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.”