Tag: Tulane Football

Texas A&M should offer playmaking Tulane transfer tight end

Texas A&M’s 2025 tight end room is still in need of another reliable pass catcher

Texas A&M earned a commitment from former Nebraska tight end Nate Boerkircher, but he will likely only serve as a blocker with some receiving upside during the 2025 season.

On paper, incoming redshirt junior Theo Melin Öhrström and the seldom-used Donovan Green look like the only clear receiving options at the position. However, options are available in the transfer portal, including former Tulane tight end Alex Bauman.

Bauman is a 6’5″, 250-pound player who amassed 212 yards and seven touchdowns in his last season with the Green Wave, following a 286-yard, five-touchdown performance in 2023.

According to Pro Football Focus, Bauman earned a solid 69.8 receiving grade but one of the lower run-blocking grades (43.7) despite 332 run-blocking snaps this season. However, With Boerkircher in the fold, Bauman would likely split out more than staying in line more than he did this season.

Texas A&M needs to improve its passing game and provide quarterback Marcel Reed with another big target to help him develop as a pocket passer in 2025.

Contact/Follow us @AggiesWire on X and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Texas A&M news, notes and opinions. Follow Cameron on X: @CameronOhnysty.

What’s at stake in the Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl between Florida and Tulane?

The 2024 Gasparilla Bowl will pit Florida against Tulane.

The Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl will kick off on Friday in Tampa, pitting Florida and Tulane against each other for a trophy treasure trove of pirate booty.

The 7-5 Gators will try to close the season, a highly uneven one for coach Billy Napier, on a high note.

Napier did enough to stick around in Gainesville for another year, but a bowl game win against Tulane would give his athletic department just a bit more confidence that he’s the guy to return Florida to national prominence.

While all teams are playing for pride in these bowl games, at least Florida has the chance to do so in front of a friendly Tampa crowd.

As for 9-4 Tulane, coach Jon Sumrall recently earned a major contract extension with the Green Wave after a season where his school was ranked for multiple weeks. Winning the bowl game is a cherry on top for Sumrall.

Tulane being able to close the 2024 season by sticking it to an SEC team in its home state would have to feel great for Sumrall’s group going into 2025. Even if it loses, this team has a lot to be proud of for how the season went.

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What’s at stake for the College Football Playoff in the AAC championship game

How will the AAC title game impact the College Football Playoff?

No. 24 Army will face off against Tulane on Friday night in the AAC championship at West Point’s Michie Stadium.

The Black Knights have had a tremendous season, as have the Green Wave. However, neither of these teams will have much of an impact for the College Football Playoff’s final bracket.

College Football Playoff: The new 12-team format, rankings and seeding, explained

With how the latest CFP rankings went, Army has very little chance of making the final 12-team field after coming in at 24. A loss to Tulane would make that even more unlikely than it already was.

The stakes will be an ACC title, which is nothing to be ashamed of for either team. Both of these programs will go bowling, and Army winning on Saturday should ensure it lands a good postseason contest.

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New Tulane coach Jon Sumrall boldly predicts Green Wave will make and win CFP during his tenure

Jon Sumrall has big shoes to fill as he replaces Willie Fritz, but he’s raising the stakes even higher.

Shortly after losing in the American Athletic Conference Championship to SMU which cost it a return trip to the New Year’s Six, Tulane suffered an even bigger gut-punch.

Coach Willie Fritz, the architect behind the most successful era in the program’s modern history, left to become the head coach at Houston. While losing Fritz hurts, that pain was eased significantly with what looks like a home-run replacement hire.

The Green Wave wooed Troy’s Jon Sumrall away, and it landed a coach who went 23-4 and won two conference championships in his two years with the Trojans. A former assistant at Ole Miss and Kentucky, Sumrall also brings SEC ties to his new job in New Orleans.

Sumrall has big shoes to fill. He replaces a coach in Fritz who has also won 23 games in the past two seasons and led the Green Wave to their first double-digit win season since Tommy Bowden went 12-0 in 1998.

However, Sumrall made the expectations clear right out of the gate by issuing a bold prediction in his introductory press conference: Not only will Tulane make the College Football Playoff under his leadership — it will also win a national championship.

It’s certainly a tall order, but it’s a feat that will become at least slightly more attainable next season when the playoff expands to 12 teams with a spot guaranteed to the highest-ranking Group of Five team.

Under the four-team format, only one team from the G5 ranks made it to the CFP, Cincinnati in 2021.

But with a reported six-year contract in tow, Tulane will hope Sumrall is around for the long haul as he seeks to make his prediction a reality.

Way-too-early Alabama football bowl game prediction

According to the latest 2023 bowl game prediction, Alabama misses the College Football Playoff again… but why?

