Spring Game Report

[winwave]

Thanks for the info, ww. Reading your posts is like getting unbiased insider info. You should do a a blog during football season.

Thanks. I wish I had the time.

[anEngineer]

I think people read ENTIRELY too much into these college spring games. Some significant contributors to next season are not even on campus yet. There are guys being looked at and moved around. It's only been a few scattered practices and it's not Fall intensity. Give them a break. As far as Fritz's recruiting, I doubt that he is choosing to bring in lesser players. Does anyone REALLY think he doesn't want a roster of 4 star players? If anyone has an idea of how Tulane can start getting more highly-rated players, you should call Coach Fritz immediately and let him know. He may want to hire you.

[JerseyWave]

I think people read ENTIRELY too much into these college spring games. Some significant contributors to next season are not even on campus yet. There are guys being looked at and moved around. It's only been a few scattered practices and it's not Fall intensity. Give them a break. As far as Fritz's recruiting, I doubt that he is choosing to bring in lesser players. Does anyone REALLY think he doesn't want a roster of 4 star players? If anyone has an idea of how Tulane can start getting more highly-rated players, you should call Coach Fritz immediately and let him know. He may want to hire you.

He's barely getting any three star guys. My suggestion: Dannen has to get a Football Building constructed and Fritz has to hire a guy well connected to the New Orleans area high schools.

[anEngineer]

I think people read ENTIRELY too much into these college spring games. Some significant contributors to next season are not even on campus yet. There are guys being looked at and moved around. It's only been a few scattered practices and it's not Fall intensity. Give them a break. As far as Fritz's recruiting, I doubt that he is choosing to bring in lesser players. Does anyone REALLY think he doesn't want a roster of 4 star players? If anyone has an idea of how Tulane can start getting more highly-rated players, you should call Coach Fritz immediately and let him know. He may want to hire you.

He's barely getting any three star guys. My suggestion: Dannen has to get a Football Building constructed and Fritz has to hire a guy well connected to the New Orleans area high schools.

I think CJ proved that New Orleans area kids are not the total solution. I don't understand the fascination with them. Many are talented but not academically capable and if they are not eligible, what's the point? I don't care where kids come from. CJ won 3 games a year with a roster full of them. Again, does anyone really think Fritz is choosing to bring in lesser players? He is being blamed by many. Tulane has been a horrible football for many years. I can't blame kids for being skeptical if they have alternatives.

[winwave]

I think people read ENTIRELY too much into these college spring games. Some significant contributors to next season are not even on campus yet. There are guys being looked at and moved around. It's only been a few scattered practices and it's not Fall intensity. Give them a break. As far as Fritz's recruiting, I doubt that he is choosing to bring in lesser players. Does anyone REALLY think he doesn't want a roster of 4 star players? If anyone has an idea of how Tulane can start getting more highly-rated players, you should call Coach Fritz immediately and let him know. He may want to hire you.

This is year two. There should be a noticeable improvement. They aren't just moving players around. Some changed positions at the beginning of practice like Franklin to nickel. Though that's not really new to him as he played there a couple of seasons ago. It'a not scattered practices. It is 15 well organized practices. There is no excuse for the display yesterday. We had important recruits there. It couldn't have impressed them in the least. The only possible significant contributor ,Huderson , is already here. I get that some don't want to here what happened but it did and it wasn't pretty.

[JerseyWave]

I think people read ENTIRELY too much into these college spring games. Some significant contributors to next season are not even on campus yet. There are guys being looked at and moved around. It's only been a few scattered practices and it's not Fall intensity. Give them a break. As far as Fritz's recruiting, I doubt that he is choosing to bring in lesser players. Does anyone REALLY think he doesn't want a roster of 4 star players? If anyone has an idea of how Tulane can start getting more highly-rated players, you should call Coach Fritz immediately and let him know. He may want to hire you.

He's barely getting any three star guys. My suggestion: Dannen has to get a Football Building constructed and Fritz has to hire a guy well connected to the New Orleans area high schools.

I think CJ proved that New Orleans area kids are not the total solution. I don't understand the fascination with them. Many are talented but not academically capable and if they are not eligible, what's the point? I don't care where kids come from. CJ won 3 games a year with a roster full of them. Again, does anyone really think Fritz is choosing to bring in lesser players? He is being blamed by many. Tulane has been a horrible football for many years. I can't blame kids for being skeptical if they have alternatives.

Not saying they should all be New Orleans kids. CJ's last class was horrible, he wasn't a legit Head Coach and I think everyone knew it. Fritz is an established winning Head Coach who just needs better talent to compete. Fritz only signed two local kids.....that's unacceptable. Even Buddy Teevens from the IVY League did a good job recruiting Louisiana. It's no secret that Louisiana is one of the most talent rich states for Football and Tulane has to tap into it. We should not be losing local guys to Kansas and Memphis!

