Tulane Fans World-Wide Celebrate Watch Parties
In this story:
This Week's Coverage of Tulane's First CFP Appearance
Monday: Two Words for Those Who Think TU & JMU Should Not Be in the CFP
Tuesday: Tulane offense vs Ole Miss
Wednesday: Wave defensive angle against the Rebels
Thursday: Hear from Some Fans making their way to Oxford.
Friday: What are Fans Doing Who are Not Going to the Game
Saturday, the Tulane football team plays in its first ever College Football Playoff game, as the 11th seeded Green Wave travel to northern Mississippi to play 6th seeded Ole Miss. Kickoff is set for 2:30 p.m. CST and will be broadcast on TNT and HBO Max.
Not everybody can make it to Oxford, Mississippi Saturday afternoon to watch Tulane play in its first ever CFP game. The Tulane Alumni Association has taken the playoff bull by the horns and helped Green Wave fans across the globe to prepare and watch the game with fellow supporters. Managing Director for Tulane's Office of Alumni Relations, Jered Bocage, has seen locations grow by the day.
"It's just been an incredible response from our alumni," Bocage began. "They are so excited to be participating in the CFP. We have as of today (Tuesday) 32-watch parties from coast-to-coast: Seattle, New York, (several in) California, across Florida, and our closest is in New Orleans."
That one will be at the Abita Tap Room on Tchoupitoulas. We left a message with Abita for more information and they did not return our call.
"We even have one in London," Bocage continued. "So people are really excited."
Heading up the party in The Big Smoke is Tulane graduate Karianne Paul. She and her husband, also a Tulane grad, moved to London over two decades ago, have lived there off-and-on during those 25-years, and have followed the Green Wave from afar.
"We host (watch parties) quite often, actually," Paul told us. "I've been the president of the London (Alumni) club for about seven years now. We do crawfish boils, Mardi Gras parties, and (other) stuff throughout the year. We started doing football watch parties for the Cotton Bowl (in 2023). It was very late here (in London), past midnight, but we had about fifty people show up.
"On average, it's between 10-to-20 people (at the watch parties)," Paul shared. "Where we can, we'll do a join party with the other team. So, this will be our second watch party with Ole Miss this year."
We asked Paul if a London watch party is any different than one in the Unites States. "Not really," she told us. "There's a Philadelphia-themed pub here where they'll usually show games." The Passyunk Avenue London Pub will be hosting this Saturday. "We appreciate getting to see the games a lot more (than if we were back in the U.S.), because we don't get to see many football games."
There are even some goodies sent from home that is shared among the alumni. "We've got pom poms. We've got swag. They (the Tulane Alumni Association) send us a box over once a year with all the stuff in it, so we come with our (Tulane) banners."
"There's just so much excitement," Bocage reiterated to us. "People keep calling and texting everyday, saying 'I'm coming from Colorado. I'm coming from New York. 'I've got a bus with forty of my friends coming from New Orleans.' It's just incredible to see."
The only experience close to this one for Bocage was the 2023 Cotton Bowl. "We had a magical experience there. Part of it was it was our first experience with competition at that level. Because of that, it's sort of a springboard into the CFP and even dreams of coming to the Sugar Bowl, which would mean so much for Tulane."
The winner of the Tulane-Ole Miss game will play Georgia in the Sugar Bowl on New Year's night in the Superdome. If the Green Wave get that far, it will be Tulane's third Sugar Bowl appearance. Its first was in the inaugural year of the bowl game in 1935. The second was in 1940. Both of those games were played in old Tulane Stadium, as all the Sugar Bowls were until the Superdome was built in the 1970s. "It would be the realization of fans' dreams over many decades."
The almost three-dozen watch party locations are on the Tulane Alumni Association website.
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.