What's on the Agenda for Tulane Fans Heading to Oxford?
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
This Saturday, the 11th ranked Tulane football team will be in Oxford to tangle with the 6th seeded Ole Miss Rebels in the first round of the College Football Playoffs. It is the first time for both teams to make it into the twelve-team tournament, so excitement is through the roof for both sides. We caught up with some Green Wave fans who are making the trek to northern Mississippi to see their team take on SEC powerhouse Ole Miss.
Becoming a Tulane Fan via Your Child
Lara Perrault became a Green Wave fan vicariously through her daughter, who graduated from Tulane with multiple Bachelors degrees, then her Masters in 2024. She and her household live in northern Maryland. Though her husband is a Naval Academy graduate, at least Lara and her daughter find themselves an Olive and Blue family.
"We have a Tulane flag flying outside our house (in Maryland)," Perrault told us. "We even have a Tulane Santa and a sort of little Christmas village house that says 'Roll Wave' and it's got the pelican peaking out the windows under my Christmas tree, decorated with Tulane stuff," she said with a laugh.
Making Tulane Your Home, Even Though You're from West Chicago
For Joe from Baton Rouge, it came down to his father, who hailed from Mississippi but raised a family in West Chicago. Joe's father would take his son to New Orleans to experience the city.
Joe didn't even know Tulane existed until his father took him on a tour of the campus, where he fell in love with both the school and the city of New Orleans itself. He learned football though his association with the Tulane University Marching Band, which he joined shortly after he enrolled in TU.
"I was in the (TUMB) all four years (at Tulane), actually," Joe said. "Going into Tulane in the Fall, at 18-years old, I really, honestly didn't care that much about football. I didn't even understand the basic rules of the game. When they (the TUMB band members and the PA announcer) were saying '1st down' and '2nd down,' I was like, what even are those," he said with a laugh. "(But) when you're in the marching band, you have to learn. So during my time at Tulane, I started to become this big superfan, which has blossomed into my current fandom."
Joe is a season ticket holder now for Tulane football.
"I am a first graduate (in my family) from Tulane," Joe continued, "so I don't have any family ties. It all just started with me being in that spirit organization."
Even Further, Try Pennsylvania
West Chicago is a far piece from the Crescent City, but Pennsylvania? Morgan Pfost hails from outside Philadelphia, another 300-miles further from New Orleans than the Windy City.
"My mother is from New Orleans," Pfost begins. "It's always been a back burner dream to spend some time in New Orleans. I was accepted to Tulane, and we moved down. I ended up living there for 13-years. My first job after I graduated was working in the ticket sales office (at Tulane)."
The football program was in transition from the Superdome to its new home, Yulman Stadium. And one of Pfost's jobs in the ticket office was to get fans ready for the move.
"We were charged with growing the fan base," Pfost told us. "Our main focus was transitioning the fan base to back on campus. I was there for a little over two years."
Pfost remembers what it was like in the cavernous Superdome.
"I remember, going there (the Superdome) as an undergraduate student," Pfost reminisced, "I was sometimes the only student at the game, quite literally."
So Far, the Cotton Bowl is the Highlight
In 2022, the season that led to the Cotton Bowl against Southern Cal, Tulane was playing Central Florida for the American Conference championship, and Lara was ready and waiting for a Green Wave victory as she watched the game from afar in Maryland.
"I had flights on hold, waiting to see if we were going to win," Perrault explained. "I texted her (her daughter) and said, 'It looks like we're going to win. If we win, (you and I ) are going to the Cotton Bowl, and I have the tickets already,' and I'm so glad we did, of course."
While she and her daughter were in Dallas for the 2023 Cotton Bowl, Lara told us all about an elevator experience in the stadium that she had with some USC fans.
"They're talking some smack, of course," Perrault shared with us, "and I told them, 'Look, nobody expected us to be here, and they don't expect us to win. So, if we lose, we're just happy we're here. If you lose, you're just embarrassed. So either way, it's a win for us.'"
A Year after Graduation from Tulane, It Was the Cotton Bowl
For Joe, the Cotton Bowl was a time for him and his friends to gather in Texas together.
"It was about a year and a half after I had graduated (from Tulane)," Joe shared with us. "I went (to Dallas) with a big group of friends. I (also) went to the (American) Conference championship game, when we beat UCF (that season) and we stormed the field. That was a blast!"
Cotton Bowl Reunion
When the game against USC in the Cotton Bowl came about, Pfost and his buddies got together to celebrate.
"There were 15 of us who got together," Pfost remembers. "We had tailgating, way, way, way too much Chik-Fil-A," he said with a laugh. "We still share photos of the day, especially the tailgating. It was a really fun day."
