Tulane Dons Blank Helmets to Commemorate 20th Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina

It's been two decades since the Green Wave's nomadic 2005 season.

Tulane played with its forebears on its mind Saturday. / Stephen Lew-Imagn Images

In 2005, Tulane experienced one of the most trying North American sports seasons of this century.

Shortly before the season opener, Hurricane Katrina leveled New Orleans, rendering the city non-functional and exiling the Green Wave to Mississippi. Tulane was forced to play its entire season on the road, and finished 2-9—beating SMU and Southeastern Louisiana amid an exhausting trek.

"There aren't many two-win teams that a school chooses to honor," ESPN's Ivan Maisel wrote upon Katrina's 10th anniversary in 2015—but the Green Wave's perseverance amid impossible circumstances won them nationwide attention.

On Saturday, saluting that team and the 1,392 lost to the storm, Tulane wore blank green helmets in its opener against Northwestern.

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Since that season, the Green Wave's gridiron fortunes have risen. In 2013, they returned to a bowl game. In 2018, they won one. In 2022, they beat USC in the Cotton Bowl, and they have spent time in the Top 25 every year since.

However—as in all of New Orleans—memories of '05 linger, and Tulane signaled to the college football world Saturday that its past will not be forgotten.

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