Canady was from Tuesday. Clark was from Wednesday.

CANADY

On fumble return for TD:

"I saw Nick come in and tackle the guy and the ball popped out. We practice scooping and scoring on drops, fumbles. It's my nature to pick it up, and I kept running and scored. I've never had a fumble return that long."

On confidence:

"Our team is very confident. Over summer team bonding helped us out. We're showing fight in every quarter we play, in the locker room, on the field, game days, ice bath. A lot of team chemistry helps us fight."

On goals:

"The goal is to come out here and win a championship and take it home. The loss to Southern Miss gave us a little slap."

On ECU being a passing team:

"I'm very excited. The first two games I didn't get any targets. The third game I got a few. The fourth game I got a few, but as far as passing the ball, that hasn't been an advantage for teams, so I'm definitely looking forward to this."

On experience in secondary:

"It's an advantage to have Larry Brooks, Macon Clark, Lummie Young, fifth- and six-year year guys who know the game."

ON ECU game last year:

"Last year that was probably our worst game on defense, giving up a lot of yards. Obviously when you get beat that bad, it sticks in you, so we definitely want to pay back that from last year. The team's excited and looking forward to come out and win this game."

On team ID:

"As far as the defense, we have strong leaders in Dorian, Nick, Jet Hodges. Lummie in the back, me. There are a lot of team leaders on there. Offense definitely has leaders, too. Sincere, Tyjae Spears."

On last year compared to this one:

"Winning's great. No one likes losing. This year we have team chemistry that's coming out every day."

CLARK

Experience facing Ahlers:

"We know he's a very good player. He's been in the system for a very long time, so we've just got to do our job. I know what kind of tendencies he's looking for. He's very patient, so we have to go out there, do our job and slow him down."

On making tackles:

"We tackle very good in the back end and up front, so we just have to keep doing our job and tackle the person in front of us and keep them in front of us. If we do a good job of stopping that, we'll be OK."

On tall receiving corps of ECU:

"They like a lot of go balls on short downs, but they really rely on you missing tackles, so we have to do a good job tackling."

On ECU game last year:

"I'm looking forward to it. I had this game checked off my schedule because I didn't play my very best last year. I've got a point to prove this year. I'm going to come in with real desire."

On up, down and up as a team the last three games:

"We lost to USM, but we kind of needed that just to refocus ourselves going into the next week. Then we got our little swag back from Houston. Now we have to keep going week by week, leaving the past behind us and just focusing on this upcoming week."

On Horton's performance:

"Kai, he was awesome. I know he doesn't get as many reps in practice, but he came into the game, dominated, did the job and did pretty good."

On TD to win:

"I just started jumping up and down. I ran up to Tyjae and told him good job."

I expect Michael Pratt to start Saturday against ECU, but it is not a done deal. Willie Fritz said he still needed to be cleared by the medical staff to play, but Pratt once again took the first-team reps in practice both in team drills and scout-team work. Kai Horton definitely will be ready to go, though. I don't see much of a difference in the way Pratt is throwing now than he did before straining the AC joint in his right shoulder, or whatever he did. I guess the question is can he withstand punishment on the shoulder and remain effective.

It was feisty workout today with one fight, but nothing got out of hand. Tulane is eager to face East Carolina after getting humiliated in Greenville last year in what was the worst defensive performance of the Fritz era in my opinion. These guys are playing so much better defensively than at this time 12 months ago, and they are catching a break with ECU starting running back Rahjai Harris out with injury. Then again, that might not be a break. Harris is averaging 3.6 yards per carry, and his top backup, Keaton Mitchell, rushed for 222 on 15 carries against Tulane a year ago on his way to a 1,000-yard season and is averaging 8.4 yards per carry this season. He missed the South Florida game but will be back Saturday, and Fritz believes he is one of the best backs in the country. I guarantee you he will not run around left end and streak untouched for a long touchdown with no resistance as he did a year ago, but he is a threat.

I am still catching up from yesterday. Here is Fritz from today in the first post, followed by some quotes from Kai Horton and Jim Svoboda yesterday in the next post.

FRITZ

On Pratt:

"The doctors are going to have to clear him. There are some strength issues they've got to go through, so we'll see. I hope so."

On first three days of practice:

"It's been good. We try to be very consistent and we try not to do more one week than the next or amp it up more. We try to practice at a high level every day. I think the guys pretty much understand what we're looking for. We're into a routine. I'm a routine guy. I think we've had a good week."

On tackling against ECU short passing game:

"It's going to help a bunch. Sometimes they'll throw the ball 5 yards on third-and-10 thinking we're going to gain 5 or 6 yards (after the catch). They are aggressive on fourth downs. We are doing a good job on assignments, but what's really helped us is we're tackling well, getting off blocks well, playing leverage well, the basics of football, doing a good job of those things."

On defending ECU:

"They are a tough team to defend. They are going to have that back (Mitchell) returning this week. He's got great speed. He's one of the top running backs in my opinion in the country. They've got a very veteran quarterback. He tries to stay out of bad plays. They are going to run the clock. They don't huddle, but they take a long time running plays. You just have to do a good job being where you're supposed to be and tackling with leverage."

On ECU's big receivers:

"Number one, you've got to tackle them low in the open field. We're not real big. They'll throw some balls up. There are going to be some 50-50 balls in the game, but that's not what hurt us last season."

On Tylo Phillips starting:

"He's really picking up what we're doing. He didn't have the benefit of spring football, and that's tough on a guy. This summer he learned preseason camp. Obviously it's a higher level of football than he's played before. He's just gotten a little bit better every single day getting off blocks. He's playing with confidence now because he knows what we're doing. He's done a good job. He's vastly improved."

On getting first defensive penalty of the year (a face mask call on Alfred Thomas) against Houston:

"It's very impressive. In fact, I don't know. We had a hand on the face mask for a split second. They called it, but I didn't see a tug or a pull or anything like that, but they are going to call those on safety I guess, but sometimes they don't. The (official) had some great eyes. It was on the nose guard, and line judge from over here threw the flag. I've looked at it a few times, but we're just playing very disciplined, and that's what you have to do. You just don't want to beat yourself. We talk all the time about the Wave don't beat the Wave. Let's make them beat us. We've done a very good job of that defensively this year."

On kicker decision:

"That will be later in the week."



"

There was another push in week 4 between Texas A&M and Arkansas. Kansas was favored by 7 1/2 over Duke and won by 8. Florida got an extreme backdoor cover with two late TDs against Tennessee, then recovered an onside kick and had an outside shot to win outright. Clemson beat Wake Forest by 6 in OT but missed covering the 7-point spread.

DrBox , who lost only the Tulane game, and tacklethemanwiththefootball, the only selector who picked USM, won the week.

WEEK 4 RESULTS

6.5

DrBox
tacklethemanwiththefootball

5.5

charlemange8

4.5

Guerry

3.5

winwave
MNAlum
WaveON

2.5

chigoyboy
Kettrade1
wavetime
Gretna Green
p8kpev
diverdo
roll wave
LSU Law Greenie
2DatWuzAGoodDay2
paliii

1.5

ny oscar


OVERALL STANDINGS

24

DrBox

22

charlemange8

21

MNAlum

20

winwave

19

chigoyboy
WaveON

18

diverdo
tacklethemanwiththefootball

17

ny oscar
Guerry

16

Gretna Green
p8kpev

15

roll wave

14

Kettrade1

13.5

paliii (missed 1 week)

11

wavetime (missed 1 week)

10

LSU Law Greenie (missed 1 week)

9

2DatWuzaGoodDay2 (missed 1 week)


GAME-BY-GAME RESULTS

Southern Miss 1 of 18
Wake Forest 5
Florida 8
Texas A&M-Arkansas push
Notre Dame 12
TCU 10
Kansas State 5
Kansas 9

Ron Hunter, Jaylen Forbes, Jalen Cook and Kevin Cross were on the podium. Hunter began by saying he wanted the players to do most of the talking, but that's never going to happen when Hunter is around. A heavy majority of the questions were directed at the ever-quotable Hunter, who maintains this is the most talented team he has coached in his career.

"We are really excited to get going. We are a week into practice and It helps to have a veteran group. I know you guys just had Willie up here, and first of all I want to say congratulations to our football program. What he is doing is a tremendous deal, and it helps all of us when our football team when our football team can do that. Willie's done a great job getting our football program up to this level.

"I"ve got my veteran guys up here. It's a different time for us because I haven't had a veteran team since I've been here. Talent wise, and I've said it before, this is my 34th year of coaching, and I don't know if I've had a better talented team than I've got right now. That's not to put the pressure on anything because we've stil got to play the games, but I like being in this position."

I know we've always joked about the last-place thing all these years. Can you be first this year?