Now, Another Opportunity to Hang with Tulane Friends
For Joe, he agreed with what we talked about last week, when it comes to the cost of accommodations in Oxford. One hotel was charging over $12-hundred per night.
"I make a decent living, but not a $12-hundred a night living," Joe said with a laugh. So he and his friends are staying in a cabin about 30-minutes from Oxford that costs a third of that price and driving in the day of the game.
Day of the Game Recreation
Joe is hoping Tulane is sponsoring something gameday in The Grove, the famed pre-game tailgate party held at Ole Miss.
"I definitely think we'll try to track them down," Joe told us. "If not, I'd really like to try and organize some sort of Tulane meet-up. Have people wear their green and blue shirts and jerseys to show (Ole Miss fans), 'Hey, we're here.'"
Not Quite the Greenbackers, Morgan & Friends Have Their Own Club
For Pfost, he and his friends started their own mini-club for Tulane fans.
"It's called the Gumby Social Aid and Pleasure Club," Pfost said, tongue in cheek. Naming five friends right off the top of his head, Pfost said these were fellow Tulane graduates. "They all graduated around the same time as me as an undergrad. We are very informal, very unofficial.
"There's a handful of us going (to Oxford)," he continued. "We're staying at different places. I'm driving down from Nashville, and some are driving up from New Orleans. We're all going to the Alumni Association tailgating, and I'm sure we'll be doing something before that."
The CFP Would Be the Biggest Highlight of All
Now, years after her child started in Uptown, Perrault and her daughter are heading to Oxford for the Green Wave's first ever College Football Playoff game.
"We are excited," Lara shared. "I want us to win. I think we have a good shot at winning. That being said, if you would have asked me back in 2019 (her daughter's first year at Tulane) if we were going to be in the College Football Playoffs, I would have laughed."
For Joe, he's pumped that Tulane has gotten to this point.
"For me, I'm excited Tulane has gotten itself in this position," Joe told us. "Once I'm get to the stadium, and once I'm in my seat, and once I have a beer and a hot dog, I just get to take in Tulane is in the College Football Playoffs, which is such a crazy, improbable scenario, but it happened. I think I'm just going to be soaking all that in."
For Pfost, he always had a feeling.
"Even when I was working in the ticket office, it was always something I was thinking about," Pfost intimated. "I always dreamed about winning a conference championship, and here we've won two. We won the Cotton Bowl and the only thing that could top (that) is going to the College Football Playoffs. It's pretty incredible, how our fan base has grown, how they've managed to bring back the fans, that the tailgates are packed on the quad now. The Duke game and the (American) Conference championship game are the two most electric sporting events I've ever attended.
"People don't realize," Pfost giving a shout out to the students, "when we have 4-thousand plus students in Yulman (Stadium), that's a huge percentage of our student body. I'd venture to guess that's one of the highest ratios in terms of students at a game (when compared to the entire) student body."
To wit, Fall undergraduate numbers at Tulane were around the 7,400 mark. So, well over 50% of the student population makes it to Yulman.
And What about All this Hullabaloo about Tulane Not Deserving to Go to the CFP?
"I'm tired of hearing online how Tulane doesn't deserve to be there," Perrault said to us. "We earned our spot. I get it: we're not an SEC team, but if you want to have a Group of 5, now Group of 6, you have to have a way forward for them to make it to the playoffs. We earned it. We deserve to be there."
And Joe agrees in spades.
"That's a silly narrative," Joe from Baton Rouge said pointedly. "I know there are those who talk about Power 4 versus G5, now G6 and how Tulane and (the other G6 school) James Madison are not of the same caliber (as Power 4 schools). G5 teams have made it to these high caliber bowl games and have won. A lot of these games, they (G5 or G6 teams) have been competitive, and a lot of these games they've won."
Joe was targeted toward those who think the Tulane-Ole Miss game and the James Madison-Oregon contest will not even be close.
"(They say) It'll be a blowout game. There's no entertainment value," Joe prognosticated. "How many other playoff games have we seen between Power 4 teams that have been blowouts? Last year, there were four blowouts," referring to first round victories by Penn State, who crushed SMU 38-10, and Ohio State clubbing Tennessee 42-17. Then in the 2nd round, Ohio State's 41-21 stomping of top-seeded Oregon, and Penn State's 2nd round embarrassment of 3rd seeded Boise State, 31-14. "Power 4 teams blow each other out all the time. That doesn't provide entertainment, does it?"
But Joe says he knows what does:
"Here's the kicker for me," Joe wrapped up. "When a G5 team upsets a Power 4 team, that game is infinitely more entertaining (emphasis by Joe, not by us) than Alabama beating OU (Oklahoma)."
11th ranked Tulane plays at Oxford against 6th ranked Ole Miss Saturday afternoon at 2:30 in a game that will be broadcast on TNT and HBO Max.
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.