Preview: Tulane Football Book

SHOCK WAVE

A look back at The Times-Picayune’s stories and images that chronicled Tulane’s improbable 2022 season, and its miraculous victory in the Cotton Bowl

On the cover

FRONT COVER: Tulane Green Wave enters the field for the American Athletic Conference Championship Game against the UCF Knights at Yulman Stadium in New Orleans, Dec. 3, 2022. A.J. SISCO / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE

A.J. SISCO / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE

Stadium

Copyright © 2023 by The Times–Picayune

All Rights Reserved • ISBN: 978-1-63846-057-2

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the copyright owner or the publisher.

book is an unofficial account of the 2022 Tulane Green Wave men’s football season and is not endorsed or authorized by Tulane University or the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

RIGHT: Tulane Green Wave wide receiver Shae Wyatt (10) races past Alcorn State Braves linebacker Mikail Webb (33) at Yulman

in New Orleans, Sept. 10, 2022.

Call this what it is. Tulane’s Cotton Bowl win was the biggest in school history.

BY ROD WALKER

ARLINGTON, Texas — Willie Fritz kept his word.

Seven years ago, he stood in the Glazer Family Club on the campus of Tulane University at his introductory news conference. He called the downtrodden program he was taking over a “sleeping giant,” one he knew he could wake up.

He spoke about how the school was “hungry for a winner.”

Heck, he even mentioned the time he taught a first-aid class.

“I can perform CPR on a mannequin like nobody’s business,” he joked that day.

Seven years later and 500 miles away in Texas, Fritz delivered on his word.

That sleeping giant woke up on one of the grandest stages in college football when Tulane knocked off one of the most storied programs in the land in the 87th Cotton Bowl Classic.

Those hungry fans who yelled “a-one, a-two, a helluva hullabaloo” for all those years had been starving for a moment like this.

A football program whose history had a lot of “lifeless mannequin” moments came to

life like never before as Tulane rallied to stun USC 46-45 at AT&T Stadium, which sounded more like Yulman Stadium West when the clock struck zero.

It’ll go down as the biggest victory in school history, one that every single person wearing olive green and blue in the crowd of 55,329 will talk about for years to come. They’ll tell their kids and they’ll tell their grandkids and anyone else willing to listen. They’ll talk not only about the thrill-a-minute game, but also the most electric atmosphere in the history of Tulane sports. It was a game that took Tulane fans all across the emotional spectrum.

It’s just the second time the Green Wave has ever won a major bowl and the first time since beating Temple in the 1935 Sugar Bowl.

This one came against an elite program that would have been in the College Football Playoff had it won its Pac-12 championship game last month. It showed that Tulane can indeed compete with the big boys.

“We started this year hoping that this is what we can be,” athletic director Troy Dannen said.

“We ended the year knowing who we can be.

Going forward now, we can expect this is who we should be. It’s a monumental win for the program. It was going to be a monumental thing for us whether we won or lost today.”

But Fritz and his players weren’t going to lose this game. They were as resilient as the city they represent, and nothing was going to deny them.

Nothing.

Not a 15-point deficit with just 4:30 left.

And not even a Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback like Caleb Williams, who torched Tulane’s defense for 462 yards and five touchdowns.

This Tulane team has been through much tougher times than that — particularly a season ago when Hurricane Ida forced them to evacuate to Birmingham, Alabama, for weeks.

“The close brotherhood of this team started there, because we were around each other every day,” said receiver Jha’Quan Jackson, who caught an 87-yard touchdown.

That disruption last fall turned into a dismal 2-10 record, but they turned things around this season, much like they did in the final four minutes of this game.

OPPOSITE: Tulane Green Wave fans cheer during the second half against the USC Trojans in the Cotton Bowl at AT&T Stadium on Jan. 2, 2023.

“You have two choices when you go through adversity: Fall back and feel sorry for yourself or jump up and get better,” quarterback Michael Pratt said. “That’s what we did, and that’s what we are going to continue to do.”

Running back Tyjae Spears, perhaps the greatest ball carrier in Tulane history and one who will get to run in NFL stadiums like this one, has a personal motto that the Wave lived by down the stretch.

“Whatever it takes.”