"There's no question we can. You know how I am. The day that I sit here and say, listen, we're not going to win the championship, I want to get out of coaching. If I don't believe it, how do I expect these guys to believe it. We are really talented. There are some good teams in our league. We understand that. You've got to be good, you've got to be lucky and you've got to stay healthy. But from a talent perspective and an experience perspective and where we're at in our program perspective, this is the year for us. Winning a championship, would it surprise me? Absolutely not. If we don't do it, would I be upset? I won't be upset if we're in the NCAA tournament and didn't win it. I've won championships and not been in the NCAA tournament, but I've also done the other. If I had a choice, I think this is an NCAA tournament team. As a matter of fact, I know this is an NCAA tournament team, and I know we can win games in the NCAA tournament. I don't build programs any more about winning conference championships. I build our program to get in the NCAA tournament. I took this job to get in the NCAA tournament and win games in the NCAA tournament. That's why I took this job. This is the first time I can really confidently say I have a team that can win games in the NCAA tournament."

Have you told those guys that?

"Never. No, I barely talk to these guys. We don't talk about stuff like that (joking). OF COURSE they know that. That's always been true."

JAYLEN FORBES on what is the key to meet ingyour own expectations of where you want to go:

"Just coming in every day and not worrying about the hype around us. We have hype we've never had before, so it's about staying focused and coming in every day and just getting better each and every day. If we do that and play as a team like we know we can, we are going to be pretty hard to beat."

What does Collin Holloway bring to the team (directed to FORBES)?

"I feel like Collin will be a big help for us. He's big. He's physical. He plays really tough. For him to be undersized, he plays kind of big. Collin will be huge for us."

Can you talk about your pre-league schedule and what you were looking for (directed to HUNTER)?

"The hardest part of my job or any coach's job at this level is scheduling. You can have an idea of what you want, but you've got to get the other people to agree to play you. It was extremely difficult. Some of the schools that called us when I first got the job wouldn't return our phone calls. The Power Five teams they we wanted to play wanted us to come to their place to play, and I would never sacrifice our program for that ever. The neutral-site games are the best-case scenario for us. There were some schools we wanted to play that we couldn't get. And again, part of it when you're a good team, you are going to have this problem, especially at Tulane. And then there's the facility. No one wants to come play us in that building, and I love our facility, but we don't get many people that want to come play us in our facility. We've actually even talked about coming to play at Smoothie King. We've talked to six or seven different schools, and all declined to come to play us. They all said they would play us when these three guys leave. That's just how this thing works."

Why don't they want to play you on campus?

"I've always been that kind of underdog school. I think it's a cop-out honestly that they don't want to come here and play, but if you look at scheduling across the country, no one plays true road games anymore. If you look at our schedule, our road games are neutral site games, and that's what you see across the country now. When Indiana and Kentucky started to play again, they were going to play at a neutral site. You just don't see those type of games anymore. Gonzaga, the same way, they play all neutral site road games. It's just the nature of the business of where we're at. It has to do with money and TV and those things. We got caught into a lot of that in a good way. When you're bad, you can play anybody in the country and they'll play anywhere in the country any time. We're not there anymore."

Were you offered money to go play some places?

"No. No one offered us any money to come and play. There are two types of schools. Ones that give the money up to play and ones that accept it. I didn't take this job to be bought by anybody. That's crazy. We're not doiong that here at Tulane."

What is Tylan Pope's status after breaking his foot in the offseason?

"He's a 100-percent healthy. He's playing really good basketball."

How much did the trip to Costa Rica help in terms of bonding your team and seeing some of the transfers play for the first time?

"The trip itself was tremendous. I don't take those trips for basketball. Part of my job is to turn these young people into men, and so the idea of helping other people was the best part of the trip. The play is irrelevant. We got an opportunity to spend some time together, bond and those things, but what these guys did in helping those children is something I'm going to remember for a long time."

One of your players is partnering with Samaritan's Feet?. How proud are you of that?

"Sion is doing a great job with that, and I had nothing to do with that, so I was really happy to hear when he decided to do that, and also Samaritan's Feet approached him. There are only two students in the country that are doing it--Sion and the offensive tackle for the Alabama football team--so I was really pleased that Sion was doing that. He'll represent Tulane extremely well."

Knowing how well Forbes and Cook shoot the ball, do they have more freedom than some of the other guys?

"I have to admit. I'm prejudiced in two things, even with my children. The ones that do the right thing, they usually get more things. The ones that don't do the right things, they struggle. I like guys that can shoot. If you can't shoot, you're probably not going to get that extra hot dog on the road trip. The guys that make baskets, I'm usually going to give them a hamburger or a steak, but those guys that can't shoot, they'll stay with hot dogs for a while. If they want to get better, they have to make some shots."

JALEN COOK, how tough was it for you to not be able to play in the conference tournament and how much are you looking forward to this year?

"It was extremely tough because I thought if I would have played, we probably could have won the whole tournament, so that was extremely tough sitting on the sideline watching my teammates go out there and compete. I know if we're fully healthy this year, we are going to win it."

If Michael Pratt is going to be out for an extended period of time, he had a funny way of showing it at Tulane's Tuesday morning practice in preparation for East Carolina. He took all of the first-team reps when the Green Wave worked against the scout team at the end of the workout. I don't think he has been cleared to play yet with an unspecified right arm injury that kept him out all last week, but Willie Fritz said today he expected him to be ready for the Pirates. During individual drills a little earlier, Pratt did not make any throws, taking mental reps and then flipping the ball to a staffer when it was his turn, but he threw a touchdown pass to Duece Watts in the back of the end zone against the scout team when the line of scrimmage was the 25. Kai Horton ran the second team, and it will be either Pratt or Horton behind center on Saturday. Justin Ibieta was nowhere in evidence after hurting his shoulder again, and although Fritz said he was being evaluated in the next couple of days, the signs are not good. In a foolish moment, Ibieta lowered his shoulder and tried to run over a Houston defender on the opening series Friday, similar to how he tore his labrum against Morgan State last September, and it appears he may have re-injured it.

With Pratt, it likely will come down to the likelihood of exacerbating his injury and pain tolerance, although neither of those is official word. He flexed his arm after one throw today, but I did not see him taking it easy against the scout team.

Horton proved he could do the job against Houston, throwing an absolutely gorgeous first touchdown pass on the run that was as impressive a throw as I've seen any Tulane quarterback make since I started covering the team in 2010. He spent a long time in the wilderness from there as the offense failed to put up another point until late in the fourth quarter, but he rebounded with a terrific drive to tie it in the final minute and another outstanding throw to win it in overtime. A healthy Pratt is the top option, but if he is limited, the coaches will not hesitate to go with Horton.

In other news, Caleb Thomas was the backup center to Sincere Haynesworth today, with Shadre Hurst moving to left guard. The starters and the other three backups were the same.

I don't have time for a full report today because I have to write a football and a basketball story for The Advocate, but here is what Fritz had to say on the quarterback situation:

On Ibieta:

"Justin we are going to find out here in the next couple of days exactly where he's going to be at. We feel like Michael's going to have the opportunity to play this week."

On how Pratt looked at practice:

"He looked all right. I haven't had a chance to really talk to him, but we feel practice isn't the same as a game. We are being careful what we are throwing at him right now, but hopefully he's going to be fine Saturday."

On Horton's play against Houston:

"I thought he showed great composure on the sideline. He did a good job of preparing during the week. I tell those guys on the third team you are two plays away from being first team, and the guys on the second team are one play away. He comes from a really competitive high school in Carthage, Texas. I think he might have been 38-0 (actually 30-0) and had incredible statistics and touchdown to interception ration. He played in Jerry's World in front of 40-50,000 people, so he's been in some big ball games before. The moment wasn't too big for him."

What a history-shattering win for Tulane tonight. How many times have we seen the Green Wave lose games like this over the years, but this time the team showed incredible toughness while playing with a third string QB in Kai Horton after the opening series. Tulane never wins overtime games. Can't say that now. Tulane never wins AAC road openers. Can't say that now. Tulane never overcomes adversity. Can't say that now.

Houston has a lot of issues, but I bet I could count on no fingers the number of people who thought Tulane would win after the Cougars scored their go-ahead touchdown late in the fourth quarter. I know I didn't, but Horton played extremely well on the last drive of regulation and the winning drive in OT, Tyjae Spears was Tyjae Spears and the defense found the energy to come up with a stop.

Willie Fritz, Tyjae Spears, Kai Horton and Nick Anderson talked after the game. Their full quotes are here, but check out my updated story online because the one that will run in the paper was a bit of a disaster. I went to the wrong level trying to get back up to the press box after interviews, lost 10 minutes of time after having to backtrack and had to rush to finish my story in less than 10 minutes when I needed 20. I never panic on deadline because I've been doing this for so long, but that was as close to panicking as I can remember. The updated story is much, much better.

FRITZ

On Kai Horton's performance at the end of the game:

"Well, we struggled a little bit. We had a real nice job earlier and a nice touchdown catch by Duece Watts, and we got the big fumble recovery for a touchdown by Jadon Canady, and our defense was kind of worn out. Our offense needed to made some plays, and down there at the very end they did. You just never know when it's your opportunity. It was Kai's opportunity. I tell all those guys you are only two plays away from getting in there and playing if you're third team. Sure enough thats what happened."

On Tyjae Spears' versatility:

"He also had a really nice block on a big blitz pickup--the first down to Duece (Watts) on our drive for the touchdown. He's a complete player. He can run inside and outside. He'll block people. He catches the ball. He's smart. He's a difference-maker kind of guy, and we try to get the ball in his hands as much as we can."

