Tulane Green Wave College Football Pregame Quote, 11/28/2022

We’re really proud of the season that we’ve had so far. It’s great to be able to host the game here in New Orleans, obviously playing a fantastic opponent. I’ve got a ton of respect for Coach Malzahn and what he’s done every place he’s been. He’s an old high school coach and I’m kind of an old JUCO coach and I just think he does it the right way and I think there are a lot of core principles we share as far as how you’re supposed to run a program and play a game. But it’s great for our student-athletes to be involved in a game like this and we’re proud to be one of the representatives of The American in the conference championship ball game

On rumors involving Georgia Tech:

I talked to (the team) about that and obviously the initial report gets more attraction than the secondary report. I’m the head football coach at Tulane, extremely proud to be the head football coach at Tulane and we’re looking forward to the ball game on Saturday. That’s what I told them when I when I visited with them this morning, so I don’t want to talk about those things. I’ll talk about the ball game.

On the rematch with UCF and facing QB John Rhys Plumlee:

Coach has got some good schemes – a lot of times there’s very similar quarterback run plays that you get – and he does some a little bit different with his quarterback. (Plumlee) showed how great an athlete he was at the end of our first game when he went out there as a receiver – which he was an excellent receiver at Ole Miss as well before he transferred over UCF- so great speed, good size, probably not enough credit for his throwing ability. And the other young man we played against a year ago, Mikey Keene, he is not as much a dual threat as Plumlee, but he runs the ball effectively and really throws it in. So two very good quarterbacks.

On if Georgia Tech rumors are a distraction to his team:

When you have success sometimes this happens, I guess. But no, it’s not any way shape or form, and that’s the benefit of having a lot of veteran leadership on our squad. I addressed it this morning and told them I’m all in and our goal is going 1-0 this week.

On Tulane’s progress in his tenure:

I’m very proud of where we’re at right now. This is hard hard game to get to. We played a tough schedule and I’m extremely proud of where we’re at right now. There are a lot of great things to sell here at Tulane – first and foremost is the opportunity to get a world class education. We talk about it all the time. Second, we play a in great conference I heard our commissioner talking about it a little while ago, we feel like this is an awesome conference and you test yourself week in and week out. And you get to do it in the city of New Orleans, so we felt like if we could get the right guys who shared our vision and what we’re looking for, we had an opportunity to be successful. We had a lot of years in there where we were really close to having some big-time success and went to three bowl games in a row, which hadn’t been done here at Tulane in the history of the football program. But this year, I just think it was a combination of that really great leadership from our upperclassmen and guys that have played a lot of football here at Tulane and embracing what we what we’re all about as far as our philosophy and how we like to do things here.

On ending Cincinnati’s 32-game home winning streak:

Well, that was big-time for us. It’s a tough place to play. They’ve got tremendous fan support and our guys really played well in all three phases. Offensively we had zero turnovers, ran the ball well, had big pass plays when we needed them. Same thing defensively, we needed to rise to the challenge we did and, probably did a pretty good job in the kicking game, giving ourselves good starting field position. So that’s how you’ve got to play if you’re going to get an opportunity to win at a place like that – you know at 32 wins in a row. So we’re very proud of that game and our guys executed the game plan last Friday.

On any adjustments to make after losing at home to UCF:

Every game is unique. You know there will be some carryover because you can watch yourself on film playing them just a few weeks ago. but obviously, they’re really well coached and they’re a very big team on the offensive line and the defensive line and have excellent team speed. So we’re going to have to play extremely well on on Saturday. We know that.

On the battle on the line of scrimmage:

Obviously you want to win up front. In order to be successful on offense or defense, you’ve got to win up front . They’re not only big, they’re talented. They can move. Sometimes you get real big guys and they’re kind of stationary objects. These guys aren’t – they’ve got very good movement.

On the hallmarks of a Willie Fritz-coached team:

We talked about playing to win, and part of that is winning the turnover/takeaway battle. That’s big. In my career, I think we’ve won 90% of our games we’ve been plus-one or better (in turnovers). I heard people talking about a little bit with Coach Malzahn about the run game and how important it is. I do believe you have to run the ball effectively to win championships. I’m very involved with special teams here, always have been at every place I’ve ever been, and you know that’s kind of the hidden yardage you don’t see in the stat page. We pride ourselves in playing disciplined and trying to eliminate those pre- and post-snap penalties – so those are some of the things that we emphasize here at Tualne

On the energy at practice this week:

Awesome. We just had our first practice today and the guys are fired up. There are only two teams that are playing this weekend from The American and we’re one of them. So we’re extremely excited about that.