Tulane's Retzlaff Blocks Out Crosstalk, Readies for FAU

It's Homecoming weekend for the Tulane football team. The Green Wave welcome to Uptown American Conference foe, Florida Atlantic. A crowd in excess of 30-thousand is expected in Yulman Stadium for the 3:00 p.m. Saturday kickoff.

The Wave come in 7-2 overall, 4-1 in the American. Tulane is playing for the opportunity to be in the American Conference championship game for the fourth consecutive season. In order to get into the trophy game, the Green Wave might need some help along the way. The qualifications for getting there can be found here.

The Owls of FAU are all but mathematically eliminated from the title game. Florida Atlantic is 4-5 for the year, 3-3 in American Conference play.

The Green Wave are fresh off a six-point victory over then 22nd ranked Memphis in a game played in Tennessee. This game came a week after the thrashing Tulane got from Texas-San Antonio, and quarterback Jake Retzlaff believes his squad did the right things to recover from that loss.

"We've got to finish better and protect the football," Retzlaff said. "I think that that was a big thing and something we always preach. We just didn't do very well against UTSA and did really well against Memphis. It's just keep the same thing. score touchdowns in the red zone. Be dialed in on every play. Make sure every play is the play where we make a play instead of every play is the play we wish we had back."

The Tulane signal caller was recognized by three different organizations this week for his production season-long and against Memphis last week. Retzlaff received the Manning Award Star of the Week, the American Conference Offensive Player of the Week, and was named to the Davey O’Brien Award’s Great 8 List. Though he accepted our congratulations, it's something he'll wait to celebrate.

"It's awesome, man," Retzlaff said. "My goal is to make sure I can get that every week. So for me it's like all right, I did it this week. Now, let's go do it again next week. I'm grateful for it. It's awesome, but you know, like you said, it's gravy, right? It's cool, but it's really got nothing actually to do with the game. And so we got to go focus on the game this week."

Florida Atlantic is known for playing at an almost frenetic clip on offense, the polar opposite of what Tulane saw a few weeks ago against Army's pound and ground rush game. That was Retzlaff's first experience with a service academy. He is still taken aback by that experience.

"I'm not going to lie. I have never been part of any game where any drive had three TV timeouts in it," Retzlaff reminisced. "That was Army's first drive against us. That was kind of absurd....I'm sitting there. I'm just like I feel like I had five different conversations with dudes on the sideline, when you're usually in games. We're just ready to go. So I'm down there with Sam Howard and and Dickson Agu and I'm just like, "Dude, this is crazy." And they're both like, "Yep, we did this last year, bro. This is this is how it goes." I'm like, "Yeah, I've never played academy." So, I'm grateful to not have to play Army again."

That was a completely different experience than what the Green Wave will see Saturday in the FAU Owls.

"We have got to play on the attack offensively and defensively," Retzlaff reflected. "We've got to go attack and be the person inflicting what's going on and make them react to what we're doing. We've got to do our thing."

Tulane and Florida Atlantic kickoff Saturday at 3:00 p.m. in Yulman Stadium. The Homecoming game for the Wave is sold out.