golub took in 2016, and he has not botched one. That means he has been virtually flawless on 461 or 462 snaps entering the SMU game.

"He's excellent," Willie Fritz said. "The analogy would be that he'd be like the Maytag repairman, so reliable that you don't even notice. That's what you want out of a long snapper, a guy that you never notice because he does such a good job. We really nitpick with him, too. If it's not completely in the cylinder, we give him a minus. We're looking for stuff. He's very, very accurate and has been very durable and a high-effort guy."

When you signed him in April of 2016, you mentioned you had a coaching friend who recommended him to you?

"Robby Discher. He had been at Oklahoma State (as a grad assistant in 2015, he has been at Toledo as tight ends coach and special teams coordinator since then; he was a grad assistant under Fritz at Sam Houston State for two years and then his special teams coordinator the next two), and they were trying to get him to come as a preferred walk-on. After going through spring ball, I knew I needed somebody. He's just been great. He came in and visited, jumped on it and is going to graduate with his degree and is just a great kid.

"Sometimes they don't get the notoriety, but he's gotten some notoriety. He was a semifinalist for the Mannely Award, which goes to the nation's best long snapper (he did not make the cut for finalists) and was a fourth-team All-America pick by Phil Steele (in 2018 and again this preseason. He does a good job. I'm hoping he's going to be able to get into a camp and show what he can do. He's been selected to play in an All-Star game."

What do NFL teams look for in a long snapper?

"They like somebody with size (Eatherly is 6-0, 235), they like somebody who can snap accurately with speed and they like someone who can cover (Eatherly has three tackles in his career and forced a fumble against Houston on a punt return this year). The thing that we do with Geron is we're one one of the few teams that runs a shield type punt where the snapper also has to be involved in protection. That's what you have to do in the NFL. In the NFL only the end two men on the line of scrimmage can release on the snap, so you're snapping and having to move and block where most people in the (college) shield snap it and run down the field and cover. We've worked with him (on snapping and blocking) all the time and he's very good with it."

I talked to Eatherly for nearly 10 minutes. Here is that interview:

How did you end up at Tulane?

"Signing day I was originally going to go to Oklahoma State as a preferred walk-on and coach Fritz called me after he got a recommendation from a coach that he knows and he just offered me a scholarship and had me up on an official visit, I couldn't turn down the education here."

When you heard those words "full scholarship," what was your initial reaction?

"Getting a full scholarship here, it's something you always dream of playing football as a child, and as a long snapper you never really expect it as much. I had a scholarship offer from an FCS school (Portland State), but I wanted to play FBS football. Coach Fritz called and gave me the full scholarship here and it was like a dream come true."

Have there been any punt or field goal or extra point snaps you weren't on the field for?

"I haven't been hurt, but Aaron Golub did two or three field goals I believe."

So that means you've had 461 or 462 snaps. Do you recall an errant one?

Every snap we've gotten off and there's nothing on the ground or over the head. Just not getting called out by media about doing anything is the best part about long snapping, and since you haven't interviewed me since I was a freshman, I assume it's been a good career."

Before you arrived, Tulane has massive problems with long snapping. That pre-dated Fritz, too, but how much pride do you take in your accuracy?

"It's not so much like a sense of pride. I look at it as it's my job to be perfect every time, and a lot of times I'll snap a ball that normal people or even the coaches will see and say that's a good snap, but I go off and am unhappy about it because of something small that happened about it. I take pride in my work but I'm a little bit of a perfectionist. I always think I can do better than what I've done. I'm just glad I can help the team get to where we are now compared to where we were in the past."

Were you the first-teamer right away?

"I was. The first practice of fall camp I was taking all the reps and everything."

You forced a fumble against Houston on a punt return this year. What happened on that play?

"That was fun. I just kind of dove and my hand hit the ball in the right place and the ball came out. I saw the returner running and I knew that he was a little faster than me and I was going to have to dive to catch up to him, so I ended up diving and knocking the ball out."

At Ohio State last year, you hit a guy hard.

"Yeah. I was running down the field and I see the returner catch the ball, and it was going through my mind, OK. get a tackle, get a tackle. I think it was Donnie Lewis or Rod Teamer grabbed a hold of his leg and he couldn't move, so I ended up tackling him and he couldn't get away. From my angle It was the left side of the field around the 50-yard line, but from the offensive perspective it would have been right middle going in about the 50-yard line."

