Because I had gotten behind on my Advocate writing (all Saturday copy is due around noon on Thursday), I arrived at practice late today and saw only about 20 minutes. It appears that Tulane is almost totally healthy heading into the Navy game. Although Parry Nickerson did not participate in the part I saw, it probably was due to the normal rest he gets to safeguard his knee. Willie Fritz said the Green Wave had no significant new injuries. The only two players who normally would be on the travel roster but aren't are Robert Kennedy, who is rehabbing after offseason knee surgery, and walk-on wide receiver Brian Newman, who sustained a leg injury near the end of preseason camp.
"We're in pretty good shape," Fritz said. "You'd like to have everybody ready to go, but that's part of football, it's part of sports. We did a nice job with staying out of harm's way (against Grambling)."
Fritz was not thrilled with Wednesday's workout, which took place in ideal, unseasonably mild weather at Yulman Stadium.
"We had an excellent practice yesterday," he said. "Today's was OK. We have to do a better job of locking in all the time. Like I tell the guys all the time, we've got a lot of tough guys but we need more of them. Mentally tough, physically tough. It's hard to be elite. It's hard to win every one of these games. It's hard to be all in, and that's what we're striving for. We're getting more guys on that side. We need everybody, though."
"I feel pretty good," Fritz said. "One of the things I just got done talking to them about is we really try to frontload things at the beginning of the week and do a lot of work, then we taper off. One of the things to our advantage is we practice in the morning, so we really have another six or eight hours of recovery time compared to other people and maybe even a little more than that. We've got 54 hours to do a good job of hydrating, do a good job of eating properly, do a good job of staying off our feet, do a good job of sleeping, recovering, studying our playbooks, videotape, rehabbing, treatment. All those things are very important to playing the best you can on Saturday."
Tulane prides itself on its sure tackling under Fritz, who stresses proper technique and practices proper technique more than any college coach I've ever covered. That's even more important against Navy, which thrives on teams missing tackles as they wear down physically and mentally against the relentless triple option.
"It's big time," Fritz said. "You start getting people coming at you and you start body blocking and all that other kind of crap, you've got to tackle and use your arms. Offense blocks, defense tackles, and that requires you to use your arms and wrap up and get them down and play with leverage. There's not going to be a whole lot of cutbacks in this game. These guys are either straight ahead or they are running laterally. We've got to do a great job of what I call near-hip track team. Once the ball declares itself near hip, I'm tracking the heck out of it and I'm going to tackle the man. So yeah, tackling's big time."
Tre Jackson worked with the first-team defense instead of Nickerson at the end of practice, so Jackson would be Tulane's No. 3 cornerback. I expect Peter Woullard to be more heavily involved at end because his skill set fits Navy's approach, but other than, the personnel won't change much against Navy.
Fritz clearly is relishing the opportunity playing Navy affords to gauge his program's progress this early in his second season. I'm going to look stupid if Tulane gets whipped Saturday because I've been treating it as a toss-up game in my coverage for The Advocate, but I really believe that is the case. I think the coaches do, too, although they're not going to say that.
Navy ranked 123rd out of 128 FBS teams in pass defense efficiency last year and gave up touchdown passes of 95 and 62 yards to FAU last week. Navy ranked dead last in third-down conversion defense last year (and first in third-down conversion offense, a strange double that probably never has happened before). And Tulane finally has a quarterback and scheme that can take advantage of those weaknesses.
The history is still daunting. Navy is 39-10 at home under Ken Niumatalolo, and Tulane is 10-43 on the road in the same span. The Wave is 4-14 in league openers since Tommy Bowden left.
Those are numbers Fritz will change, but will it happen this year? We'll find out Saturday.
"This is a great test for us," Fritz said. I'm glad we had a game to get prepared and work the kinks out. This is a great opportunity. I'm really excited about it and know our guys are, too."
"We're in pretty good shape," Fritz said. "You'd like to have everybody ready to go, but that's part of football, it's part of sports. We did a nice job with staying out of harm's way (against Grambling)."
Fritz was not thrilled with Wednesday's workout, which took place in ideal, unseasonably mild weather at Yulman Stadium.
"We had an excellent practice yesterday," he said. "Today's was OK. We have to do a better job of locking in all the time. Like I tell the guys all the time, we've got a lot of tough guys but we need more of them. Mentally tough, physically tough. It's hard to be elite. It's hard to win every one of these games. It's hard to be all in, and that's what we're striving for. We're getting more guys on that side. We need everybody, though."
"I feel pretty good," Fritz said. "One of the things I just got done talking to them about is we really try to frontload things at the beginning of the week and do a lot of work, then we taper off. One of the things to our advantage is we practice in the morning, so we really have another six or eight hours of recovery time compared to other people and maybe even a little more than that. We've got 54 hours to do a good job of hydrating, do a good job of eating properly, do a good job of staying off our feet, do a good job of sleeping, recovering, studying our playbooks, videotape, rehabbing, treatment. All those things are very important to playing the best you can on Saturday."
Tulane prides itself on its sure tackling under Fritz, who stresses proper technique and practices proper technique more than any college coach I've ever covered. That's even more important against Navy, which thrives on teams missing tackles as they wear down physically and mentally against the relentless triple option.
"It's big time," Fritz said. "You start getting people coming at you and you start body blocking and all that other kind of crap, you've got to tackle and use your arms. Offense blocks, defense tackles, and that requires you to use your arms and wrap up and get them down and play with leverage. There's not going to be a whole lot of cutbacks in this game. These guys are either straight ahead or they are running laterally. We've got to do a great job of what I call near-hip track team. Once the ball declares itself near hip, I'm tracking the heck out of it and I'm going to tackle the man. So yeah, tackling's big time."
Tre Jackson worked with the first-team defense instead of Nickerson at the end of practice, so Jackson would be Tulane's No. 3 cornerback. I expect Peter Woullard to be more heavily involved at end because his skill set fits Navy's approach, but other than, the personnel won't change much against Navy.
Fritz clearly is relishing the opportunity playing Navy affords to gauge his program's progress this early in his second season. I'm going to look stupid if Tulane gets whipped Saturday because I've been treating it as a toss-up game in my coverage for The Advocate, but I really believe that is the case. I think the coaches do, too, although they're not going to say that.
Navy ranked 123rd out of 128 FBS teams in pass defense efficiency last year and gave up touchdown passes of 95 and 62 yards to FAU last week. Navy ranked dead last in third-down conversion defense last year (and first in third-down conversion offense, a strange double that probably never has happened before). And Tulane finally has a quarterback and scheme that can take advantage of those weaknesses.
The history is still daunting. Navy is 39-10 at home under Ken Niumatalolo, and Tulane is 10-43 on the road in the same span. The Wave is 4-14 in league openers since Tommy Bowden left.
Those are numbers Fritz will change, but will it happen this year? We'll find out Saturday.
"This is a great test for us," Fritz said. I'm glad we had a game to get prepared and work the kinks out. This is a great opportunity. I'm really excited about it and know our guys are, too."