On Michael Pratt involved on sideline and when team went out for OT coin toss:

"He's just awesome. I would expect nothing less from him. It's just the way he was raised, the way he operates. It's a team game. I tell these guys that all the time. You've got to be rooting for your buddies."

On Pratt's timetable to return and the nature of his injury:

"I think he'll be ready next week. Undisclosed injury."

On fourth-and-goal shovel-pass TD:

"The offensive staff was talking about it. We had a couple of them (plays) we weren't sure of. It's a play that if it's not there, we go ahead and roll out. It's all based on reading the end, and that's kind of a goal line play that everyone's running nowadays. The end went up the field and Kai did a good job reading it and pitching it to Tyrick. Tyrick scored the touchdown."

On if he considered going for 2:

"Just a little too much time. If there had been 15 seconds remaining, we would have gone for 2. I think there were 39 seconds left, and they can still get down the field and do some stuff. We knew if we kicked it they'd probably play for overtime I thought, but they kind of were aggressive for a little while."

On winning despite adversity:

"I just thought everybody kept believing on the sideline. The defense, you just don't know the path to victory. It changes all the time, and the defense was just playing lights out. I was glad the defense had enough toughness and grit not to get discouraged by how we were playing offensively. We said, hey, we're going to score points, and then the offense started clicking that last drive. We were real close on a bunch of plays, too. There were a few plays I thought we were pretty close on."

On containing Clayton Tune:

"I really thought we had a good game plan, and for the most part we corralled him because he loves to get outside the pocket and do some stuff. We covered, covered, covered. We had to cover for a long time. He's a fine quarterback. He really is. I just thought coach Hampton and the defensive staff had a heck of a game plan, and the kids executed it."

On defense bowing up in overtime:

"They were worn out. They eked out a few first downs, but they played well. We tackled pretty well most of the time, played with leverage most of the time."

On Ibieta:

"It's a shoulder. I'm not sure. We're going to find out here. He couldn't go back in. He was very disappointed."

On Horton again:

"He did some good stuff. There were some balls he'd probably like to have back, but coming into a pressure-packed situation like this, he did a whale of a job."

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

Houston (-2.5) Tulane
Ole Miss (-6.5) Kentucky
Arkansas (+17.5) Alabama
Florida State (-7) Wake Forest
Baylor (-2.5) Oklahoma State
Mississippi State (-4) Texas A&M
Auburn (+9) LSU
Clemson (-6.5) North Carolina State

Check out what Houston Chronicle beat writer Joseph Duarte had to say about the Cougars. The story should be viewable on the front page in minutes.

I would have requested Pratt, but as I wrote in an earlier thread, I arrived in plenty of time if they had practiced at the Saints facility but too late to request anyone since they already had finished at Yulman Stadium. I also had not finished watching the replay yet or I would have asked Cooper about the blocked field goal.

HAYNESWORTH

On flushing the USM game and getting ready for Houston:

"We just have to come back to work every day, flush it as quick as possible. We have a 24-hour rule win or lose. You have to show back up starting Sunday this week and get straight back to work. You can't dwell it on too long. You have to fix the mistakes and come back to work even harder."

On biggest issues:

"We just kind of took our foot off the gas and we have to finish throughout the game in all four quarters. Every play we have to finish. Sometimes you lose sight of the goal. You feel like you've gotten up on a team. On paper we should be better than those guys, and we kind of took it too easy, so we've got to remember who we are and why we got to where we are and keep our foot on the gas for all four quarters. Every play we've got to finish."

On message from coaching staff:

"Just finish and work hard. You can't be lackadaisical. Every game you've got to go 1-0. That was the big message we're pushing. We have to go 1-0 every week and 1-0 every snap."

On having trouble with Houston (really only true in games played in Houston):

"I don't know. I think it's just a lot of hype around the games. It's always, oh, Houston, they are right down the road, probably the closest to us (in the AAC). We always play them in the primetime game on a Thursday or Friday night--big lights. It's just always a big game for us."

On Houston pressure:

"They like to time up the snap and get off the ball. That's their M.O is to try to get after the quarterback. They got that little Sack Avenue thing going on, and we have to prepare and work hard for everything that they bring. It's what they do. They want to get after the quarterback. We've got to be ready for that."

On Sack Avenue giving him a little extra juice:

"It does. A lot of times all that stuff and all the big names and stuff and what people call themselves is just to intimidate people. A big thing we talked about today was a nameless, faceless opponent. It doesn't matter who we play or what they call themselves. We've got to be us. We've got to play our brand of football. We've got to be physical and we have to take pride in what we do once again."

On Houston being hurdle:

"In the past it has been. We're trying to get away from that, not looking at the past and what's been a big hurdle and kind of just looking forward, 1-0."

On importance of game:

"It means everything. Every game means everything to us. Every game's the one. There is no next week. There is no day after the game. That's all we're focused on is Friday night."

On Spears:

"That's a great guy. On the field and off the field, he takes care of business. It feels good to know if we do our thing, he's going to do it 10 times better. He's going to do what he's there to do. He's 22. He's Tyjae Spears. It's what he does."

COOPER

On what went wrong after being up 14-0:

"Really we just got too comfortable. We've got to keep the same intensity throughout the whole game, throughout the whole season. We got too comfortable. It was a very humbling experience. We all know we should have done way better, and we're going to fix that."

On if he thought game was over at 14-0:

"Like I said, we kind of slowed down the intensity. We should have kept on going. We should have kept on pursuing the lead."

On Houston:

"We're looking at the O-line and we're trying to figure out specific keys and things that they give away. We know if the D-line whups the O-line, the game is going to be pretty good defensively."

On importance of beating Houston:

"Once we found that out, we all made a little pact we've got to be the best in the conference, the best in NCAA football. It's just another obstacle to get towards our goal."

On pressuring Clayton Tune:

"It's very important. We can't let him sit in the pocket. We can't let him scramble outside the pocket. The D-line has to focus on maintaining rush lanes and keeping pressure on him. If he has a bad game, the whole offense shuts down, so that's what we are going to focus on."

On defense being fourth in nation in fewest yards allowed:

"We should be even higher. We just lost our intensity during the game. If we keep that throughout the season and keep on getting better, we should stay top five or top three."

FRITZ

We pushed up the week a day, so this was kind of like a Wednesday practice. Tomorrow will be like Thursday and the following day will be like Friday. We had good work today. This was our only padded practice of the week. The kids did a good job of locking in and turning the page. Obviously we're disappointed we didn't play as well as what we wanted to last Saturday. There were some areas that were outstanding and some areas that weren't outstanding. We can't have those snafus in the kicking game that we had. Those are going to get you, and they certainly did, but just like I tell you all the time, we can't sit here and revel in past successes or pout when you don't have the outcome that you want where you're going to not live in the present and be the best you can be every day, so we've turned the page on it."

On if there was anything they'd self-scouted on loss to USM:

"Not really. We did a really good job offensively moving the ball between the 20s, but when we got down in that fringe area, plus 20 and plus 20 yard line, we didn't get the play. The punt went out of bounds on the 2-yard line was a huge play. We didn't recover from that. The blocked punt later, we had a blocked field goal that hurt us well. Just one guy not doing his assignment, his 1/11th. Defensively we played really well besides a couple of 50-50 balls. We had a bad angle with one touchdown on the RPO and they threw a 50-50 ball up and it was underthrown and the guy did a good job of adjusting it. They only had 250-something yards of offense, which in this day and age is pretty good, but the blocked kicks really hurt us big time and then not being able to cash in on the good field position. We'd drive the ball down the field and get thwarted once we got down there. Those were our issues."

On Houston concerns:

"A really good quarterback. He's big, he's mobile. He runs under 11 flat 100 meters, too, so he has excellent speed. He can pull the ball out and run it. He has some receivers. Nathaniel Dell (No. 1) is an excellent receiver, but he's also a great punt returner. And they have about three or four other receivers, some of whom transferred in from other places and some that have been there for a while. One of the top high school wide receivers in the country (Matthew Golden, with 11 catches through four games) is doing a really nice job. They are very talented offensively. Coach Holgorsen has been running this offense forever. They've been running it with Tune for three years, so they understand it."

On TDECU Stadium being house of horrors for Tulane:

"Well, you want to to win every place you go. We'd love to win there. It would be big."

On how hard it is to overcome rough special teams night:

"It really is. You can overcome it if our offense scores those opportunities when we didn't, but a combination of the two made it tough for us to win. But it was all three sides of the ball. We have to understand that and we have to regroup and go. I think we have. We jumped right back into it on Sunday night because of the short week. That's what you have to do."

On if this loss eats at him more than most:

"Oh, they all eat on me. The wins kind of leave me right that. The losses stick with me and I have to flush them out of my system. It takes a little while. That's not a good trait, but unfortunately it's the one I got."

On Houston giving him trouble over the years (again, really only in Houston):

"Well they're good. They've done an excellent job recruiting over the last few years. They've got good personnel on both sides of the ball. Last year they were one of the top two or three defenses in the nation and number one in third-down defense and did an excellent job rushing the passer, compressing the pocket. They are very talented and coached well. They do a nice job."