You also had a tackle against Houston your freshman year. Do you remember that one?

"I remember the tackles better than the snaps. I kind of black out when I snap the ball and let muscle memory take over, but I do remember all of the tackles. Houston was about the same thing where I was running down the field and a few people got there first and I jumped on at the end."

How did you get good as a long snapper?

"At a lot of positions, you learn how do to a lot of different things well. A quarterback learns how to throw a good deep ball and a good short ball and at some point they become elite at all of those and go on to play in the NFL. In long snapping, you have to learn how to do one thing but you have to learn how to do that one thing perfectly and do the exact same thing every time. For me, it's just been taking thousands of reps."

When did you start?

"I started seventh grade. If I counted all the reps I'd taken, I don't know what it would be."

Did you have a mentor?

"Yes. Chris Rubio and John Finch really helped me out."

What are the keys to being a consistent snapper?

"For me over the years the biggest keyI've learned is to be confident in yourself and to be confident in your form and to know that you worked as hard as anybody else on the field to get where you are, and for me it's just knowing that whenever I snap a ball, I can snap the ball. Like I've done it a million times. I can get it back there. I can have a good snap, so it's really the confidence aspect."

Ryan Wright says you're like a big brother to him.

"Yeah, Ryan came in last year and I was pretty old. We weren't really expecting him to play but we had an injury and he really stepped up and did an amazing job coming in and actually getting true freshman All-American honors, so that was awesome. Ryan is such a good guy to be able to work with and I'm glad I get to work with him every day. I try to mentor him a little bit, but at this level it's more about working relationship. We talk about what each of us can do better or worse."

He says you can do some corny jokes at times.

"In order to stay laid back, I don't like to get too uptight for games so I'm always in kind of a laid back mood. I always like to joke around and stuff and it's not everybody's style but it helps me not to get too uptight for games."

You are almost done. What are you going to remember the most about your career here?

"I'm going to remember that it was almost a leap of faith coming here to a team that really hadn't had much life before coach Fritz got here. It was like I'm trusting that we are going to go to a bowl game. I'm going remember the first year that really didn't go so well, the second year when we were an inch away and my junior year when we won our first bowl game. I'm going to remember this year when we go to another bowl game. I'm just so thankful to have been part of the transition and the changing culture that Tulane's kind of seen over the past few years."

Do you have pro aspirations?

"Yes, do. Hopefully that works out. I'm going to do my best."

You are a political science major. When did you graduate?

"I graduate in December."

I’ve followed the Massey football ratings for years and have always liked the idea of a composite of, most often, over 100 different views of the college football scene. But I’ve never really taken a look at Massey’s basketball ratings, which tend to have 25-30 different systems included.

Last April, at the end of the 2018-2019 season, Tulane was rated as #297 of the 353 teams included in basketball’s Division 1. That 56 teams were rated worse than us by a consensus of folks was a bigger surprise to me than that we were closing in on the #300 spot.

That position probably was the reason this year we started at #265. After winning our first game, we jumped to #227 and by the time we were 3-0, we were ranked at #213. The relatively close game against Mississippi State and the wins against Middle Tennessee and Utah, along with the good press and TV appearances by Coach Hunter have vaulted us all the way to #143 this week. That’s clearly not great and we may stay there, move up, or fall back over the remainder of the season, but it’s a pretty healthy improvement, regardless. Here's to even greater success.

Roll Wave!!!

There were a lot of games that could have gone either way, with Tulane at the top of the list when it covered with a fourth-down touchdown in the final 30 seconds.

WEEK 11 RESULTS

7

DrBox
sscald/aa013289

6

buck2481
Golfer81
wavetime

5

MNAlum
charlamange8
diverdo
Guerry

4

St Amant Wave
kettrade1
LSU Law Greenie
winwave
Harahan Wave

3

chigoyboy
WaveON

2

GretnaGreen

1

ny oscar

OVERALL STANDINGS

62

highwave

60

sscald/aa013289

58

MNAlum
DrBox

56

winwave
Guerry

55

ny oscar
wavetime

54

diverdo

53

chigoyboy
WaveON

52

Harahan Wave

51

LSU Law Greenie

50

p8kpev (missed 2 weeks)
buck2481
Golfer81

48

kettrade1
charlamange8 (missed 1 week)
paliii (missed 1 week)

41

Gretna Green (missed 1 week)

40

St Amant Wave

GAME-BY-GAME RESULTS

Tulane 10 of 19
Navy 7 of 19
Temple 9 of 19
Penn State 9 of 19
Texas A&M 6 of 19
Baylor 14 of 19
Virginia Tech 12 of 19
Michigan 9 of 19

Today is my birthday, and my reward is writing three stories for The Advocate due to early holiday deadlines. But since I actually love what I'm doing, I can think of far worse ways to spend a birthday.

Fritz, Jalen McCleskey and Cam Sample spoke at the Tuesday presser. I missed practice entirely because I was finishing my Advocate story that had a noon deadline.

FRITZ

"I wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving. We had another tough one on Saturday. I talked to the guys on Monday and also after the game, for us to win those type games we have to be on point and play hard, number one, and number two you've got to be physical and play tough, but the last one we didn't do up to the best of our ability, and that's play smart. We can't have assignment errors and beat a quality team like UCF. They are loaded with good players and if we do all those three things that I talked about, we have an opportunity to win a bunch of games. It's disappointing. I liked our fight and effort throughout the game, and we've got to come away with victories in those situations.

"SMU is another great team. They went on the road and played in some tough weather conditions against Navy and almost came away with the win out there. Another great team. All these teams in this conference are outstanding, and we are going to have to do those three things I talked about--play smart, play tough and play with great effort. If we do all those three things, we'll have an opportunity to win on Saturday at 3 o'clock against a really good team that's been ranked in the top 25 I don't know how many weeks in a row. They are out of it this week but they've been in the top 25 maybe eight or nine weeks in a row. Good club."

They are another team that runs a lot of plays at a fast pace. How much will it help having played UCF last week?

"There will be a little bit of carry-over. Different offensive systems. SMU's kind of from the Gus Malzahn tree. Their offensive coordinator worked for him in high school in Arkansas, and UCF is more from the Baylor family of offenses, so there's a little bit of difference. They use more tight end and 11 personnel. Sometimes they've got two tight ends in there as well, but there are some similarities, especially with pace of play. I think UCF is 1, and they are like 9."

No one has really stopped their offense. How big is the challenge?

"It's a huge challenge. They've got a great quarterback, an excellent stable of receivers, a really tough back, two good tight ends, so they've got a lot of weapons over there. They are averaging over 500 yards of offense, very similar numbers to the team we played last weekend."

Their defense leads the AAC in sacks. What challenges do they bring?

"They come after you, again some similarities with defensive style and philosophy (to UCF). They have a lot of tackles for loss and sacks. They'll come at you from a lot of different angles. They've given up some yards but they've also made a lot of big plays."

Are the penalties driving you crazy?

"Yeah. I'm disappointed. There's some reasons why you have penalty. Sometimes an athlete gets out-athleted. That happens on occasion. Or you use improper technique. Another reason is you're not quite sure what's going on and locked in and focused. We had a few in each category on Saturday, and that doesn't help us in any way, shape or form."

Are teams blocking you differently up front based on the success you had last year?

"Yes. Definitely. They are changing some things they've been doing in protections. You know we had some pressure on Saturday. We hit the quarterback quite a few times and it didn't equate to sacks. They've done a good job of nullifying some of the guys we're trying to get featured."

Are they chipping your best guys more?

"A little bit. More it's turning their protection towards certain guys instead of maybe what they do against other teams."

How have you adjusted to that?

"Well, not so much boundary but getting a little bit more field going and trying to put some of the guys we're trying to feature at different spots than maybe where they lined up in the first eight weeks of the season."

How much can you improve your bowl position?

"I think we can improve it. I don't understand the ins and outs of the whole bowl thing, but I think there's one guy who controls the whole thing and he makes a decision other than the six that go to the bowl championship series. They want good matchups, so the more you win, the better bowl you get an opportunity to play in, so yeah, this can help us out big time. We're looking for that seventh win. We haven't played as well as we're capable and a lot of that is we've played some really good teams. In order to win these games, which we can do, we've got to be on point in all three areas we've talked about."

Based on the opponent and the fact you're on the road, would this be a very significant win?

"Yeah, it would be a huge win. We're going in and playing a team that's been 9-2 and gotten as high as No. 15 or something like that. It would be a big win for us."

How much of a difference is Buechele to them?

"When you get a quarterback who knows what he's doing and their offense fits what he's doing. He's smart. He can make all the throws and is really accurate."

MCCLESKEY

How frustrating has this recent stretch been?

"Of course it's going to be frustrating. We've been close in all the games but haven't been able to come through, but it's something that happens in football. We know what we have to fix and what mistakes we made where we could have possibly won the game. We watched film, made our corrections and now we're watching film on SMU and getting ready for them."

How significant is 200 catches for you (McCleskey has 198 for his career; only five active receivers have 200 or more in college)?

"I feel like that is real significant. I didn't even know until my dad told me. I don't really look at stuff like that, but he had told me and I was like, dang, that's crazy."

What have you learned from your father this year that you didn't know about him from being around him as a coach?

"He's the same from when he had the workout facility, dancing, messing around with people and then he can get real serious real fast. He hasn't changed since I was in high school and he was working people out across the lake."

SMU has had a lot of sacks this year. What is your impression of their defense?

"I feel like they are a really good defense. Obviously with the record they have, you have to have a pretty good defense. The coaches have a great game plan together for us to attack them and we just have to go out there and execute."

Guerry, Nothing in NOLA.com about the game. Nothing. I haven't seen the hard copy yet of the TP/Advocate but is there even a brief wire report on the game? I guess they've included an abbreviated box score in "Scoreboard" but did I miss any reporting?

I now receive daily emails from those folks about all the LSU sports news I do not want; but crickets about the home town team when it beats Utah. What's the deal? We get charged for digital access just like the paper itself. So "I forgot" to post it online doesn't cut it.

So as a paying subscriber to the enterprise that (sometimes) employs you, who do we contact? Some editor(s) is making this decision that Texas Tech beating LIU-Brooklyn deserves a couple of paragraphs but not Tulane beating a PAC 12 team in the first game played on Sunday, so no deadline issues either.

I absolutely hate b*tching but since those guys demand my money up front, I will demand from them some journalism both digital and print about the local university that by coincidence is the biggest economic entity in town.

P.J. HALL

Can you describe the feeling of losing your last home game?

"It was a tough loss. We wanted to go undefeated at home, but I don't really have too much to say about it. Losing any time is hard."

UCF scores at least 30 every game. How do you feel like the defense played overall?

"Not good enough. Even if they did score 30 every game, we let them score too many tonight. The big thing was explosive plays. We gave up too many explosive plays."

Did you feel like it was just one play or one touchdown away and that you have been snake-bitten of late (not my question)?

"It might look like it on the scoreboard--one play or two plays here--but it's the whole game. It's a sequence of plays. We've got to cut out the penalties. We gotta quit making mistakes. We've got to be assignment sound. There's a lot of things bringing us through these close games that can keep us away from winning."

Was it tough to simulate UCF's tempo in the practice week?

"We were prepared for it. Our coaches did a good job of trying to simulate it throughout practice, so we were ready. We just gave up too many big plays. It's that simple. We lined up. We just gave up too many big plays."

How crucial were the fourth-down conversions?

"Very crucial. You have to get off the field whether it's third down or fourth down, we've got to find a way to get a stop. Those were big plays. They kept drives alive. I don't know how many times they scored off of those drives, but I'm pretty sure they had a good percentage of scoring off of those fourth-down conversions."

What type of emphasis will you have to make something happen so this doesn't carry over into next week?

"The big thing is we can't let this loss keep us down. We have to go into next week with the same energy that we've had all season, practicing hard, still hitting the film room hard and basically just not getting down. We have to flush it down the drain and start back up next week."

JALEN MCCLESKEY

What do you sense is wrong with the passing game?

"Just the offense as a whole. We've got to get better. We can't get explosive plays and always have a penalty. We have to execute and do our assignments. We have to start the game better. We can't always wait until the second half to start scoring. That puts our defense in a tough situation, so we just have to get better at the beginning of the game."

How frustrating are the penalties that keep coming?

"Yeah, it's frustrating, but we are not pointing fingers. It's not one person or one position. It's everybody as an offense. We've all got to be better to move the ball down the field and score points."

What about the inconsistency?

"If 10 people do their job right and one person doesn't, then that can mess up the whole play. We just have to have 11 people do their job right, execute and know our assignments."

