The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Tulane Almost Mid Season Football Review
In this story:
After a tough schedule to open the 2025 football season, Tulane takes a well-deserved rest, as they prepare for a prime time game on Thursday, October 9 in Yulman Stadium. That makes this the perfect time to look back at what worked and what hasn't for the Green Wave.
The Good
The Green Wave made it through a gauntlet of games that is not matched by anyone else in the American Conference. Though that loss to Ole Miss game is one you want to forget, this team did not. They laid heavily into that defeat during the week leading up to Tulsa. In fact, the team and its coaches continued this week to hint at that loss being something that has propelled the Wave.
Line play has picked up both offensively and defensively. Now that injuries are subsiding along the O-line, you can see running lanes staying open longer. In fact, explosive runs are more a part of the story line now because of that, as the Wave is now up to 5-yards a pop on the ground Along the D-line, things have progressed with a solid rotation, keeping the big guys up front fresh. It paid off against Tulsa, a team that was averaging well above 120-yards per game on the ground. The Golden Hurricane couldn't manage the century mark collectively.
Pressure by the D grows week-by-week. The Wave defense has accumulated 11-sacks for 71-yards lost through its first five games, a statistic that continues to inch forward as the season progresses.
The Bad
Injuries continue to pile up for the Wave, the latest of which is linebacker Dickson Agu, who had a non-contact injury in the Tulsa game. Having folks like Oregon transfer tight end Ty Thompson and senior transfer linebacker Mo Westmoreland, and the aforementioned Agu, would go a long way toward helping Tulane through the meat of its American Conference schedule.
251-yards per game. The Tulane defense has given up that many yards passing to their opponents on average through the first five. That number must come down if the Green Wave expect to make it to the American Conference championship game in December.
The Ugly
I bet you knew this one was coming: penalties. The Green Wave have had 40-yellow flags accepted in their five games, tallying 376-yards of oh-ohs. That is the worst in the American Conference, averaging 75.2 yards a game. The next closest, Navy, is over 10-yards per game less. Tulane opponents have been flagged for 24-penalties when playing the Wave this year. That comes out to 40.6 yards per contest. Some of this can be attributed to the shuffling of players into and out of the lineup due to injuries, but some comes down to discipline. I can guarantee you this is not something that sits well with Jon Sumrall.
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.