And it took a lot.

It took all 205 of those yards and the four touchdowns Spears rushed for.

It took USC trying to field a kickoff that left the Trojans at their own 1-yard line, and Tulane’s Patrick Jenkins recording a safety with 3:20 left. Still, Tulane needed to march 66 yards to win it.

They practice these situations every Wednesday in Yulman stadium. Fritz calls the practice drill “fastball.” The music is blaring and he tries to make it as chaotic as possible. It

paid off as Pratt and the Green Wave marched right down the field and scored on a 6-yard pass to freshman Alex Bauman, which will go down in the history books as one of the most meaningful plays in Tulane history.

Officials reviewed the catch, but it was quite evident on the replay shown on the giant big screen in the stadium they call Jerry World.

“I knew right away that I scored,” Bauman said.

The referee made it official minutes later,

You have two choices when you go through adversity: Fall back and feel sorry for yourself or jump up and get better.

MICHAEL PRATT

RIGHT: Tulane players celebrate after the victory against the USC Trojans in the Cotton Bowl at AT&T Stadium on Jan. 2, 2023.

KEVIN JAIRAJ

/ USA TODAY SPORTS

setting off a roar on the Tulane side of the stadium that was as loud as it had been all afternoon.

Tulane had done it.

Players lay on the turf and made angels in the confetti that rained down.

Others hugged.

Some fans cried, but these were tears of joy, unlike all the ones of sorrow that Tulane fans had grown so accustomed to over the years.

“It’s a huge win for the program, a huge win

for the city,” Fritz said. “We represent New Orleans, Tulane and our football program. I think we’ve seen this year what a great football season and competing at a high level can do for an institution.”

Several Green Wave fans held signs reading: “Tulane is a football school.”

You won’t get any arguments from the players.

“Yes, we are a football school,” Jenkins said. “Well, we’re a smart school AND a

football school.”

They sure looked the part this season. Their 12-2 record ties the undefeated 1998 team for most wins in school history.

It’s been long time coming, a day the Green Wave faithful have long awaited. If things go according to plan, they won’t have to wait so long for moments like these.

“We are fighting for more,” defensive back Jarius Monroe said. “I promise, we’re coming for more.”

LEFT: Tulane players celebrate after the victory against the USC Trojans in the 2023 Cotton Bowl. KEVIN JAIRAJ / USA TODAY SPORTS

Prophetic words

Few believed Tulane players in August when they said they’d win a conference title. Along the way, they made plenty of believers

BY GUERRY SMITH

Tulane had finished its first preseason practice in early August when linebacker

Nick Anderson uttered what appeared to be an almost unthinkable proclamation.

“I think we are going to break the internet,” he said. “We are going from 2-10 to a conference championship.”

Ultimately, the Green Wave found themselves hosting the American Athletic Conference championship game against Central Florida at Yulman Stadium.

Anderson, who could have transferred after Tulane’s dismal 2021, elected to return because he saw the commitment no outsiders could observe. He could have kept quiet in case his belief did not pan out — the Wave’s best record in six years under coach Willie Fritz had been 7-6 — but as the team’s spiritual leader, he wanted to make those high expectations public.

“Right now, the standard is conference championship,” he explained on that Wednesday morning. “It’s not a bowl game. It’s not 6-6. It’s the conference championship. That’s what we owe our fans. That’s what we owe each other from all our hard work. We don’t come out here every day, bust our tails under this hot sun and in the weight room just to go .500.

“It’s not one of those things where you just roll the football out there and say, ‘Oh, we’re champions.’ You’ve got to bust your tail day in and day out, and I feel like that’s what we’ve been doing since January.”

the end of regulation and threw for the walk-off score in overtime.

The Wave had no problem with East Carolina, Memphis and SMU at home before capping a 5-0 road record by dethroning twotime AAC defending champion Cincinnati, ending the Bearcats’ 32-game winning streak at Nippert Stadium.

The offense — which returned three starting linemen, third-year starting quarterback Michael Pratt, star running back Tyjae Spears and a host of receivers — also added impact transfers and averaged 37.8 points over its final six conference games.

The defense, which returned starting experience almost everywhere, held opponents to an AAC-low 19.8 points per game heading into the championship.