How tough is it to be 6-5 after a 5-1 start?

"We'll just keep pushing this week. We are going to watch the film, make our corrections, get ready for SMU and be 1-0 against SMU. That's what we are going to do."

What type of emphasis will you have to make something happen so this doesn't carry over into next week?

"Just keep everybody accountable in practice. If you see somebody commit a penalty in practice, see it and address it because we can't have penalties that we usually do where we get big gains, have the defense on their heels and now it's first-and-20, first-and-15. We can't do that. We have to keep everybody accountable and just keep pushing."

COREY DAUPHINE

What did you feel was holding the offense back?

"Just us not executing. We'd have a big play and then we'd have a holding call or a penalty. Plays like that, it really hurt us because we needed those yards."

What type of emphasis will you have to make something happen so this doesn't carry over into next week?

"Just have this motivate us and understand that we need a win that last game and just keep going."

Again, I apologize for getting this up late. My life should return to normal next week. I don't have time to do the full work-up I've always done, but here are the list of players visiting.

ALREADY COMMITTED

Justin Ibieta
Angelo Anderson
Josh Remetich
Noah Taliancich
Brandon Brown
Mason Narcisse
Taiwan Berryhill

COMMITTED ELSEWHERE

Taiwan Berryhill, 3 stars, OLB, St. Aug (committed to Kansas)
Errrol Rogers, WR, 3 stars, Lafayette Christian (committed to ULL)
Donovan Kaufman, DB, 3 stars, Rummel (committed to Vandy)
Jordan Williams, DE, 3 stars, Rummel (committed to South Alabama)
Nick Turner, DB, 3 stars, Brother Martin, (committed to Georgia Tech)

UNCOMMITTED

Gavin Holmes, DB, 3 stars, Rummel
Jack Bech, WR, 3 stars, St. Thomas More (Lafayette)
Pig Cage, DB, 2 stars, Rummel
Corey Smooth, DB, no stars, Rummel
Will Sheppard, WR, no stars, Mandeville
Rhett Guidry, TE?, unrated, Dunham (jack of all trades who plays multiple sports)
Dontae Fleming, WR, no stars, East St. John
Josh Lazaroe, OL, unrated, Northlake Christian
Luke Greenman, QB, no stars, All Saints Academy (Lake Wales, Fla.)
Chadwick Bailey, DB, unrated, Loyola (Calif.)
Jake Hoch, LB, no stars, St. Mary's Springs Academy (Wisc.)
Stephen Payne, WR, unrated, Charlotte (N.C.) Country Day
Hayden Beal, QB, Scotts Hill (Tenn.)
Will Brown, OLB, unrated, Morton Ranch (Texas)
Jaelon Moreland, RB, unrated Morton Branch (Texas)
Jones Richardson, OL/DL, unrated, Cathedral (Texas)

2021 RECRUITS

Ahmonte Watkins, RB, 4 stars, Riverside
Jackie Marshall, LB, 3 stars, East St. John
Khari Fields, WR, Helen Cox,
Mandel Eugene, LB, no stars, St. Charles Catholic
Luke Alleman, FS, unrated, Thibodaux
Lucius Lattimore, LB, no stars, Trinity Christian (Fla.)
Welland Williams, DE, no stars, East St. John
Shedrick Johnson, DB, no stars, Riverdale
Rajay Johnson, LB, no stars, East St. John
Reggie Spivey, DT, unrated, Charlotte (N.C.) Independence
Elijah Hill, DB, unrated, Zachary
Bryson Armstrong, LB, unrated, Grace King
Joshua Verner, DL/OL, unrated, Grace King
Cameron Selders, DB, no stars, Calvary Day (Ga.)
Harper Blake, OL, unrated, Madison Ridgeland (Miss.)
Brady Talley, K, unrated, St. Paul's
Pres Juarez, QB, unrated, Campbell Hall (Calif.)
Gregory Green, DT, no stars, Thompson High (Ala.)
Kyle Chapman, WR, unrated, George County (Miss.)
Quentin Moore, DB, unrated, Dallas Skyline (Texas)

2022 RECRUIT

Fitzgerald West, DT, no stars, Lafayette Christian

As always, the Tulane game counts double, home teams are listed first and the point spreads come from VegasInsider.com consensus:

Tulane (+6) UCF
Navy (-3.5) SMU
Cincinnati (-10.5) Temple
Ohio State (-18) Penn State
Georgia (-13.5) Texas A&M
Baylor (-5.5) Texas
Virginia Tech (-4) Pittsburgh
Indiana (+9) Michigan

I just checked the Massey Composite rankings and Tulane, after the week one win over FIU, is ranked #60 based on 53 separate services’ rankings. The last time we were ranked that high was early in 1999. twenty years ago.

