Tulane's 30-minute session at AAC virtual Media Day yesterday began with studio analyst Rene Ingoglia saying "I would expect Tulane to be the biggest turnaround of all the American teams this year. I think there's going to be a huge difference in their play." He pointed out Nick Anderson played with a high ankle sprain last year and that Tyjae Spears was dynamic and fully healthy. Just like last year, Willie Fritz, Michael Pratt and Nick Anderson represented the Green Wave, taking questions from the studio duo and media members, including me.
FRITZ
Where have you focused over the offseason?
"We've got a lot of guys coming back. I think we've got 15 guys who started at least one game on the offensive side of the ball their college career and the same number on the defensive side. We had a tough season. It was kind of an unusual year. Everybody had COVID two years ago and then we had Ida and we were in Birmingham, Alabama for a month and came back and some guys never did get into their houses that whole semester. We just worked on turning the page. I'm excited about the offseason program we had and our strength coach, Kurt Hester, has done a phenomenal job. Our team has gotten faster and stronger and quicker and we stayed away from injuries during the spring. Sometimes you worry about that as well. I don't think there's a team that's more fired up about getting the season started than the Green Wave."
You have 10 players from the transfer portal--six who participated in the spring and four who committed since then--and Jeffery Johnson is the first significant guy you've ever lost (Oklahoma) and he played four years for you before leaving. How much has the portal helped you and how much will it help you this year?
"I think it's going to help us a lot. That's typical of our culture. We've lost very few guys to the portal and brought a lot of kids in. Most of the kids have been New Orleans guys. Sometimes people think the grass is a little greener some place else and they go there and they find out it's only green and want to come back home, so we're excited about the additions that we've gotten through the transfer portal. A couple of big offensive linemen in Kanan Raye from Colorado and Prince Pines from Sam Houston State. He started originally at Baylor and was an All-American FCS player at Sam Houston. Ashaad Clayton from here in New Orleans, a running back who played quite a bit for Colorado. We picked up a couple of receivers--Lawrence Keys from Notre Dame from New Orleans and also Dea Dea McDougle from Maryland who coincidentally was a high school teammate of Michael Pratt. Michael might have done all the recruiting on that deal, but we picked up some really good guys in the portal. That's the way you want to try to do it--don't lose your guys and then also gain some guys who maybe have a tie to your university or to your city."
How do you view conference realignment an the three schools leaving the American and the six that will be coming in from a coaching perspective?
"We've got a really top-notch league. We talk about being part of the Power 6, but I really believe that's true. The teams we're adding to the conference can bring big-time value to the conference as well. A lot of them are strong academic institutions like Tulane. Also a lot of them are within our footprint, not too far away where fans will be able to travel and their fans will be able to travel. I think we've done a really good job with the additions to our conference."
Should the NCAA allow teams that do not go to a bowl game an extra seven days of practice either in the spring or in the fall to make it fair because the bowl teams get those extra practices (this is the top 10 of dumbest questions I've ever heard)?
"I hadn't put a lot of thought into that, but with what the NCAA added this summer with being able to use a football for two hours a week, that was a nice step forward. We were able to do a lot of things. We had 10 what we call football school workouts, practices. For an hour of each one of those practices you are able to throw the football around. I feel like we were able to get maybe 80 or 90 percent of our offense in and 80 or 90 percent of our defense in and then also a little bit of our special teams. The only limitation they had is we weren't able to go against each other in a competitive type environment. You could also argue that during that time we weren't able to practice, we were able to get on the road recruiting and cover a little bit more ground than we normally do. We feel like we maybe had our best season of recruiting this last year, too, which is difficult to do coming off the season we had."
What type of development would you see from Michael Pratt?
"Michael had a tough season last year with some injuries and he fought through it. He is a highly competitive guy. We talk to him all the time about first down, touchdown, get down, and we are going to work on that a little bit more. He's just a great leader and a great runner. You don't want to take that away from your offense. It's a big difference between the college game and the pro game is the ability of the quarterbacks to run the football. I think he's excited about the addition of the new offensive coaches that we've brought in. We have excellent depth on offense. We are excited about or O-line. We have seven, eight, nine guys who are going to compete for those five spots. We've got two really experienced tight ends that can play for a lot of people across the country, four or five really good running backs and the wid receiver position is really solid as well and that's an area we needed to get better at. The people around him need to do a great job, and that will allow Michael to have a fantastic season as well."
Where is Tulane in your opinion as far as the plan you implemented years ago, knowing that you've been to a bowl game in three of the last four years?
