Tulane Football Featured Heavily in ESPN's Best AAC Games of 2025
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College football, at times, is as much about perception as it is results on the field.
Preseason rankings and buzz play a role in that, as do the weekly AP Top 25 rankings, and, eventually, the College Football Playoff rankings around November.
For the Group of Five programs vying for the coveted CFB spot, being considered a top team in a competitive conference is a plus.
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The Tulane Green Wave have made significant efforts to establish themselves as yearly contenders, initially targeting the American Conference Championship and now aiming for a playoff spot.
They will have to go through an AAC slate of competitive play to solidify those chances.
Bill Connelly of ESPN.com recently released his AAC preview for the 2025 season, projecting the contenders for the conference title among several things.
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Intriguingly, Connelly projects Tulane with a 16.6% chance of winning 11 or more games next season. That assumes they win at least two of their Power Four matchups against Northwestern, Duke, or Ole Miss.
Connelly also previewed the matchups for the five best games of the 2025 season. The Green Wave are in three of those contests.
The first listed is Tulane vs. Army on Oct. 18, followed by Tulane at UTSA on Oct. 30 and Tulane at Memphis on Nov. 7. The final two are Navy at Memphis on Oct. 27 and Army at UTSA on Nov. 28.
Two of those are road games for the Green Wave, and unsurprisingly, the 2024 AAC Championship rematch takes the first spot on the list.
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That game will look a lot different, as both teams will be without their starting quarterbacks, running backs, and most if not all of their offensive lines.
Tulane didn’t face the Roadrunners last season, and it will be an important test in conference play—particularly when they don’t play North Texas or USF.
A nugget included in that preview by Connelly is the fact that both teams are projected favorites in all but one game before the Oct. 30 matchup.
For the Green Wave, this means they are considered Week 4 underdogs against the Rebels, which indicates that they are favored or at least even against both the Wildcats and Blue Devils at this point.
Both UTSA and the Tigers, who ranked ahead of Tulane in the preseason rankings last year, are considered favorites for the conference title under the Green Wave.
They will face both in a nine-day span, on the road, ending on Friday at Memphis.
That will be a critical season test for Tulane—and their conditioning.
Encouragingly for the Green Wave, they should end their season on a high note compared to last season’s three-game losing streak.
They face Temple and Charlotte, who have the lowest odds at the conference title, in that order.
The American Conference should have several players next season, and Tulane is firmly atop the list as the top contender.
For more Tulane news, head over to Tulane Green Wave On SI.
Maddy Hudak is the deputy editor for Tulane on Sports Illustrated and the radio sideline reporter for their football team. Maddy is an alumnus of Tulane University, and graduated in 2016 with a degree in psychology. She went on to obtain a Master of Legal Studies while working as a research coordinator at the VA Hospital, and in jury consulting. During this time, Maddy began covering the New Orleans Saints with SB Nation, and USA Today. She moved to New Orleans in 2021 to pursue a career in sports and became Tulane's sideline reporter that season. She enters her fourth year with the team now covering the program on Sports Illustrated, and will use insights from features and interviews in the live radio broadcast. You can follow her on X at @MaddyHudak_94, or if you have any questions or comments, she can be reached via email at maddy.hudak1@gmail.com