Roll Wave!!!

Sorry for the lack of content this week. Between basketball and football intersecting and having to help out my 92-year old mom who is living by herself for two weeks while her caretaker (my older sister) is spending two weeks in Europe, I've had no time. The good news is my sister gets back Sunday.

Jalen McCleskey has been practicing full go this week, so his injury against Temple does not appear to be bothering him. Amare Jones is practicing in a no-contact jersey but is moving around well. I believe he hurt his shoulder against Temple.

I talked to Fritz, Darius Bradwell, Lawrence Graham and Will Harper yesterday. Here are the quotes:

FRITZ

You have a core of seniors who have been with the program for four years and arrived with you. A lot of them came from winning high school programs (P.J. Hall won three state championships at Hoover High in Alabama, Will Harper won a state championship as a freshman, Lawerence Graham was a two-time state runnerup and Darius Bradwell was a runner-up at Tallahassee Godby). Is that significant when you are recruiting?

"Well, if things are even, you'll look at that between one guy and another guy. Certainly guys coming from a good program and a disciplined program understand what you're looking for in college. They probably have a little easier transition."

Lawrence Graham, P.J. Hall, Will Harper, Larry Bryant, Darnell Mooney and Darius Bradwell are playing their final home games Saturday. What have they mean in terms of the turnaround?

"Oh, they've been excellent. They believed in our program, they came in and it's always fun to watch guys. I'd love to have as many four-year guys as you can because you also get to see their development as a person, the maturity. Every senior is going to graduate and some of them are going to be leaving with multiple degrees, so that's great."

How have you seen P.J. Hall grow?

"We're trying to talk him into coaching. I think he would be an awesome coach. I'm not going to force anybody to do it. He's got to decide that's what he wants to do, but he would be great if that's what he wanted to do."

How has Darius Bradwell developed since arriving as a quarterback?

"He's at another position and shoot, he was MVP of a bowl game. These guys are part of this group that helped us get this program changed. It's not where we want it, but we're headed in the right direction."

Will Harper, like Bradwell, practiced in your first spring after graduating from high school early. How has he developed?

"He's done a great job. He's done an excellent job. He also does a super job in the kicking game."

How about Lawrence Graham?

"He's done a super job. I love seeing the maturity level with him. He also helps us a lot with the kicking game and is a tough, hard-nosed competitive guy."

Teams that have slowed down UCFs running game have beaten them. The rest have been clobbered. Obviously they throw for more than 300 yards a game, but how important is containing a running game that gets more than 200 yards a game?

"If you make anybody one-dimensional, you've got a heck of a shot. If they can run it at will, it just opens up the passing game and you've got to devote a bunch of dudes up in the box and now it makes it a little tough on you with the pass. Yeah, you're right. The teams that have had some success against them defensively have done a good job against the run."

Do you feel like you'll have to play your best game to win? Only Oklahoma, Clemson, Ohio State and Utah have better yardage differentials than UCF.

"We're going to have to play real good, no doubt about it. These guys are seven points from being undefeated this year, they didn't lose any in 2017 and if they hadn't lost their quarterback before the bowl game last year, they probably would have been undefeated last year, too. This is a top-15 team. We're going to have to play well offensively."

BRADWELL

This is your last home game. Does it seem like it's gone pretty fast for you?

"This year went by pretty fast due to injury and all that stuff, so I couldn't really play the whole season. When I look back at it, it's like, damn, I only have two more games left and then the bowl game. Yeah, it went by pretty fast."

You started looking healthy in the second half against Temple. Do you feel pretty good with the leg now?

"I feel a whole lot better with it. It took some time, but after that first half I had to tell myself I need to start playing like my old self and you saw what happened."

What was the exact injury? I saw you trying to run it off on the sideline when it happened against Army. Did you have any idea it would take this long to get healthy at the time?

