Tulane Green Wave Faces New AAC Opponents in Balanced Football Schedule
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For the last several seasons, the Tulane Green Wave has reached a crescendo at the end of conference play due to a strong ending slate of American opponents.
As head coach Jon Sumrall looks to bring Tulane football to the College Football Playoff in his second season as head coach, he’ll see a lot of earlier challenges that will test his team and provide momentum with a winning streak.
It’s also the first time since the 2022 campaign the Green Wave won’t play on Thanksgiving or Black Friday. Their marquee matchups that garner the premier slot are in October this year.
Sumrall and his team will see the Tulsa Golden Hurricanes, East Carolina Pirates, UTSA Roadrunners and FAU Owls as new AAC opponents in 2025, and will face the Army Black Knights in regular season play.
A trend that follows last year is a relentless non-conference start that features three Power 4 opponents and a strong Group of 5 program, the South Alabama Jaguars.
Tulane was unable to beat the Kansas State Wildcats or Oklahoma Sooners in 2024, and that made it difficult for the team to garner momentum until shutting out the Navy Midshipmen in late November.
While the Rice Owls were an unexpected fight following the bye last year, the Green Wave weren’t really tested until that Navy victory outside of a narrow win against the North Texas Mean Green in conference play.
Had they pulled off a Power 4 win, Tulane would’ve likely been ranked sooner and been higher up in the College Football Playoff conversation.
The team has ample opportunities with games against the Northwestern Wildcats, the Darian Mensah-led Duke Blue Devils and the Ole Miss Rebels.
Should the Green Wave come out with at least one of those with a victory and defeat the Jaguars, they’ll be able to keep things rolling as they hit their mid-season slate.
The stretch against Army, UTSA and Memphis will provide insight into the competitiveness of the team in AAC play, and it comes sooner than the test did last year.
Between the multiple byes, a terrible travel schedule that saw Tulane play three games in 14 days and have to travel back-to-back on a short week and a quieter schedule until the end, the team may have just lost steam.
The bye weeks were somewhat of an issue for the team last year in the slower starts that followed.
A bye sandwiched in between the Roadrunners and Black Knights will force them to turn that around in a critical period of the season.
However, the team won’t have to wait until nearly December to see it all click with that important stretch, providing a better way for the team to build up and be at full strength as they chase a conference championship.
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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