Tulane Green Wave Drowned by Rebels in Oxford, 45-10
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On Saturday, the Tulane Green Wave couldn’t stretch their season-opening winning streak to four, as the 13th ranked Ole Miss Rebels pounded the Wave 45-10 in Oxford, MS. That’s the most points given up by a Tulane defense since that same number in the 2023 Goodyear Cotton Bowl. The loss was the fourth straight to a ranked opponent for Tulane.
“Frustrating performance," said Tulane Head Football Coach Jon Sumrall after the game. “It’s on me. It starts with me. I’ve got to have our guys more prepared to play better football.”
The Rebels opened the game with the ball, driving the length of the field, outrunning and out-physicalling (if that’s even a word) the Wave defense, taking just two-minutes and 37-seconds to take a 7-0 lead. Ole Miss didn’t look back once, seemingly scoring at will.
Tulane Had Tempo Issues
“I thought we were emotionally ready to play,” Sumrall said. “We didn’t really handle the pace, tempo stuff they did.”
The Tulane offense could never seem to quite get a rhythm going against the bigger and faster Rebels, as the TU offense staggered under an Ole Miss defense that seemed to be like an extra shirt on the Wave smaller receivers and quarterback Jake Retzlaff, who didn’t complete a pass until the 2nd quarter, missing nine straight tosses to begin the game. The Tulane QB, who has put up some impressive rushing numbers to begin the season, led the Green Wave with 51-yards on the ground, but never could seem to get that breakout run that he found in earlier games.
Rebels Pile On the Tulane O and D
Ole Miss almost doubled the Tulane offensive output, putting up 548 yards on the Wave D, getting big chunks of yardage in the air and on the ground, while the Green Wave could only manage 282 yards.
“I can promise you this,” Sumrall wrapped up, “we’ll watch this game on the video on the plane on the way going back and get focused on conference play moving forward, but we’re going to sit in this one and let it hurt for a little while, because it should.”
This Rebel smackdown put the Wave on the mat.
Next week, Tulane takes a trip to Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Golden Hurricane are fresh off a 19-12 upset of Oklahoma State in Stillwater, their first victory at Okie State since 1951.
It will be interesting to see how quickly the Green Wave get up off the mat.
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.