"It was something with my foot. I didn't know, it was one of those things where I had no control. I'm a control freak. I think any football player is a control freak, and I didn't have any control. That was really the first injury I've ever had. Mentally I had to prepare myself and work hard to get back where I'm at."

How different is this program now than when you got here as a freshman?

"I would say it changed tremendously. The culture I believe is a true football team. My first year you couldn't really say it was a team. Now I can say it is a team. Everybody has the same goals or aspirations. People know how to prepare to win. We know how to win now. Now we have to figure out how to finish like we want to. It's all to do with confidence and execution and knowing what we have to do."

You came from a winning high school program. How long did it take to feel like the same things were going on here?

"I mean, it starts with us. If you don't have the players in your locker room that have the winning mentality, that dog in them, it's not going to happen. You only are as strong as your weakest link, and the weakest link has to have that dog mentality when he's on the field like he's the best and knows how to handle his job and his role on the team."

How big is this game Saturday?

"This is a big game. We know how important this is. I don't think we've been undefeated at home in a long time and definitely not since I've been here (Tulane was 10-8 at Yulman Stadium through Bradwell's first three seasons). To be the senior class to do that, that's one of our goals, to be undefeated at home. And like I said last week, in order to be one of the great teams you have to beat one of the great teams, so that's our goal. We haven't really played as well as we needed to against winning opponents, so this is a good chance. And also we always want to improve from last year. I would hate to go 7-6. I don't want to do that anymore. I want to see that every year we progressed."

GRAHAM

You played for two state championships in high school. How different is the culture here now than when you arrived?

"I would say it is very different. When we first got here, we were a mediocre program. Nobody really had faith that we were going to go into a game and win or even dominate or compete, but now we compete every game and our goal is to win every game. We don't have a goal just expecting to survive."

How long did it take to get to that point?

"I would say maybe the end of my sophomore year, my junior year for sure. Our expectations were high. Our expectations were we're going to go in and dominate. We are becoming a better team than what we were. We are a way better team than what we were. The system is in place. Everybody knows what they've got to do, and now we've just got to execute."

In some ways this season has been disappointing because you expected more, How important is beating UCF?

"We've just got to keep the confidence there. The games we lost, besides Memphis, have been real close like an eyelash, and we just needed something to bring us over that hump, and I think it is going to start here, being a complete team, doing what we need to do, no mistakes, we have no room for error, so we have to go out and dominate from the jump and keep dominating and keep up with their tempo and just play football."

You also have a chance to finish undefeated at home. How nice would that be?

"Shoot, it would be a great accomplishment. It would be a blessing to be honest. We want it and we're going to take it. We're going to do what we have to do. We've been preparing. I feel like the game plan is great. I love it, and our guys are executing to the best of their ability. We're practicing the tempo, everything."

What's the hardest part of dealing with UCF's fast pace?

"The hardest part is just getting lined up. Once you're lined up, play football. You are going to be tired, but just like we're tired, they're tired. It's a mind thing. Who's going to quit first?"

Has your career gone as you expected?

"I'd like to think whenever I got here that I had the highest expectations for myself--record-breaker, we're going to win a couple conference championships, but everything doesn't always happen as you expect. You've got to roll with the punches. I would say I'm satisfied with my career. There would be some things I would change, but that's a personal thing, but for the most part I'm happy."

Guerry, Thanks for the great piece today from the Temple writer. I'm sure your piece for his readers is just as insightful. Please post it when you can. This helps us put our game caps on!

I'm cool with the guy choosing Temple to win and why. I just think he is reaching a bit. Temple's weaknesses are in Tulane's wheelhouse. I get why the Wave is favored.

Considering Temple's red zone defensive success, I look forward to seeing if Tulane tries to pound it in from inside the twenty or goes over the top because of the relatively weak secondary that Temple writer describes.

Hope you can find opposing writers to keep doing this for remainder of season. Really useful stuff and fun to read.

Tulane failed to cover or push for only the second time this year, taking most but not all of us down. The push in the LSU-Ole Miss games means I no longer have to worry about keeping half points on my master sheet because we all had a push in week 3.