On Valentino Ambrosio coming back at some point:

"Yeah I think so. Not this week, but hopefully next week. He's doing a little bit more right now."

On significance of this game for conference ambitions:

"Huge. After this weekend half the teams will have a (conference) loss and half the teams will have a win, so it's real big."

Two players who missed Tulane's game against Southern Miss and a third who missed the second half all are likely to play against Houston, Willie Fritz said after practice today. Wide receiver Lawrence Keys, who was held out with an unspecified injury after practicing all of last week, will be good to go along with tight ends Will Wallace and Tyrick James. Wallace was a late scratch after struggling in warm-ups following a week in which he was limited in practice. James missed the second half with an injury, and Tulane missed its top two tight ends in a variety of ways despite freshman Alex Bauman making four grabs for 65 yards. Bauman forces the Wave to burn a timeout in the first half when he was in the wrong spot, and he also got called for holding in the second half after getting beaten on a block as he tried to prevent a sack. Wallace is the wing on field goal protections, and his replacement, Keith Cooper, did not block anyone when a Southern Miss player flew around the edge to block Kriston Esnard's would-be go-ahead field goal in the fourth quarter.

As for Keys, he looked like Tulane's best all-around receiver in preseason camp and was sorely missed on a night when the receivers regressed. His return would be huge.

Despite Saturday's incredibly frustrating loss to Southern Miss, Tulane has earned the respect of the odds makers in its first four games while Houston has has gone down considerably in their estimation. The point spread of 2 1/2 mean Houston would be a slight underdog or even with the Wave on a neutral field since home-field advantage typically is worth 3 points. Houston has not played particularly well in any of its first four games, needing triple overtime to get past a UTSA team that has major defensive issues, losing to Texas Tech in double overtime, getting housed at home by Kansas after taking a 14-0 lead (that game had a fight between two Cougars receivers on the sideline in the second half) and beating usually hapless Rice on a fumble return for a touchdown late in the fourth quarter. They lead the nation in penalties, and Dana Holgorsen went off on his own team after the Rice game, intimating he was not at fault for the issues and the players needed to get their act together. He apologized Monday, but it is an understatement to say this is a must-win game for the preseason AAC favorites. Interestingly, Houston's recruiting classes have not been ranked that high by Rivals--placing third in the AAC in 2018 and 2022 but no higher than eighth from 2019 to 2021. When he is on, quarterback Clayton Tune is an accurate thrower and an underrated runner with real speed, but his longest run of the year is 20 yards. The Cougars have been hit hard by injuries, too, losing AAC sacks leader Derek Parish for the year. I expect this game to come down to two key facets--Tulane's ability to protect the quarterback and Tulane's ability to to defend one-on-one passes downfield. The Wave struggled in both departments while getting clobbered at TDECU Stadium in 2018 and 2020. This is a very winnable game if the Wave goes in with the same confidence it exhibited at Kansas State, but if that confidence was dinted by the mistake-filled performance against USM, it could be a tough night against a desperate team that absolutely has to win to keep the wolves at bay.

Fritz, cornerback Jarius Monroe and guard Kanan Ray talked after practice.

FRITZ

On Lawrence Keys:

"He's good to go. We knew it (his not playing against USM) could be a possibility. He wasn't 100 percent, so we weren't able to play him."

On tight ends who were hurt:

"Will and Tyrick should both be fine."

On Houston:

"They've done a great job of recruiting. They do a good job coaching them. They've got talented players and a very good staff."

On Pratt interception:

"You just don't want to force anything in there. That's the big thing. It's take what they give you and try not to force the ball. When you force it, sometimes good things don't happen. Unfortunately that's part of the game."

On defense:

"I thought we played pretty good last Saturday. There were a couple of plays we'd like to have back. They beat us on a couple of 50-50 balls, one of which was not thrown very well and the guy made a nice play on it, and then we overran one on an RPO (Lummie Young on the tying TD), but besides that we tackled and played pretty darn good defense."

On AAC race:

"We just need to go out and play well. It's a big game for us. Houston's very talented, but it's kind of like a new season right now starting with conference play."

JARIUS MONROE

On key to bouncing back:

"We are a team, so we try to keep everything to the team, so we feel like all in all we all have to go harder. We all have to do better. Practice harder, we can't slack off, we can't not respect our opponents. We have to go into every situation with a level mind. Everybody has to be ready to work hard."

On giving up a few big pass plays to USM:

"We just need to get back to the books, get back to the basics. We trust our coach. We trust our plays, and he trusts us, so we just have to keep developing that trust, keep working hard, just keep dominating, man, because we've got some players. We have some really great players, so as long as we keep playing hard and giving everything we got, everything will come full circle."

On Houston receivers:

"We respect every opponent. They have a very good team, but we have a very good team also. We are just ready to fight. That's the best part about football. It's competitive. It's fun. When you get out there, it's best on best. That was really my reason for coming here is to play the best. We are just ready to play."

On Houston as preseason favorite:

"With them being the team that was picked to win it, it's important, but we are just looking at it like another game honestly. It's another game on our schedule where we're trying to get a win. It could be anybody on our schedule. We're just trying to get a win."

On what makes defense really good:

"Our coach. Our DC. It's the passion. You see it when he talks, the way he coaches and the way he gets his coaches to coach. It trickles down because coach Fritz has that same passion, so you can see why those guys are a good group together. I've just never seen a coach so passionate and just happy about what he's doing with so much love for his players. He wants us to be the best, and you can tell, so that's why we just love him. We'll fight the world for him."

On ESPN game:

"I'm excited. I've never been on national television, so I'm very excited. This is on ESPN. I hope my grandmother, my mom and my family get to see me play."

On how he could possibly get more excited than he already is:

"I'm the juice guy, the energy guy. I like to make people smile. I like to bring positivity, so that's my goal. If I can kick it up a notch, definitely you will see it."

On bouncing back from loss:

"You win some, you lose some, but the thing is you've got to keep fighting. You have to keep punching. That's the goal. We want to keep trying to be the best that we can be. We know last week wasn't our best game. We didn't do what we wanted to do. We didn't execute on the plays we were supposed to execute, so this week we were just trying to go into this game plan and execute, dominate and do everything right. We want to go all four quarters dominating and executing like we're built for."

KANAN RAY

On key to bouncing back:

"The key to bouncing back is first get a win. We've got to come out, start strong, finish our blocks, communicate up front, we've got to run the ball, gotta get points on the board, finish as an offense and just get better execution."

On four sacks against USM:

"We always take that personal. We don't want any sacks ever, so we kind of take that personal. We had a great week of practice and want to make sure that doesn't happen again."

On big game:

"Every game is important. Every game is your Super Bowl, so you can't make it bigger than what it is, but it's definitely a huge game against some really good guys, so we're just preparing to the best of our ability and are ready for a big game."

On Houston personnel:

"They definitely have really good personnel. All of them go. They are deep. You see a lot of guys come in and make plays for them, so one guy being out doesn't really make a difference for them. They got a bunch of dudes in there. They are all really good players, so we've got to be ready for them all."

On Spears:

"When he gets going, it's really good. We're a lot better team when 22 gets going, so we just have to finish our blocks and let him get going. We're a much better team when 22 is feeling good."

On confidence:

"The confidence is high on this team. We played our worst possible game and still lost by 3. We were definitely upset about the loss, but there's a 24-hour rule. We're still confident. Our season really starts now. Non-conference is what it is, but it really starts now that conference is here. The confidence is as high as always."

On Pratt:

"He's a leader and a team captain, so he's been on us about finishing and playing better. We're just trying to get a win."

I have been waiting to watch the replay of Saturday night's game before writing anything because, as I've mentioned before, the second halves and particularly the fourth quarter of 6 p.m. kickoffs are rumors to me as I write madly to get my stories in the paper by deadline. I didn't even make it to the postgame interviews, which went quickly with Fritz and Dorian Williams the only people speaking and me not there to ask questions. Another writer sent me a few quotes.

It was an inexplicable loss. Southern Miss is pretty good defensively, as Will Hall said when I talked to him last week, but Tulane was in total control up 14-0 and appeared headed for a 42-10 type win. Even after the offense stopped having success, It was not one of those games that I felt I was slipping away until the first drive of the second half bogged down, Esnard missed the 47-yard field goal and Southern Miss responded with 70-yard tying touchdown drive out of nowhere. Then it was game on, and this is where the usual comments you always get from players about relaxing and not focusing hard enough (Sincere Haynesworth and Keith Cooper intimated as much today because no one ever wants to say they simply got beaten) ring true. I don't think Tulane expected to have to fight for four quarters to win, particularly after the 14-0 start, and it paid the price with a series of mistakes the rest of the way.