Alabama football has only missed the College Football Playoff twice since its inception in 2014 and has never missed it in consecutive seasons. The Crimson Tide finished 2022 ranked No. 5, just outside of the top-four teams to be invited to compete for a national championship. Now, the team looks to return in 2023.

Brad Crawford of 247Sports, however, believes Nick Saban’s program fails to make it in the upcoming season.

In Crawford’s latest, very early bowl game projections, No. 1 Georgia would play No. 4 Michigan in the Sugar Bowl and No. 2 Ohio State would face No. 3 Texas in the Rose Bowl. In the end, he believes it would be Georgia vs. Ohio State for the national title.

Alabama is left out of the playoffs and is projected to face Tulane in the Peach Bowl.

“The Crimson Tide could fail to get to the playoff, again, thanks to two regular-season losses,” writes Crawford. “And Nick Saban won’t be happy with the committee. Their reward? A possible matchup with the Group of Five champion. Think Tulane or Boise State in this spot. Michael Pratt’s back for the Green Wave, but that team did lose several key pieces from last year’s historical run under Willie Fritz. Alabama’s 2023 season could fall short of national title aspirations if the lingering quarterback situation isn’t solved with a difference-maker in place coming out of fall camp.”

This would be back-to-back New Year’s six bowl game appearances for Alabama after defeating Kansas State in the Sugar Bowl last season. For most programs, this would be a huge step in the right direction. In Tuscaloosa, however, this is a step back.

There are still a few months before the 2023 college football regular season gets underway, but many unanswered questions remain for the Crimson Tide. Most notably, who will be the starting quarterback and emerge as the go-to guy in the ongoing three-man competition?

Roll Tide Wire will continue to follow Alabama football as the offseason progresses.

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Contact/Follow us @RollTideWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Alabama news, notes and opinion. You can also follow AJ Spurr on Twitter @SpurrFM. 

Pre-portal, way-too-early 2023 college football rankings

We project out who the best teams will be after portal additions.

It’s way too early to know what teams will look like next season. That said, we can have a decent idea of which teams will be playing meaningful football at the end of the year.

Heading into the season, Georgia, Alabama and Ohio State were safe bets to have strong seasons. Judging by each of the teams’ last performances, they are about as good as we expected.

There were some surprises in the 2022 season. Nobody I know had TCU playing in the national championship. You could argue some are still underrating the Horned Frogs heading into the championship game.

Even so, let’s attempt the foolish task of projecting which teams will compete among college football’s best teams in 2023, starting with this year’s top team.

Texas Football: Bowl season proves playoff expansion is necessary

The BCS could never give a postseason like this.

TCU is going to the National Championship. After many argued the Horned Frogs were undeserving of a playoff spot, Sonny Dykes’ team defeated the No. 2 Michigan Wolverines.

Michigan dominated all season, including their regular season finale against No. 4 Ohio State. Many thought Saturday’s game would bring more of the same for Jim Harbaugh’s team. TCU shocked the college football world.

In the following game, Georgia had to come from behind after being shredded for most of the game. If not for a missed field goal, the No. 1 Bulldogs would be watching the championship with No. 2 Michigan in front of a television at home.

Bowl season produced more impressive finishes. No. 5 Alabama looked like a national championship contender against No. 9 Kansas State. The Crimson Tide was not afforded the opportunity to compete for a title.

No. 16 Tulane upset the No. 10 USC Trojans, once again illustrating teams have to show up and play each game.

We’ll never know who would eventually be crowned champions if the 2022 playoff had more than four teams. The issue needs to be remedied moving forward.

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Tulane 46, USC 45 Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic What Happened, What It All Means

Tulane 46, USC 45: Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic what happened, player of the game, and what it all means

USC beat Tulane to win the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic. What happened, who was the player of the game, and what does it all mean?

Tulane 46, USC 45 Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic What Happened, Player of the Game, What It All Means

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– Contact/Follow @ColFootballNews & @PeteFiutak

Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic What Happened

– Well that was fun. USC was up 45-30 on a 43-yard Denis Lynch field goal with 4:30 to play. Tulane needed just two plays to score a touchdown, USC messed up on the kickoff and was pinned deep, RB Austin Jones was tackled for a safety, and then things really got crazy.

Down six, Tulane went 66 yards in 12 plays with a six-yard touchdown grab – which was originally ruled incomplete but was reversed – with seven seconds to play for the win.

– Caleb Williams did everything he could. He threw a pick, but he bombed away for 460 yards and five touchdowns with the offense going up by 14 twice and 15 late in the game before the Trojan defense collapsed again.

