2011 Tulane Green Wave Football Preview

The reality of playing football in New Orleans is difficult if the Saints are not the team in question. Sparse crowds greet the Superdome on Saturdays, a marked contrast to the carnival atmosphere that surrounds Sundays in the Big Easy. For this and other reasons, minimal and incremental amounts of success – though real and evident – have to be backed up with something more. As a new year dawns for the Tulane Green Wave on the gridiron, a “one step forward, two steps backward” narrative simply can’t emerge… not if this program is going to establish itself as a legitimate bowl-game contender in the downmarket section of the Football Bowl Subidivision.

Head coach Bob Toledo continues his slow and steady rebuilding of the Tulane program. The Green Wave improved their win total for the second straight season, even if it was by just one win a year in both cases. With seven starters back on both sides of the football, expectations in New Orleans will require a little better than five wins. The baby steps of recent years, as outlined above, have to be followed by a few stronger steps in 2011. Running back Orleans Darkwa set a new single-season freshman rushing record last season with just under 1,000 yards. Quarterback Ryan Griffin will need to progress in his development if the Green Wave want to threaten their conference competitors and make a credible run at bowl eligibility. For a school that has lacked offensive firepower for far too long, the offensive pieces may finally be in place for Tulane to have consistent success moving and scoring the football. The Green Wave won a 54-49 shootout against Rice last season and posted 34 points on the road at UTEP, showing glimmers of brilliance. While 54 points in one game constituted a one-off event, it’s not asking too much to expect the Tulane offense to ring up 30 points per game in a league defined by a lot of swiss-cheese defenses.

Defense will be a question mark yet again. The Green Wave surrendered nearly 40 points per game last season. Obviously that isn’t a recipe for success. It’s true that the offense needs to control the ball a little more while gaining more traction in the first halves of games so that the defense isn’t always fighting an uphill battle as it did in 2010. Nevertheless, Tulane’s defense wore down rather consistently last season, and it needs to display enough resilience to shepherd the offense through rough pockets; it did so against Ole Miss and Southern Methodist last year, but it broke down in November when allowing not just 49 points to Rice (in a win), but also 46 to Southern Mississippi and 61 to Central Florida. This was a very respectable defense in September, but by November, it had nothing left. The 12-game grind of a college football season needs to be navigated more smoothly by Tulane’s defense if the Green Wave is to handle the choppy waters of big-time college football.

With the addition of a trip to Hawaii on the final weekend of the regular season, Tulane has 13 scheduled games in 2011. Seven of those opponents went to bowl games last season. Other non-conference games include Syracuse, Duke and Army.  A home contest against perennial favorite Tulsa in week two will show us quite a bit about how much we can expect from Tulane.

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