In hindsight while at the game, I thought the Southern Miss punt that went out of bounds at the 2-yard line that set up a quick touchdown after Tulane went 3 and out was the turning point, but after watching the replay, there were back-to-back plays on that scoring drive where Tulane almost forced a turnover. If either of them had gone the Wave's way, I think it would have been easy win. First, Nick Anderson deflected a pass near the line of scrimmage and Larry Brooks could not hold on to a diving interception attempt. It was not an easy catch, but it was one he definitely could have made. Then Macon Clark put his helmet to the ball on a keeper by Zach Wilcke, and it popped out and somehow went right back to Wilcke on the ground. If it had gone almost anywhere else, it would have been a Tulane recovery with a 14-0 lead, having allowed three first downs in the first 24 minutes of the game. Instead, Wilcke threw a touchdown pass to Jason Brownlee on the next play, with Brownlee pushing off of Jadon Canady to get separation and Canady not reacting strongly enough to make a play on the jump ball. Massive difference between a 14-0 lead and a 14-7 lead at that point.

The mistakes escalated from there. Pratt took a third-down sack for the second consecutive series, and punt protection let a guy come in untouched, clearly missing an assignment, and block a Casey Glover punt. That can't happen, and while the defense held again, Southern Miss kicked a field goal and clearly was gaining confidence.

If Tulane had responded with a touchdown on the next drive, it still might have been an easy victory, but after getting a first down at the USM 18 and spinning out of a sack attempt to gain 4 yards, Pratt stumbled trying to get out of the pocket on the next down when the rushers actually were picked up and he could have stayed where he was.. He had to throw the ball away after the stumble, and a dump to Tyjae Spears on third down did not produce any magic, forcing a field goal.

At halftime, though, all the signs still pointed in Tulane's favor. It had outgained USM 253-108 and outrushed the Golden Eagles 125-22.

The start of the third quarter was in Tulane's favor, too, although another mistake, a holding penalty on tight end Alex Bauman after he was beaten on a pass rush, killed the opportunity for points on the first drive. Southern Miss threw threw straight incomplete passes, and Tulane drove to a first down at the USM 31 on its next series. Again, nothing seemed amiss to me at that point. But Pratt held the ball too long when his receivers were blanketed on the next play, taking an unnecessary 8-yard sack, and a hand-off up the middle to Tyjae Spears, which had worked perfectly on third-and-6 from the USM 34 in the second quarter (he scored his second TD), was stuffed for a 1-yard loss. When those plays fail, everyone jumps on the play-caller as if he is beyond idiotic. The failure forced Kriston Esnard to attempt what would have been the longest field goal make in the Fritz era--47 yards--and he kicked it too hard and hooked it.

From there, the defense had really its only bad possession of the game on some hard runs by Frank Gore and poor coverage on a slant that turned into a 37-yard TD for Jakarius Caston. He beat Larry Brooks to the spot, but the real mistake came from Lummie Young, who overran the play by about 5 yards and was not even close to being in position to stop Caston's path to the end zone. Suddenly the game was tied and anyone who has followed Tulane football for a long time was getting very nervous.

The offense responded well at first, with Tyjae Spears doing a Tyjae Spears thing and getting 23 yards on the first play after the kickoff with a nice cut to the outside. The best thing that came out of this game was Spears' performance. He is the Wave's one true difference-maker on offense, and he had 182 rushing-receiving yards. The Wave moved to the USM 20, where a Pratt pass to Duece Watts that appeared ticketed for a touchdown was broken up on a nice play by defensive back Eric Scott. That was a big moment. Shae Wyatt dropped a third-down pass (one of five drops on the night for a receiving corp that regressed significantly) that would not have picked up the first down but would have put Esnard 2 yards closer to a tie-breaking field goal. Then the field goal protection broke down, with I believe Keith Cooper not touching the outside rusher, who blocked the 37-yard field goal attempt. Fritz said after the game they had a backup wing in, but I'm surprised it would not have been an offensive lineman. Cooper blocked the inside guy who already was being blocked. Again, that can't happen.

The tide clearly had turned because Southern Miss got big back-to-back completions, including one in which DJ Douglas grabbed Brownlee's jersey and drew Tulane's first defensive flag of the season (it won't count officially) and Brownlee caught it anyway, setting up the go-ahead field goal. Tulane could have used a Brownlee type on offense, but with Lawrence Keys out, no one was close to fitting that bill.

Then it was Pratt's turn to make a bad mistake. With Tulane trailing by 3, he decided before a third-and-6 snap he was going to McDougle and threw into triple coverage. The ball was tipped by one guy to another, who ran it in for the decisive touchdown. The guy who scored might have had a pick 6 if the ball had not been deflected because he already had jumped the route. And one other thing. McDougle has to make a better effort at a tackle there. He grabbed the guy with his arm as he fell down, and he broke away easily. If he makes the tackle and Tulane's defense holds, it's a six-point deficit with plenty of time to drive for a go-ahead touchdown.

The defense played well again, but unlike last week, it made a few mistakes. The offense struggled after the two early touchdowns, with Pratt having a hard time finding anyone open and the offensive line breaking down a couple of times. Joey Claybrook allowed one sack, and Prince Pines allowed another. The receiver simply could not make a significant play, with Shae Wyatt dropping a nice back-shoulder thrown on fourth down after Tulane fell behind by 10. But the worst breakdowns came on those two blocked kicks. It was uncharacteristic, and it probably cost Tulane the game.

I thought the play calling was a little too conservative, but the Wave accomplished very little when it tried to go downfield in the passing game. Spears breaking off big gains and Pratt's running were pretty much the entire good part of the offense, and that was not enough.

nm

Tulane will have about 14 unofficial visitors in for the game tomorrow--nine are already committed to the Wave, including walk-on punter William Hudlow from Jesuit and walk-on long snapper Pierson Parent. Two are uncommitted and three are 2024 prospects.

The list:

ALREADY COMMITTED

Jai Eugene
Nick Jacobs
Joshua Moore
Kevin Adams
Jai Eugene
Landry Cannon
Arnold Barnes
William Hudlow (preferred walk-on punter)
Pierson Parent (preferred walk-on long snapper)

UNCOMMITTTED

1) Jameian Buxton, a 3-star, 6-3, 275-pound DT from Warren Easton.

Skinny: he has offers from plenty of big-time programs, including LSU, although I'm not sure that one is still serviceable.

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2) Aidan Byrd, a 6-3, 180-pound unrated QB from Pensacola Catholic High

Skinny: He has an offer from Troy

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2024 PROSPECTS

1) Cullen Charles, a WR from St. Martinville

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2) Dylan Day, a DB from Southern Lab

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3) Kavion Broussard, an OL from Zachary

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Charlamange8 had a terrific week, missing only the BYU-Oregon game, and Kettrade1 had a rough week, although interestingly he did manage to pick the SMU game right.

Everyone else was comfortably in the middle of those two extremes.

WEEK 3 RESULTS

8

charlamange8

6

MNAlum
ny oscar
diverdo
paliii

5

chigoyboy
WaveON
Guerry

4

DrBox
Wavetime
Gretna Green
p8kpev
roll wave
tacklethemanwiththefootball

3

winwave

1

Kettrade1


OVERALL STANDINGS

17.5

DrBox
MNAlum

16.5

winwave
chigoyboy
charlamange8

15.5

WaveOn
ny oscar

14.5

diverdo

13.5

Gretna Green
p8kpev

12.5

roll wave
Guerry

11.5

Kettrade1
tacklethemanwiththefootball

11

paliii (missed 1 week)

8.5

Wavetime (missed 1 week)

7.5

LSU Law Greenie (missed 1 week)

6.5

2DatWuzAGoodDay2 (missed 1 week)


GAME-BY-GAME RESULTS

Tulane 14 of 16
Penn State 12
Oregon 2
LSU 9
Maryland 4
Texas 4
Texas A&M 9
Kansas 7

As always, the Tulane game counts double, home teams are listed first, neutral games are designated as such (although I am a day late with Texas A&M-Arkansas on that front) and the point spreads come from VegasInsider.com consensus:

Tulane (-13) Southern Miss
Wake Forest (+7) Clemson
Tennessee (-10.5) Florida
Texas A&M (-2) Arkansas (Dallas)
North Carolina (-2) Notre Dame
SMU (+2.5) TCU
Oklahoma (-13) Kansas State
Kansas (-7.5) Duke

I have edited the TexasA&M-Arkansas game to reflect the location in Dallas rather than being a home game for the Aggies.

I have a good enough relationship with Hall that I was able to bypass the USM sports information department and talk to him directly after Tulane's practice yesterday. Southern Miss has played much better than last year. The Golden Eagles lost in four overtimes to a Liberty team that won at UAB and lost by one to undefeated, ranked Wake Forest when a 2-point conversion failed with about a minute left. The Golden Eagles led Miami 7-3 late in the first half before giving up a TD with 20 seconds left in a game they ended up losing 30-7. Then they smashed Northwestern State, throwing for 400 yards.

Tulane definitely is the better team, but this is not the USM that capitulated in Hattiesburg two years ago once the Wave got rolling and it probably is better than the team Tulane faced in the Armed Forces Bowl at the end of 2019. I believe Hall will have that program back where it used to be in another year or two.

We talked briefly off the record about Chip Long, but that's not for publication. Here is what Hall had to say on the record:

"Number one, I'm just fired up that they are 3-0. You know what I think about coach Fritz and the players there and how much I love Michael and all that. What they went through last year was unfair. It is what it is, but sometimes that's life, but those kids stuck it out and stayed and are reaping the rewards from it now. They are a really good team. They play especially hard. They don't do the things that cause you to lose. They don't turn it over. They don't have pre- and post-snap penalties. They play hard in the kicking game. They tackle well. To be honest with you, and this will mean a lot to coach Fritz, they look like an old Bill Snyder Kansas State football team."