Tulane set the tone by winning at Kansas State, which rose to No. 9 in the final College Football Playoff rankings and won the Big 12 championship. After a hiccup at home against Southern Miss, the Wave won at AAC preseason favorite Houston for the first time under Fritz despite playing all but the opening series with third-string quarterback Kai Horton, who led a tying touchdown drive at

Anderson, who finished second on the team with 113 tackles, saw it all coming.

“It’s just a true testament to God and a testament to our faith in each other, our faith in this program and us believing when nobody else did,” he said. “We didn’t argue with anybody when the rankings came out. We just put our head down and went to work, and the season was a testament to that.”

OPPOSITE: Tulane players hold up the AAC championship trophy after beating the UCF Knights at Yulman Stadium in New Orleans, Dec. 3, 2022. A.J. SISCO / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE

We are going from 2-10 to a conference championship.

NICK ANDERSON

A long time coming

Tulane fans relished a long-awaited magical ride that ended at the Cotton Bowl

BY ROD WALKER

ARLINGTON, Texas — Joel and Paula Picker have been Tulane season ticket holders for close to 50 years, about as long as they’ve been married.

“We bleed blue and green,” says Paula, who had those colors on her fingernails to prove her loyalty.

So they witnessed the program’s struggles up close and personal longer than most.

“Longtime sufferers,” said Joel, a 1966 Tulane grad.

His wife, who graduated two years later, put it even more succinctly.

“We’ve been here through thin and thin, except 1998 and now,” she said.

The 1998 Tulane team, of course, is the one that went undefeated.

The 2022 team is the one that made the Picker family and other Green Wave fans flock to Texas for the 87th Cotton Bowl Classic, where Tulane faced college football blue blood Southern Cal. It was the first time Tulane made it to a major bowl in 82 years, when it lost to Texas A&M in the 1940 Sugar Bowl.

“It means the world,” Tulane running back Tyjae Spears said. “I’ve said it a million times: We’ve got an opportunity of a lifetime. We’re

just trying to make the most of it.” Spears’ rushing performance in the victory over Central Florida in the American Athletic Conference championship game Dec. 3 punched the Green Wave’s ticket to the Cotton Bowl, setting off jubilation throughout a fan base that had been starving for a season like this one.

It’s why Steve Algero and his wife Claire decided to spend their honeymoon in Dallas. They got married on Dec. 23 and had originally planned to celebrate it in New York. Flight issues caused them to cancel those plans, so they decided to do the next best thing: Spend it at the Cotton Bowl. Perhaps that shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering Algero’s wedding reception included customized Hubig’s Pies, the New Orleans treats that made a comeback recently, with the words “Roll Wave” on the packaging.

“We are really excited to start the year like this,” said Algero, a 1990 Tulane grad.

Algero played for the Wave, so he has a deep appreciation for where the program was and where it is now.

“It was always a struggle,” Algero said. “Wins and losses and bowl games were few

and far between. This is an opportunity to really bolster our program and to rally all of our alums in Dallas. We are not taking this opportunity lightly.”

John Wert hasn’t followed Tulane quite as long as Algero, but he was in attendance.

Wert became a fan in 2012 after the Tulane Medical Center helped him in his battle with bladder cancer. He bought season tickets two years later when Yulman Stadium opened and has seen the ups and downs — including last season, when the team finished 2-10 in a year that was disrupted by a hurricane, one that forced the team to relocate to Birmingham, Alabama, for a few weeks. So now he’s enjoying the turnaround that coach Willie Fritz spearheaded.

“It showed a level of commitment that the players have really bought into,” Wert said. “I’m so happy for the guys who have been here a while who have played their butts off who didn’t get the results and now they are getting the results. I’ve been to a couple bowls, but the Cotton Bowl is the Cotton Bowl.”

Tulane fans, even ones that aren’t season ticket holders, arrived from all over the country.

Max

Meltzer and Bart Rekucki of New York

OPPOSITE: Tulane Green Wave fans hold up a copy of The Times-Picayune after the Wave beat UCF Knights at Yulman Stadium in New Orleans, Dec. 3, 2022. A.J. SISCO / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE