Tulane Green Wave College Football Pregame Quote, 12/30/2022

COACH HAMPTON: Just thank everyone for coming out this afternoon. Obviously we’re excited to be here. Excited to be in the Cotton Bowl. It’s been a fantastic experience so far. I think it’s the best bowl game there is. I’ve heard about it before I got here. And after we got here, the hospitality and experience has been second to none of any bowl I’ve ever been to or been involved with as a player or as a coach.

So I think it’s been a great experience for us. I think our kids are excited to play. As a coach, it’s a great opportunity going against a fantastic school in USC. Got a great offense. One of the best offensive coordinators (Josh Henson) probably in college football history. I think he’s coached three or four Heisman Trophy winners. Obviously, Caleb Williams won the Heisman this year. He’s a dynamic player. We know the grit he possesses. They’ve got a lot of weapons around him.

They can throw the ball well. They run the ball extremely well. Probably a little bit better than people anticipate who don’t watch the film. Do a great job blocking on the perimeter.

So we’ve got our hands full. They’re great statistically in just about every category. First‚Äëdown offense, third‚Äëdown offense, red‚Äëzone offense, scoring offense, total offense. They don’t have very many weaknesses. So we just have got to do a great job of being the best version of ourselves on the 2nd and just go from there.

How much of a difference does it make if Caleb Williams plays or not for USC?

COACH HAMPTON: We’re preparing as if he is. I got that question the other day. We’re just preparing. I haven’t even thought about if he doesn’t play. If he doesn’t, the game play will be the same. We wouldn’t change what we’re doing, but we’re preparing as if he’s going to play.

You’ve been around this program for a few years now. You’ve seen the development of Tulane. How important has this season been, especially after the struggles of last year and for this team to come back and bounce back the way it has to get in this position?

COACH HAMPTON: It’s been the best I’ve ever seen. I think we’ve got a great group of kids, first and foremost. We’re a player‚Äëled bunch. It’s been ‚Äë‚Äë our seniors, our captains, Nick Anderson Dorian Williams, Larry Brooks, Macon Clark, Michael Pratt, those guys have really led us really starting last year, in January. I think they were embarrassed by the way we played last season by our record.

We were much better than our record, but our record was our record. We were a 2‚Äë10 team. That’s what we were. And so I think everyone was motivated for their seniors and it started in January in the off‚Äëseason, and it’s shown throughout the season.

Obviously this bowl season, you know, we saw the transfer portal opening. There was recruiting. There has been a lot of distractions off the field, I guess you could see. Do you guys look at this as an opportunity to build momentum into next season?

COACH HAMPTON: Definitely. We’ve got great coaching. We talk about defense coaching over our scheme. And I really believe there’s great schemes everywhere.

But the coach that you have in your program ‚Äë‚Äë I think, first and foremost, Coach [Willie] Fritz has started it and built the right coach. And I don’t think we’ve had anyone in the transfer portal.

We haven’t had that distraction. A lot of programs have. We’ve been blessed with that.

But yes, we’ve had a great recruiting class. Probably the best one since I’ve been here, I would think. Just watching the guys who are able to sign. We’ve got some guys that typically in seven years we weren’t able to get. We may have wanted but lost to other people. This year they came.

And I think the fan support we’ve had this year, we’ve had a couple sellouts. We had never had that before. Obviously, we’re 11‚Äë2, playing in the Cotton Bowl, won the conference championship. I think the program is headed in the right direction, and I think we can do it again.

Another thing USC does really well is just not turn the ball over.

COACH HAMPTON: Correct.

How important is it going to be to try to change that?

COACH HAMPTON: That’s the big thing we talked about. I think maybe in our first meeting we had was about winning the turnover take‚Äëaway battle and creating some take‚Äëaways. Those things would be game‚Äëby‚Äëgame. It changes.

They haven’t done much all season. They hadn’t played in a long time. Hopefully, we can create some ‚Äë‚Äë take the ball away from them, force some fumbles.

We’ve shown some clips of some opportunities that other teams didn’t take advantage of. They’re well‚Äëcoached. You have to take advantage of opportunities when you get them, and we can’t leave them on the field.

You mentioned earlier in preparing for Caleb Williams. What have you seen from Caleb Williams and the challenge he’s going to present?

COACH HAMPTON: Everything. I mean, he’s really, really athletic, first and foremost. He can avoid the rush as good as anyone probably in football, not just college football, but maybe NFL as well.

He’s got real arm talent. He can throw the ball down the field. He’s got great pocket presence. He doesn’t get rattled.

I think at Oklahoma, they used him a lot as designated quarterback run guy when we first got there. He would come in for Spencer Rattler and run the football.

He’s not as much of a design run guy now. More so he does scrambling. And he’s developed into a great quarterback, his reading and going through his progression and checking the play. They allow him to check the play a lot.

But I think just him ‚Äë‚Äë when the coverage breaks down, he can scramble and create plays with his legs, find guys open downfield. And sometimes when guys come free, they miss him. He’s really hard to get down. He’s like a J’ai Durant Collier type of guy. He can just make you miss.

And so we’ve got to do a great job of tackling. We’ve tried to simulate that as much in practice as we possibly can, but it will be little bit different on the 2nd, I’m sure.

Looking back at the season, you look back at that Kansas State game, you guys played a team that obviously won the Big 12 championship here just a couple of weeks ago. You held Deuce Vaughn and that group to seven points. What confidence did that kind of give this group, and how did you guys carry that over through season, and what do you tell your guys about facing another Power 5 team like that?

COACH HAMPTON: Really, we haven’t talked about being a Power 5 or not a Power 5 or whatever. And it’s game by game, so really that game doesn’t do a whole lot for us right now. But I do think that our kids gained a lot of confidence from their win. Just confidence in themselves.

And I think we expected to win that game. We really did going into it. And maybe people on the outside didn’t ‚Äë‚Äë obviously, they were really good, and we weren’t really good the year before. But I think that game just kind of helped us prove to ourselves that we were the type of defense that we thought we could be, because they were really good and they are.

And so we played well that night. We just have to do it again. We tackled well. That was the big thing we did against Kansas State. There were some things on film, but we didn’t fit properly. We didn’t do that, but we overcame with plenty of great effort and tackling. And that’s going to be the same thing we’re going to have to do on the 2nd. We’re going to have to play with great effort and tackle. That will be the key, I think, to the game.

You played a lot of different teams with varying offensive philosophies and mindsets. Does USC remind you of anybody you faced, or how do they compare to some of the teams that you went up against this year?

COACH HAMPTON: I think schematically maybe they’re similar to SMU. Probably a little bit similar to SMU. But the quarterback for SMU (Tanner Mordecai) couldn’t run like this guy. This guy could run more like John Rhys Plumlee from Central Florida. But their offense isn’t the same really. More like SMU, I would say, style of offense. But the quarterback is what makes them different, I think.