On Tulane defense:

"They don't give up any big plays. They haven't given up a play over 30 yards, and they tackle the ball extremely well. If you look at Deuce Vaughn, he makes everybody miss, and he never made them miss. To score on them, you've got to drive the ball, which is the hardest thing to do in college football is score without making an explosive play. That's the thing they really do well."

On the state of his program:

"Bobby Bowden said when you're building a program, first you lose big. We've done that. Then you lose close, then you win close, then you win big. We won two games at the end of the year last year versus two bad teams, but Liberty we lost close to a good team, so we're somewhere between losing close and winning close. That's where we are. We're talented but we're inexperienced. We're getting better. WE're going to continue to improve as the year goes on, but we would like to make this jump from losing close to winning close against good teams."

On Zach Wilcke and Ty Keys:

"( Wilcke is a) really, really accurate passer. Great touch on the ball. Good arm strength. Really athletic kid that can run. Ty's a sensational runner with a really strong arm and is getting better and better with his accuracy. He had a concussion against Liberty and got knocked out."

On having QBs after they all got injured last year:

"I'm fired up about it. It's very similar to what we were about to have at Tulane with signing Pratt and Ibieta. We signed two kids that we feel really good about that were highly recruited. They both come from great families and were multisport athletes in Keys and Wilcke. Coaching them every day is just so much fun because they get better and better. I just enjoy every minute with them and they are both going to be really good."

On RB Frank Gore (the son of the U of Miami and NFL star Frank Gore):

"A great ability to make people miss. He's a natural in making the first guy miss and he has great charisma. He really impacts people around him in a positive way. He's a lot like Michael Pratt from that standpoint in that he's always smiling and touching people's lives."

On his defense:

"We're pretty good on D. We played really well last year on defense in year 1. We inherited some good players and have had two great recruiting classes to add to it. We think we've got a really good defense. We're more experienced there and feel real good where we're at."

On inheriting a mess:

"We knew it was bad because I had played them at Tulane. With attrition and COVID and all that, we ended up playing with 62 scholarship players last year, so that was probably a little worse that what I'd hoped for. We're back up to 85 now, so we are fully funded and are in a much better situation. This is a proud program with a lot of history and tradition, and we're going to get it back."

On going against Pratt and guys he recruited:

"I'm proud of them, I'm happy for them but I'm going to try to kick their butts Saturday and they are going to try to kick mine. That's what it's all about, but I love them and wish them nothing but the best."

On his accomplishments at Tulane (second- and third-highest scoring teams in school history):

"That means a lot to me. it's something I take great pride in. I think the world of coach Fritz. I think what he's done at Tulane is really undervalued. I don't think it's appreciated enough from where that program was to what he's done with it. Winning consistently at places that have never won consistently is extremely hard. I have the most respect for him as a man and a leader."

Bill Connelly of ESPN.com says if Tulane is for real, it will have every chance in the world of snaring the G5's New Years Six Bowl bid. Someone from SI.com picks Tulane to play Penn State in the Cotton Bowl. Kirk Herbstreit tweets that Tulane is his No. 2 performing college football team of the week and Willie Fritz did the sixth best coaching job of the weei.

For the first time in three years, Tulane is getting a lot of positive national attention. After the Wave's last-second touchdown against Houston in 2019 created some buzz, it actually rose to No. 26 in the AP poll before traveling to Memphis at 5-1, and Herbstreit and at least one other GameDay panelist picked Tulane to beat the Tigers. The night did not go well for the Wave, which lost 47-17 and dropped four of its next five games as well.

Living up to accolades has been a problem for Tulane for a long time, with an inevitable thud after big wins. The last time it beat a current Power Five program before Kansas State (Rutgers in 2010), it promptly lost 41-23 at the Dome to Army for Homecoming in a performance that led to my taking over this site. The student Scott Kushner was using to cover games wrote a screed about the team that made Bob Toledo so mad, he refused to deal with the guy any more. Scott, who did not know me, called to find out if I would be interested in covering the team on a trial basis. I said yes with the condition that I not have to cover games because I still had a gig as a national college football columnist for my old job at Gator Bait Magazine and needed to be watching the biggest games of the day. I went out to Tulane practice twice a week, and I still remember the first sentence for my first story for this site, where I listed the rushing total of Tulane's opponents compared to Tulane over the course of the season (something 1,200-450) without explaining what they were and then wrote "No, it's not the average SAT score of a Tulane student compared to an LSU student." I almost never take cheap shots like that, but I wanted to make a splash.

That digression aside, handling the sudden burst of positivity will be pivotal for this team, which just played the best defensive game I have seen since I began covering Tulane in 2011. It starts with Southern MIss at home this Saturday, I asked Fritz, Iverson Celestine and Darius Hodges about it today as part of the interviews. and the full transcript is below.

As for practice, which was in shorts and shoulder pads, Tyjae Spears and Shaadie Clayton participated along with Iverson Celestine, and so did Michael Pratt, who hobbled off the field following his game-clinching sneak Saturday and watched as Justin Ibieta took the three knees that ran out the clock. The party line is Spears is totally healthy, and although I'm not buying it for a second, I truly don't know what is bothering him. I do believe Clayton, who played sparingly against Kansas State and did not touch the ball, is healthy. Celestine looked better than he did in preseason camp and has earned the coaches' trust.

Josh Remetich's injury is to his right arm. I do not know how long he will be out, but the second-team line has Sully Burns, Caleb Thomas, Shadre Hurst, Trey Tuggle and Matt Lombardi from left to right. The scout-team line has Keanon McNally, Joseph Solomon, Ethan Marcus, Jackson Fort and Nik Hogan from left to right. I did not see Huston Lillibridge anywhere.

At the end of practice, they rolled the bell on to the field and rang it. Tulane has won the Battle of the Bell the last two times it has played USM, winning the Armed Forces Bowl at the end of the 2019 season and clobbering the Golden Eagles in Hattiesburg in 2020. This will be their first meeting in New Orleans since 2012, and USM still leads the series 23-9.

IVERSON CELESTINE

On when he knew he would be featured back against Kansas State:

"It was kind of a feel thing. It was who was getting rolling at the time, and coach thought I was doing well, so he stuck with me. He noticed my abilities and stuck with me. I obviously had a couple of hiccups in the games before that, but he kept his faith in me and we kept rolling."

On keeping coaches' confidence despite fumbles against UMass and Alcorn State:

"He knows that's typically not a characteristic of mine. It happens. It's part of the game, and I just put a little more emphasis on taking care of the ball and just going out there and having fun."

On big victory:

"It was huge, most definitely. Huge credit to the defense and the offensive line for sure."

On his performance:

"I played well. It was probably the biggest game I've ever played in so far. I stepped up and did what they needed me to do,."

On being calm:

'Yes sir. Obviously if you don't have nerves, then you probably don't care about what you're doing, but after the first few hits, the first couple of run, it was super solid."

On elevating himself on depth chart:

"I just trusted God. Just did what I knew I could do. Believed in my abilities, kept God first, just played football."

On fourth-down gamble that ended game:

"I love it. That's coach Fritz's brand of football."

On team avoiding getting a big head:

"Just take it week by week. Don't get into the social media hype. Come here prepared every day, game plan and just do what we know we have to do to be successful week by week."

On role against USM with Spears having lingering injury:

"I don't think Spears has a lingering issue, but I do expect to get a couple of carries. I think I will contribute to the game for sure. Southern Miss's defense is solid. They play fast, they do their assignment and they do it well, so we'll definitely be prepared."

On expecting to be where he is now:

"I'm not going to lie. I did. Through the grace of God I have full confidence in abilities and that I"m a great player and I can do it at this level. Just like I said, I kept trusting God and am just doing what I love to do."

On what makes him effective:

'I think I can be a complete, all-around back. I can block, catch out the backfield and obviously I can run the ball a little bit."

On where team can go from here:

"I think the sky's the limit. To be honest, we just have to take it week by week."

On considering Utah before choosing Tulane:

"My first hard commitment was to Tulane, but I had great interest in Utah. Coach Fritz did a great job recruiting me. With COVID I couldn't go visit many schools. It was home, so I was like you can't be wrong being home. Coach Fritz loves me over there and the love was mutual, so that's what I did."

DARIUS HODGES

On best part of D performance:

"I was happy with the way that we stuck together. We go back to relying on culture. We played fast, we played hard and physical. We've got great leaders on the defense, and that's what makes our defense so great. How good we've been doing these past three games is because of the leadership we have on defense."

On fourth-down stops:

"Coach Hamp had a great game plan. The coaches had a great game plan. They went through all the different situations we could see, and really I give credit to coach Hampton the game plan he provided for us."

On taking that performance to USM game:

"Finding things that we can improve on. We didn't play perfect, so we are finding different things we can improve on as a defense to make our defense a whole lot better. Taking the next step will help us get better. Fitting gaps better, attention to detail, noticing plays and studying film, it can be all kinds of different things to make us a better defense going into this week."