– Tulane kept fighting back even after USC kept pushing ahead. Tyjae Spears came up with four scores – the USC defensive front kept getting ripped up as the game went on – but Williams and the offense almost always took over when needed … at least until the final 4:30.

100 Best Bowl Players | Ranking How Good the Bowls Were

Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic Player of the Game

Tyjae Spears, RB Tulane 
He ran 17 times for 205 yards and four touchdowns and caught a pass for 14 yards.

CFN Experts Picks Dec 20-27 | CFP NY6, Dec 28-Jan 2

Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic Fun Stats

– Caleb Williams completed 37-of-52 passes for 462 yards and five scores with a pick, and he ran four times for ten yards. Brenden Rice and Tahj Washington combined for 283 yards on 11 catches – Rice caught two touchdown passes.

– Tulane QB Michael Pratt completed 8-of-17 passes for 234 yards and two touchdowns, and ran 15 times for 83 yards.

– USC held the ball for 39:49, Tulane had it for 20:11. USC outgained Tulane 594 to 539.

Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic What It All Means

The Tulane offense kept on pressing, and with the win, the Group of Five got a huge win. That’s going to be harder and harder to do going forward – in the expanded CFP era the Power Five programs will have most of the parts there, and the field of Gof5 teams won’t be great to choose from – but for now, this was massive for the a Tulane program that went from two wins last year to 12 this season.

The 1998 Green Wave team went 12-0, but it didn’t face anyone like this USC team. The program hadn’t won more than seven games since then, but it was good in bowls under Willie Fritz. It was Tulane’s fourth appearance in five years going 3-1.

Not to make excuses or dismiss this brutal loss, but … whatever. This game would’ve been a nice moment for a USC program that hadn’t won a bowl game since the Rose Bowl at the end of the 2016 season, and it would’ve helped ease a little bit of the pain over losing the Pac-12 Championship.

However, USC has much bigger fish to fry going forward than this. All this did was highlight further that the defensive front needs a makeover. That, and if there was any concerns about motivation going forward, this will certainly help.

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– 2022-2023 Bowl Schedule, Predictions

Losing the Cotton Bowl was a lowlight for USC; for Americans, the game was full of highlights

If you’re a #USC fan, the #CottonBowl was a familiar experience. If you were a neutral or a Tulane fan, you enjoyed the heck out of it. USC’s 45 points didn’t create a win.

We knew we were going to see points, touchdowns, long gainers, and plenty of highlight-reel plays in the 2023 Cotton Bowl between USC and Tulane.

The game lived up to the billing when viewed solely through the prism of exciting plays and lots of offense. Naturally, USC will be hugely disappointed with yet another bad showing on defense, but purely in terms of entertainment — especially for neutral fans just wanting a ballgame to watch on the holiday — this game came through.

It exceeded America’s expectations, that’s for sure.

Tulane looked dead in the water (which is ironic, given that the team’s nickname is the Green Wave), but it poured on a tsunami of points late in regulation to steal this one from USC, 46-45.

For USC, the plays Tulane made were lowlights. For America, they were amazing highlights, and rightly so. It was a supremely fun game if you were a neutral party. No one can deny the national view.

The view for USC? Anything but fun.

Here are the many highlights created by USC … but not enough to win, as it turned out. Tulane’s winning score has to be included in this USC highlight reel, because that was the ultimate story: The Green Wave did more in the end.

Bowl games on TV today: USC vs. Tulane, live stream, TV channel, time, how to watch

The No. 8 USC Trojans will face the No. 18 Tulane Green Wave at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas in The Cotton Bowl Classic.

The No. 8 USC Trojans will face the No. 18 Tulane Green Wave at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas in The Cotton Bowl Classic.

The Green Wave has a balanced offense that has been able to put up 35.2 points per game, ranking 22nd in the FBS. In recent games, it has been the Tulane ground game that has been particularly dominant, as the team has averaged 259.4 rushing yards per game since November 5th.

USC, meanwhile, has been scoring even more, with 41.1 points per game ranking them 3rd in the nation. The Trojans came close to making it to the national title game but ultimately fell to Utah 47-24 in the Pac-12 Championship on December 2nd. That loss snapped a five-game win streak for USC.

This should be a great game between these two teams, here is everything you need to know to watch or stream the game today.

#10 USC vs. #16 Tulane

  • When: Monday, January 2
  • Time: 1:00 p.m. ET
  • TV Channel: ESPN
  • Live Stream: fuboTV (watch for free)

 NCAA Football Odds and Betting Lines

NCAA odds courtesy of Tipico Sportsbook. Odds were updated at 11:20 a.m. ET on Monday.

USC (-2) vs. Tulane

O/U: 66

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