WEEK 10 RESULTS

6.5

charlamange8

5.5

ssscald/aa013289

4.5

p8kpev
diverdo
DrBox

3.5

St Amant Wave
ny oscar
LSU Law Greenie
highwave
buck2481
paliii
Golfer81
winwave
Harahan Wave
GretnaGreen
WaveON
Guerry

2.5

MNAlum
chigoyboy
wavetime

1.5

kettrade1


OVERALL RESULTS

57

highwave

54

ny oscar

53

MNAlum
sscald/aa013289

52

winwave

51

Guerrry
DrBox

50

chigoyboy
WaveOn
p8kpev (missed 1 week)

49

wavetime
diverdo

48

Harahan Wave
paliii

47

LSU Law Greenie

44

kettrade1
Golfer81
buck2481

43

charlamange8 (missed 1 week)

39

GretnaGreen (missed 1 week)

36

St Amant Wave


GAME-BY-GAME RESULTS

Temple 3 of 21
Georgia 14
Notre Dame 8
Baylor 7
Indiana 6
Iowa 10
Memphis 15
LSU/Ole miss push

Here is Fritz from today:

Opening Statement:

“Most of my career we have started off well in games, but we did not start off very well against Temple. We were down early. The fight we showed with our guys was good, we never quit. It was a big physical team and we made some mistakes. We did our same bye week pattern that we have done in the past. We just made some mistakes that were pretty simple mistakes. They lined up like we thought they were going to line up. Offensively they gave us a few wrinkles with going in and out, fast substitutions, and different personnel groupings. It took us a little while to get a handle on that. We have to do a better job coming out of the box. We play a great team this weekend. They have lost three very close games. As I have said before, everyone in this conference is very good and certainly that is the case with UCF. They have a lot of explosive weapons on the offensive side of the ball. They have many guys who have played a lot of football for them. The only guy who has not been a returning type starter would be their quarterback and he has really played a lot. He is probably one of the top true freshmen quarterbacks in the country. Defensively, they do not get as much credit as they should. They really do a good job of getting minus plays. You also have some dangerous guys in the return game. We need to come out and play well on Senior Day.”

On UCF as a challenge…

“They are tough. They lost in the very end of the ballgame by a point to Pittsburgh. They went to Cincinnati and had a few turnovers that hurt them, but they barely lost in that game. Tulsa got them at the very end of the ball game by a point. They had a chance to go down and score, so they are just a few plays away from being undefeated again. They go extremely fast. You cannot blink on these guys. They are snapping the ball with 29, 30, 31, I think I saw one of them with 32 seconds, on the play clock. They are number one in pace of play in the country. We have to get lined up quickly and we cannot have a very complicated game plan because they are not real concerned in what you are lined up in. They are going to go quick.”

On the lack of protection for the quarterback against Temple…

“Yeah, we knew that they had really good pass rushers. Unfortunately, we got into a point in the game where we had to drop back to pass and we had to do it over and over. There were some times where we helped with some chip protection with the back or the tight end of that side. That limits your play selection when you do that. That is something we would have liked to have done, if we can get to where we are not in that predicament. When everyone in the stadium knows we’re are going to throw the ball that is tough. That is not when we do great, when we have to drop back to pass 30 to 40 times a game. We did some things, but your menu of plays is really shrunken down. There are some other things that hurt there like the depth of routes by the receivers, a couple times they cut things off too early or too late. The quarterback then has to hold the ball a little longer, so things like that. It certainly was not one or two guys; it was a few guys.”

On the trick play on second and seven that did not work against Temple…

“We were trying to get something going. We had run that type of play earlier and had been successful. They had been biting a little bit on that play in particular.”

On what he thought affected Justin McMillan’s passes…

“It was a little different. It was blowing pretty hard one direction on Saturday. It is hard to replicate that sometimes in practice. A lot of it was protection issues and routes. Like I said before, the depth not being the proper amount or coming off too early played a role. Sometimes it was the throw. There were a lot of factors involved.”

On the physicality of Temple compared to Tulane…

“I was disappointed. We had a tough team meeting yesterday. I was disappointed in our physicality early in the ball game. We still have a long way to go. That is one of the things I was talking to them about. We want to breakthrough and get this thing. If we want that, we have to play well all four quarters. We cannot roll the ball out. We are not even close to being able to do that. For us to win a bunch of games, we have to play well. We did not play well. We did not play the way we needed to play.”

gives me an error message. I thought the site was down; tried to access through Rivals and it worked.
Just FYI