On ignoring hype:

"We just rely on our coaches and are just relying on what we've been building since fall camp and don't get complacent where we are."

On being fun to hear the positivity:

"It's a big turn from last year. We have most of the same players we had last year, but we are relying on coaching and that's been helping us take the next step."

On confidence after finishing last year on upswing:

"We all are confident on the defensive side. We are confident in each other and everybody is really on the same chord."

On USM freshman QB: (not Ty Keyes, who is a redshirt freshman):

"He's pretty good. He has a pretty good arm and pretty good targets to throw to. They are talented and they have a great scheme with Will Hall."

On record being worse than offense:

"I don't think their record reflects it. They have a pretty great team over there and a great scheme."

On D-line depth:

"That helps a lot. We have a different group of guys that come in and keep it on the same standard that we play with. We all have the same standard. It's a great thing that coach Hampton and coach T-Rob have been installing in our defensive line and really the whole defense."

On Nick Anderson:

"I really give him being the heart of our defense. He's a great leader. He comes with the same standard every day. He's the same person every day. He keeps up with the same type of intensity every day and it's contagious. It's spread around the whole defense, so I tip my hat to Nick. He's been a good leader for us."

On zero penalties:

"Our attention to detail, coach Fritz is about things, Wave don't beat the Wave, ball security, those types of things we emphasize, that's something great that coach Fritz and all the other coaches have been installing on our team. The small things matter, too."

On where can go from here:

"I think we can keep on doing good how we've been doing. We just have to understand we have to play with the same type of intensity we play with every game. Every team is the same. We can't look at any team differently,. We keep the same type of mentality regardless of who we play. I think that's the best thing."

Tulane is favored by 13 points over USM, which seems a little low to me.

The Wave appears to be very healthy for this game. I haven't spotted a starter or significant reserve who played against Kansas State who is sitting out this week. Freshman wide receiver Chris Brazzell did not practice, but he has one catch for 11 yards so far and did not play against Kansas State.

Tylo Phillips got plenty of work with the first-team defense today at end, joining the other 10 usual suspects. I don't know if this means he will start, and the numbers from the Kansas State game are not particularly illuminating. While Darius Hodges was terrific on the other side at joker, Phillips, starter Angelo Anderson and Keith Cooper each had one tackle at end. Depth is Tulane's hallmark at that spot.

I spotted Hutson Lillibridge today. He practiced on the scout team at left guard instead of Jackson Fort, who was on the sideline with no helmet. At one point Lillibridge went and knelt down in the end zone behind the action--joker Armoni Dixon replaced him as the offensive guard for those few reps--so he might be under the weather.

Larry Brooks dropped an incredibly easy interception against the scout team. He has seven interceptions through 2020 but none since then.

Tulane has given up 20 points through three games, ranking sixth nationally. That's the lowest total since 1960, when the Wave allowed 19. The closest since then was 22 in 1973. Football used to be a much lower scoring sport, so the Wave gave up less than 20 points 31 times before 1960.

They worked on a fumble drill today where the linebackers had to step through cushions and then pick up a bouncing or rolling ball. Judging by what JoJo Dorceus did against Memphis last year, they also need to teach them to run after they pick up the fumble.

Tyrek Presley is a scout-team receiver, though he is still wearing a white DB jersey. His quest for playing time is going even worse on that side of the ball than it did at receiver.

Kentrell Webb, who like all the true freshmen did not play against Kansas State, practiced with the second team at nickelback today.

Tulane's secondary might be tested for the first time Saturday. Might be. USM threw for 400 yards against Northwestern State on Saturday. Consider the competition, but I'm not sure the Wave's first three opponents could throw for 400 yards against air. Will Hall traditionally has leaned run over pass as a coach, but his offenses put up good passing totals in his two years as Tulane's offensive coordinator.

I talked to Chris Hampton and Lummie Young today along with Fritz, and I talked to Hall by phone. Here are the transcripts of the first three interviews. I will provide Hall's tonight or tomorrow.

FRITZ

On no defensive penalties:

"We've done a nice job. There've been some 50-50 balls, but there haven't been a ton of them. That's where you sometimes get penalties as well, but our guys have played very disciplined. That's been huge. We can't control the post-snap penalties. Some are very subjective. Some of them are right and then you might do the exact same thing on the next play and they don't call it a penalty or they do call it a penalty and they didn't call it the play before. We really harp on the pre-snap, and we've done an excellent job of not having any. That was a big key to our success last week.We had one pre-snap penalty and they had six, so that really helped us out big time."

On Chris Hampton:

"He's really a smart guy. Probably 20 or 30 times a game he calls the play out from the sideline before it's run. I can call a play when it's run, but he understands splits and the formations and personnel groupings and down and distance and field zones and time on the clock and score. There's a bunch of stuff when you put it all together, you have a pretty good idea of what they may do. He does a really nice job of all that. Very smart. And I've said it before. Not a lot of people have the ability to get after a guy and they respect you and do what you tell them to do and all that. He has a really good way with the guys, and I'm not saying he sits around and kisses their butt all day. He does not do that at all, and that's a rare gift nowadays. He does a very, very good job."

On changing plan for Kansas State:

"It was a lot of stuff that we've done before, but each team we play is a little different. You have a package defensively that you run, and you try to put it all in during preseason camp and spring ball and the summer and everything else, and each week you run 60 to 70 percent of it because some of it's not good versus who you're playing, so he does a good job of game planning. His assistant coaches all do an excellent job of game planning with him."

Learned on job last year:

"That's the way it always is. You don't know you can do it until you do it, so there was some of that. And our schedule didn't help. We played some pretty good teams, especially early. We hung with it, and our defense down the stretch was just barely behind Cincinnati. We had one of the top defenses in the country (for the last five games of the season), but it doesn't work that way. You can't just count some of them. You have to count them all, and (this year) we came out of the box playing well. Our guys believe in what he's doing, and he believes in our guys."

On not having faced passing team yet:

"That's the next test. We're going to start playing teams that are going to throw it around a lot more and better than we saw in the first three weeks. That's going to be the next test."

On facing Will Hall:

"I got a ton of respect for Will. He and I are good friends and we talk a lot. We have the same values. I'm cheering for him every week except this week."

LUMMIE YOUNG

On what makes Hampton a good coach:

"His ability to relate to players because he was a player at South Carolina. He sees the game in a different way. He understands what the offense is trying to do to the defense. He knows the defense's weaknesses, so he kind of knows what the offense is going to do to our weaknesses. It's just the way he has us prepared for what we might see from the offense."

On different look against K State:

"We knew before the game they had been struggling throwing the ball vertically down the field. We knew they had a really good running back in Deuce Vaughn, so when you play a guy like that, you emphasize the tackling and the pursuit to the ball and making sure that you don't let one player beat the whole team."

On stopping Vaughn:

"Just like coach Hamp was saying a minute ago, we practice tackling every single day. Even against the scouts we work on pursuit angles. In seven on seven we work on pursuit angles and just running to the ball and making sure guys get to the ball. It's easier to play defense when everybody is running to the ball because the ball-carrier is swallowed up really easily and that makes it easier for everybody else. Tracking the ball, pursuing the ball makes everything easier."

On more tackling at Tulane than Duke:

"Yeah. Because we even do it in the offseason."

Maybe we all should have seen it coming. After all, Tulane goes 3-0 every 24. years.

The Wave did it in 1974, again in 1998 and now in 2022, with zero instances in the intervening years. Here's hoping fans will not have to wait until 2046 for it to happen again.

What an amazing defensive effort. Deuce Vaughn had rushed for more than 100 yards against eight consecutive opponents, and Tulane shut him down. The defense was unbelievable on third downs and on fourth-and-short, We talked to Fritz, Pratt, Clark and Anderson.

FRITZ

On his decision to go for it on fourth-and-inches from his own 24:

"Well, the defense played really well throughout the whole game. We knew we were going for it on fourth-and-one or less. It was really about two inches, and the offensive line did not have a great initial surge, but Michael stayed with it and they allow you push the quarterback from behind now. Four or five years ago they changed that. A big first down, the game was over and I'm really proud of the whole team. It's been a long time coming. We've worked extremely hard. I don't know how many games I've been close with Power Five schools. Quite a few of them. But yeah, we're pumped up and excited."

On tackling:

"We tackled great. Coach (Chris) Hampton and the defensive staff had a super game plan. There's a lot of stuff involved in the game plan. A couple of guys who travel with the team and played college football years ago, they were sitting in on meetings and their heads were swimming like God Almighty, I didn't know there was that much stuff to it. The kids did a very good job of executing the game plan. We had a great plan, but if the kids don't execute it, it doesn't matter."

On using an extra linebacker or moving a defensive back into a linebacker spot to combat Kansas State running game (Jesus Machado started for Lummie Young):

"They have some tendencies like everybody does. They have two tight ends in the game and three tight ends in the game. Chris did an excellent job with his game plan. He was really dialed in."