"We want to get back to that level at the bare minimum. We really feel like we can compete for conference championships. That's our goal. That's what the guys are working towards day in and day out. As I said before, we've got a great culture. We lost very few guys. I really like the environment these guys have created with the coaches and the team. We like our schedule. We got in a little of a tailspin and had a hard time coming out of it last year. The one thing I was proud of is the way our guys competed from the beginning of the season until the end of the season. I really had next to zero problems. Sometimes when the wheels fall off, they go in all different directions and we start having problems and we didn't have that. Our guys kept the high character standards that we want to have here at all times. But certainly we were disappointed in our record. We want to compete for the conference championship and really believe that we can do that."
You brought in Valentino Ambrosio, the kicker from Rutgers, in the offseason. How important an addition can he be?
"Very important. We need to have consistent field goal kicking. That was a weakness of ours this past season, and we need to have a guy that can hit those gimme field goals that are within range and also be able if you get into a fourth-and-7 or 8 situation and it's a 51-yarder, you have a great chance of making that as well. It's going to be a lot of competition to see who our field goal kicker is during preseason camp."
How is Tyjae Spears doing, and will be there be any wrinkles in the offense under coach (Jim) Svoboda?
"Tyjae's doing great. His last game against Memphis he had 264 yards rushing. He's had a great offseason and a great summer. We are going to be able to change up our tempos, which is something that I like and coach Svoboda has brought in. Not many teams can go fast and slow. We want to be able to do both. We want to be able to run a four-minute offense where we're taking time off the block running the ball when everybody in the stadium knows you're running it and you're still able to get first downs, but we also want to go fast and change those tempos. As an old defensive coordinator, that's really putting a lot of pressure on the defense. Jim has done a great job of coming in here and implementing his offense, and the other assistant coaches that have come in with him have brought some solid ideas as well."
Where has Michael Pratt improved most?
"Well really this is going to be the third different system that Michael's been under. He had coach (Will) Hall, now the coach at Southern MIss, and our offense was different last year (with Chip Long), and now with coach Svoboda. But with the benefit of spring football and then also all the things that you are allowed to do in the summer, it feels like we've had two spring balls. We've gotten a lot of good work on. He (Pratt) is a gym rat. He's up here all the time just trying to eke out every bit of knowledge that he can from coach Svoboda, and then also getting the other players together. In this day of age you are limited how many hours you can do workouts. Eight hours a week is what you are allowed, but these guys come up here a whole lot more than that to study video on their own and go out on the field and do routes on air. We go with the defense and do 7 on 7. Michael has been a leader of all that, so he's going to have a huge season for us. We're excited to see his development from year 2 to year 3."
FRITZ
Where have you focused over the offseason?
"We've got a lot of guys coming back. I think we've got 15 guys who started at least one game on the offensive side of the ball their college career and the same number on the defensive side. We had a tough season. It was kind of an unusual year. Everybody had COVID two years ago and then we had Ida and we were in Birmingham, Alabama for a month and came back and some guys never did get into their houses that whole semester. We just worked on turning the page. I'm excited about the offseason program we had and our strength coach, Kurt Hester, has done a phenomenal job. Our team has gotten faster and stronger and quicker and we stayed away from injuries during the spring. Sometimes you worry about that as well. I don't think there's a team that's more fired up about getting the season started than the Green Wave."
You have 10 players from the transfer portal--six who participated in the spring and four who committed since then--and Jeffery Johnson is the first significant guy you've ever lost (Oklahoma) and he played four years for you before leaving. How much has the portal helped you and how much will it help you this year?
"I think it's going to help us a lot. That's typical of our culture. We've lost very few guys to the portal and brought a lot of kids in. Most of the kids have been New Orleans guys. Sometimes people think the grass is a little greener some place else and they go there and they find out it's only green and want to come back home, so we're excited about the additions that we've gotten through the transfer portal. A couple of big offensive linemen in Kanan Raye from Colorado and Prince Pines from Sam Houston State. He started originally at Baylor and was an All-American FCS player at Sam Houston. Ashaad Clayton from here in New Orleans, a running back who played quite a bit for Colorado. We picked up a couple of receivers--Lawrence Keys from Notre Dame from New Orleans and also Dea Dea McDougle from Maryland who coincidentally was a high school teammate of Michael Pratt. Michael might have done all the recruiting on that deal, but we picked up some really good guys in the portal. That's the way you want to try to do it--don't lose your guys and then also gain some guys who maybe have a tie to your university or to your city."
How do you view conference realignment an the three schools leaving the American and the six that will be coming in from a coaching perspective?
