Takeaway from Tulane's 27-0 Shutout of Charlotte
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The Tulane football team outmanned Charlotte Saturday night, 27-0. It was the first shutout by the Green Wave defense since the Navy game in November, 2024. The victory vaulted the Wave into the American Conference championship game against North Texas on Friday night in Yulman Stadium. However, all of that was overshadowed by coaching possibilities.
Sumrall Stays or Goes?
Though it wasn't the first question asked last night, it was the most important one for this Tulane program. Coach Jon Sumrall has to decide between staying at Tulane or doubling his salary at an SEC school, in this case, Florida. We know Tulane fans want Sumrall to stay. We also know he was offered an increase, along with other promises, to stay in New Orleans.
Here's the question: if you, yes you, could make your life-long dream come true AND DOUBLE YOUR SALARY, would you do it? Sumrall has said he loves Tulane and that New Orleans holds a special place in his and his family's collective hearts. We also know from direct observation that when his family uprooted from Troy, Alabama to the Crescent City, there were some moving-to-another-town emotions for some of his family.
That move may have taught the 43-year old Sumrall some lessons. One could be not to move your family in the middle of the year. Another could be not to move your family at all. Fans forget sometimes that these are people whose most important allegiance is not to a university but to a family unit. Sumrall is keenly aware of that.
If you believe the rumors swirling around the talented, young coach, Sumrall is heading to Florida to revitalize a moribund Gator program whose last hire was a Group of 5 coach, and that did not work out the way they wanted. Will the Gators want to take that risk again?
Give Credit Where It Is Due
Either way, Tulane fans should remember this as the most important point before moving on or not: athletic director David Harris has put together one hell of an athletic program. Most have been inherited, others have been his own hires. Count up the number of top-tier programs this university has:
⦁ a football program that continues to find ways to make it to conference championship games, and host them,
⦁ a baseball program that has been to three consecutive conference championships,
⦁ basketball programs that have figured out how to navigate the ever more difficult to navigate NIL program and come up with winners.
And the so-called secondary programs are flourishing:
⦁ beach volleyball sent not one pair but two pairs to the Fall national championships,
⦁ bowling is ranked 19th in the nation and just signed one of the top, if not the top recruit in the nation,
⦁ women's cross country claimed the American Conference championships,
⦁ men's cross country made school history by claiming the NCAA South Central regionals and getting into its first NCAA championships
The factor in all these successes is the man who heads up the program. If Sumrall leaves, Harris will have his most important hire of his so-far short career at Tulane. Thus far, Harris has kept successful programs successful. He may not have brought on all the coaches of the aforementioned programs (it was, in fact, Troy Dannen, for the most part), but it is his job to keep them prosperous. He has done just that in the year he has been in charge.
If Sumrall moves on, we wish him the best, and fans should thank him for putting Tulane in the position it is in.
Now, Mr. Harris, the spotlight is on you for the next phase in Tulane football.
Doug has covered a gamut of sporting events in his fifty-plus years in the field. He started doing sideline reporting for Louisiana Tech football games for the student radio station. Doug was Sports Director for KNOE-AM/FM in Monroe in the mid-80s, winning numerous awards from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association for Best Sportscast and Best Play-by-Play. High school play-by-play for teams in Monroe, Natchitoches, New Orleans, and Thibodaux, LA dot his resume. He did college play-by-play for Northwestern State University in Natchitoches for nine years. Then, moving to the Crescent City, Doug did television PBP of Tulane games and even filled in for legendary Tulane broadcaster, Ken Berthelot in the only game Kenny ever missed while doing the Green Wave games. His father was an alumnus of Tulane in the 1940s, so Doug has attended Tulane football games in old Tulane Stadium, the Superdome, and Yulman. He was one of the 86,000 plus on December 1, 1973, sitting in the North End Zone to seeTulane shutout the LSU Tigers, 14-0. He was there when the Posse ruled Fogelman and in Turchin when the Wave made it to the World Series. He currently is the public address voice of the Tulane baseball team.