On Pratt career high for rushing:

"We felt like we were going to have to run it some with him. If you just run the back, it's tough. That's what they do, too--(Adrian) Martinez carries the ball quite a bit also. It makes it tough because now you're playing 11 on 11 football instead of 10 on 11 football. We made a decision early in the week that we were going to have to run Michael a little bit. We probably ran him more than we wanted to, but he did a great job on that final drive running and on his pass to Tyrick James."

On Pratt injury on final streak:

"He's John Wayne. He'll be back ready to go."

On if Spears was not 100 percent:

"He made a couple of nice runs in the last series. I'll tell you one play he made that was awesome was that big block when Michael scrambled. Instead of turning and watching, which a lot of guys do, he got on a linebacker and probably made another 10-yard gain after the block."

On holding Deuce Vaughn to 81 yards:

"He's a very good back. I thought he was going to slip through on one on the last drive when we had him stopped on it. They ran a lot of speed sweeps and we played outstanding leverage and didn't allow him to get outside very often."

On holding Kansas State to 1 for 5 on fourth down:

"Obviously you hope that's what you are going to do. We did a really nice job of hanging up. One of the things they do is huddle on third down, and when they do that, they go for a big play. I was a little concerned because they huddled a couple of times on fourth down and I thought they were maybe going to do some kind of play pass, but they didn't. Nick Anderson had two really big plays on fourth downs. He had that last one for a minus play and two like that."

On the key being to slow down Vaughn:

"We wanted them to throw it with Martinez. They like to run it with him. Obviously when you've got a great back like Vaughn, you've got to be smart with how you defend him, leverage him and tackle him. He's a huge part of that offense, so we needed to slow him down."

On significance of win:

"It was great stick-to-itiveness with everybody in the program. It's tough. They've got a really good program. I told the guys after the game I don't think we played great. We made some mistakes, but they are all correctable mistakes. There are a couple of throws we'd like to have back, but I'm just really proud of the young men and how they stayed the course. We had very few guys leave us after that tough season we had last year. That's a real testimony to our culture that we have here."

On halftime speech:

"I just said we've just got to play ball. We didn't play great. We've got to keep playing ball and let's go for four quarters. the whole game and maybe longer than that."

On using a ton of guys on defensive line, including four backups at once:

"We played a lot of guys. I was kind of concerned with my coaches putting some other guys in. There were a couple of times I did say, all right, our best guys need to be in there now, and we got them out. But you've got to roll guys. I would have never believed it, but it was pretty darn hot here today. It was hotter than it was in New Orleans. That happens not very often, so we needed to roll. We had a bunch of guys cramp up and a bunch of guys had to get IVs during the game, and I think they had a few guys, too. I think Vaughn had to go in for a while today."

On special teams:

"We did a good job. Coach Discher does an excellent job with the special teams. We covered punts and kicks well and Casey (Glover) had some nice punts. If we would have had that nice catch on the 1-yard line, that would have been big, but otherwise we played very solid in the kicking game, and then Kriston Esnard had the big field goal."

On holding K State to field goal after interception return late in first half:

"That was huge. You are always talking about four-point plays--field goals instead of touchdowns--and our guys did an excellent job. There were seven seconds I believe and we knew they were going to try to hit something quick and if they didn't, they'd kick a field goal, so we were happy we got the field goal."

On being back in Kansas:

"I had a ton of people here. Tickets were a pain in the butt, but it was my wife's birthday today, and for a birthday present I had her do all the tickets with everybody. But she's happy. She's all in."

CLARK

On fourth-down stops:

"We played great. We always have room for improvement and still need to get better week by week and just trust coach Hampton to put us in the right position. It happened."

On shutting down Vaughn:

"That's a big accomplishment. We knew their main key was No. 22. We had to go into the game stopping him, and we did our job."

On feeling in locker room:

"It's great energy in there. I don't even know what to do. I don't know how to explain it. We came up short in a lot of the games, and today it was in our favor."

On different scheme:

"We had a great week of practice. We knew we had to do our job. We just trusted our DC and it worked out very well for us. From here on out we're just going to keep working."

On what is in front of them:

"We're 3-0, but we'll put it behind us going into next week and focus on Southern Miss. We all have room for improvement on defense and we just want to keep working week by week."

On last fourth down stop leading to winning TD:

"The front seven did amazing. They did a great job. We couldn't be here without them. They were banging in the trenches. Shout out to the front seven. We couldn't have done it without them."

On Nick Anderson:

"He's a captain. He's a real good captain on the field. Leadership. He just talks to you about it and encourages you. He's amazing out there. He's always in the right position and he's pushing everybody on defense to be great out there."

On halftime speech:

"At halftime we made a couple of adjustments. They had a couple of big runs in the first half, and we just made a couple of adjustments and just dominated them in the second half. We didn't worry about the score or anything. We just had to keep doing our job and everything worked out for us."

On Fritz's decision to go for fourth-and-inches from Tulane 24 late:

"I was talking to Casey Glover. I was like, is he going for it? He said, yeah, we're going for it. I was like, Oh, man, he's going for it. I was all in with him. It worked out very good for us. Our defense was going back out there, but we got the job done and I put my helmet on the ground and started jumping up with Casey."

More on containing Vaughn:

"We knew he had to get two more 100-yard games. and it wasn't going to happen on us. It couldn't happen on us. The front seven did very good. It was very hard stopping him, but we stayed in our gap, did our job and just trusted Hampton to put us in a good position."

On staying in gaps the key:

"The whole week the focus was staying in our gap because he is a very good and patient back. We had to stay in our gaps and just trust the process. He didn't hit any gaps because we stayed on our gap. That was our whole focus the whole week."

I poop you not folks...



Guerry could you ask Fritz and/or some of the players how are they going to avoid the "rat poison"?

How we handle success is crucial to this becoming a great season or just another 7-5, 6-6 team.

Here is the Wave's 76-man travel roster today. I am. not sure Will Wallace will play after he missed last week with an unspecified injury, but he is here.

QB (4)

Pratt, Ibieta, Horton, Haggard

RB (6)

Spears, Clayton, Celestine, Levi Williams, Coltroin, Barisas

WR (8)

Duece Watts, Jackson, Keys, Wyatt, McDougle, Bohanon, Evans, Besh

TE (5)

James, Wallace, Bauman, Gunter, Brown

OL (10)

Claybrook, Pines, Haynesworth, Ray, Green, Hurst, Thomas, Lombardi, Tuggle, Burns

DL (14)

Jenkins, Anderson, Hodges, Hatcher, Lunz, Cooper, Dixon, Taliancich, Hamilton, Deal, Phillips, Champaigne, Hicks, Thomas

LB (7)

Anderson, Williams, Machado, Platt, Eugene, Love, Sybrandt

DB (15)

Robinson, Canady, Monroe, Clark, Young, Brooks, Douglas, Laister, Despanie, Huggins, Harrison, Webb, Presley, Mestayer, Ratttan

ST (7)

Esnard, Dable, Dunker, Glover, Busch, Hudak, Schmelter

Winwave and DrBox lapped the field in week 2, each missing only one game. Winwave changed three of his picks well ahead of the deadline and got all three right, which is a great feeling. Infuriated by what I considered Pitt's unfair point spread loss to Tennessee, I watched the end of the BYU-Baylor game in disbelief as both teams missed field goals that would have made Baylor the point spread winner and BYU covered the only way possible in overtime, by scoring a touchdown and holding Baylor scoreless in the second OT. If it had gone to a third OT, Baylor would have covered because it comes down to 2-point tries only. I was one of only four people to pick BYU.

The Texas Tech-Houston game, the third of the eight to go to overtime, was a push, so everyone gets half a point for that one.

WEEK 2 RESULTS

7.5

winwave
DrBox

5.5

MNAlum
p8kpev
Ketrade1
WaveON

4.5

charlamange8.
2DatWuzAGoodDay2
chigoyboy
diverdo
Wavetime
tacklethemanwiththefootball
GretnaGreen
Guerry

3.5

ny oscar

2.5

roll wave
LSU Law Greenie


OVERALL STANDINGS

13.5

winwave
DrBox

11.5

MNAlum
chigoyboy

10.5

Kettrade1
WaveON
Wavetime

9.5

GretnaGreen
p8kpev
ny oscar

8.5

charlamange8
diverdo
roll wave

7.5

LSU Law Greenie
tacklethemanwiththefootball
Guerry

6.5

2DatWuzAGoodDay2

5

paliii (missed 1 week)

WEEK 2 GAME-BY-GAME RESULTS

Tulane 16 of 17
Texas 2
Kentucky 7
Tennessee 6
Iowa State 11
Texas Tech-Houston push (10/7 split)
BYU 4
Kansas State 11

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

Kansas State (-14) Tulane
Auburn (+3) Penn State
Oregon (-3.5) BYU
LSU (+2) Mississippi State
Maryland (-4) SMU
Texas (-12.5) UTSA
Texas A&M (-5.5) Miami
Houston (-9.5) Kansas

So we have garnered our 2nd RB commitment in the person of Arnold "Duda" Barnes of New Orleans BTW. This dude was all metro last season, and is a a fast bowling ball, the kind of kid you get tired of tackling. Don't get it twisted he can get to the corner and has quick feet as well, but he runs behind his pads.

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