"We've got a really top-notch league. We talk about being part of the Power 6, but I really believe that's true. The teams we're adding to the conference can bring big-time value to the conference as well. A lot of them are strong academic institutions like Tulane. Also a lot of them are within our footprint, not too far away where fans will be able to travel and their fans will be able to travel. I think we've done a really good job with the additions to our conference."
Should the NCAA allow teams that do not go to a bowl game an extra seven days of practice either in the spring or in the fall to make it fair because the bowl teams get those extra practices (this is the top 10 of dumbest questions I've ever heard)?
"I hadn't put a lot of thought into that, but with what the NCAA added this summer with being able to use a football for two hours a week, that was a nice step forward. We were able to do a lot of things. We had 10 what we call football school workouts, practices. For an hour of each one of those practices you are able to throw the football around. I feel like we were able to get maybe 80 or 90 percent of our offense in and 80 or 90 percent of our defense in and then also a little bit of our special teams. The only limitation they had is we weren't able to go against each other in a competitive type environment. You could also argue that during that time we weren't able to practice, we were able to get on the road recruiting and cover a little bit more ground than we normally do. We feel like we maybe had our best season of recruiting this last year, too, which is difficult to do coming off the season we had."
What type of development would you see from Michael Pratt?
"Michael had a tough season last year with some injuries and he fought through it. He is a highly competitive guy. We talk to him all the time about first down, touchdown, get down, and we are going to work on that a little bit more. He's just a great leader and a great runner. You don't want to take that away from your offense. It's a big difference between the college game and the pro game is the ability of the quarterbacks to run the football. I think he's excited about the addition of the new offensive coaches that we've brought in. We have excellent depth on offense. We are excited about or O-line. We have seven, eight, nine guys who are going to compete for those five spots. We've got two really experienced tight ends that can play for a lot of people across the country, four or five really good running backs and the wid receiver position is really solid as well and that's an area we needed to get better at. The people around him need to do a great job, and that will allow Michael to have a fantastic season as well."
Where is Tulane in your opinion as far as the plan you implemented years ago, knowing that you've been to a bowl game in three of the last four years?
"We want to get back to that level at the bare minimum. We really feel like we can compete for conference championships. That's our goal. That's what the guys are working towards day in and day out. As I said before, we've got a great culture. We lost very few guys. I really like the environment these guys have created with the coaches and the team. We like our schedule. We got in a little of a tailspin and had a hard time coming out of it last year. The one thing I was proud of is the way our guys competed from the beginning of the season until the end of the season. I really had next to zero problems. Sometimes when the wheels fall off, they go in all different directions and we start having problems and we didn't have that. Our guys kept the high character standards that we want to have here at all times. But certainly we were disappointed in our record. We want to compete for the conference championship and really believe that we can do that."
You brought in Valentino Ambrosio, the kicker from Rutgers, in the offseason. How important an addition can he be?
"Very important. We need to have consistent field goal kicking. That was a weakness of ours this past season, and we need to have a guy that can hit those gimme field goals that are within range and also be able if you get into a fourth-and-7 or 8 situation and it's a 51-yarder, you have a great chance of making that as well. It's going to be a lot of competition to see who our field goal kicker is during preseason camp."
How is Tyjae Spears doing, and will be there be any wrinkles in the offense under coach (Jim) Svoboda?
"Tyjae's doing great. His last game against Memphis he had 264 yards rushing. He's had a great offseason and a great summer. We are going to be able to change up our tempos, which is something that I like and coach Svoboda has brought in. Not many teams can go fast and slow. We want to be able to do both. We want to be able to run a four-minute offense where we're taking time off the block running the ball when everybody in the stadium knows you're running it and you're still able to get first downs, but we also want to go fast and change those tempos. As an old defensive coordinator, that's really putting a lot of pressure on the defense. Jim has done a great job of coming in here and implementing his offense, and the other assistant coaches that have come in with him have brought some solid ideas as well."
Where has Michael Pratt improved most?
"Well really this is going to be the third different system that Michael's been under. He had coach (Will) Hall, now the coach at Southern MIss, and our offense was different last year (with Chip Long), and now with coach Svoboda. But with the benefit of spring football and then also all the things that you are allowed to do in the summer, it feels like we've had two spring balls. We've gotten a lot of good work on. He (Pratt) is a gym rat. He's up here all the time just trying to eke out every bit of knowledge that he can from coach Svoboda, and then also getting the other players together. In this day of age you are limited how many hours you can do workouts. Eight hours a week is what you are allowed, but these guys come up here a whole lot more than that to study video on their own and go out on the field and do routes on air. We go with the defense and do 7 on 7. Michael has been a leader of all that, so he's going to have a huge season for us. We're excited to see his development from year 2 to year 3."