[GreenPuddleSplash]

I think people read ENTIRELY too much into these college spring games. Some significant contributors to next season are not even on campus yet. There are guys being looked at and moved around. It's only been a few scattered practices and it's not Fall intensity. Give them a break. As far as Fritz's recruiting, I doubt that he is choosing to bring in lesser players. Does anyone REALLY think he doesn't want a roster of 4 star players? If anyone has an idea of how Tulane can start getting more highly-rated players, you should call Coach Fritz immediately and let him know. He may want to hire you.

He's barely getting any three star guys. My suggestion: Dannen has to get a Football Building constructed and Fritz has to hire a guy well connected to the New Orleans area high schools.

I think CJ proved that New Orleans area kids are not the total solution. I don't understand the fascination with them. Many are talented but not academically capable and if they are not eligible, what's the point? I don't care where kids come from. CJ won 3 games a year with a roster full of them. Again, does anyone really think Fritz is choosing to bring in lesser players? He is being blamed by many. Tulane has been a horrible football for many years. I can't blame kids for being skeptical if they have alternatives.

Not saying they should all be New Orleans kids. CJ's last class was horrible, he wasn't a legit Head Coach and I think everyone knew it. Fritz is an established winning Head Coach who just needs better talent to compete. Fritz only signed two local kids.....that's unacceptable. Even Buddy Teevens from the IVY League did a good job recruiting Louisiana. It's no secret that Louisiana is one of the most talent rich states for Football and Tulane has to tap into it. We should not be losing local guys to Kansas and Memphis!

I know a couple of the guys we lost to Memphis would have never seen the field as a greenie because they simply wouldn't be academic eligible. So then we are left with a problem, waste a spot on the roster for someone who will never see the field, or try to find a lesser player that you can hopefully mold and build up to see the field? I think I would take the latter. Plus, it's not like Fritz isn't trying to recruit locally or in state. If you look at the last visitor list it was heavily dominated by Louisiana kids. Give the man a break and let him work.

[Aberzombie1892]

Well, the two 10,000 foot takeaways are (1) coaches put a crowd pleasing display on for the spring game and (2) Tulane QB performances were terrible in Spring 2016 and they were subsequently terrible in Fall 2016.

The display that Fritz put on was not cloud pleasing, and it likely had a negative impact on how many, if not most, of the recruits that were present viewed Tulane, and the QB performances were objectively bad enough to leave lowered expectations for Fall 2017 in the minds of fans that saw what took place.

[golfnut69]

Well, the two 10,000 foot takeaways are (1) coaches put a crowd pleasing display on for the spring game and (2) Tulane QB performances were terrible in Spring 2016 and they were subsequently terrible in Fall 2016.

The display that Fritz put on was not cloud pleasing, and it likely had a negative impact on how many, if not most, of the recruits that were present viewed Tulane, and the QB performances were objectively bad enough to leave lowered expectations for Fall 2017 in the minds of fans that saw what took place.

at least we are consistent !!!!

[mbawavefan12]

Call it green glasses, but I think the lack of tackling was significant. The DL seemed to only be worried about the pass which was a huge advantage especially in this offense. Hope I am right.

[GreenPuddleSplash]

Man, I was really hoping to see our O-line have significant improvements, but at least it sounds like their conditioning is much better, which should be even better by the time summer camp opens.

One thing I'm still concerned about is doing live punt returns or the lack of. We had so many muffs last year and the lack of live punt returns gives me a bit of a concern. Hopefully that gets addressed during camp too.

[Eaglewave]

The last exciting spring game was 2012. It is tough being a Tulane fan.

[Eaglewave]

Oh yeah, great job Winwave.

[winwave]

As per today's press conference Kennedy does have a serious knee injury and is out and may be back at some point in the fall. Nickerson also got hurt in one of the last practices and had knee surgery too. He is expected back in the fall.

[winwave]

Tre Jackson is having surgery too on his knee and should be back in the fall.

[winwave]

Guillory's take on the end of spring practice presser:

http://www.nola.com/tulane/index.ssf/20 ... iver_index

[winwave]

Depth Chart:

http://tulanegreenwave.com/news/2017/4/ ... rence.aspx

[DfromCT]

Winwave, I, too thank you for your typically thorough Spring Game report. You're pretty objective, telling us a year ago that our QB's were having trouble completing passes in the Spring and Summer. I'm sure it was frustrating as hell to see the same lack of passing game, poor O-line play, and turnovers. Same old Wave?!?

It was a great report, I have zero issues with it. In a subsequent post, you said something along the lines of "we often hit for big strikes when our QB rolled out last year." I'm tongue in cheek pointing out that I don't remember many "big strikes" from our QB, maybe three all year? I remember the receivers being open more often than not, and our QB missing a wide open receiver. And I don't remember who, but there was a sure TD drop on a deep ball on a rollout play late in the year.

What I haven't enjoyed about this thread, and maybe I'm wearing the Green glasses, is the "Sky is Falling" attitude a whole bunch of us have over the Spring "Game". First of all, I am pretty confident that the O-Line will be better than a year ago. It is VERY hard to block at any speed other than full speed, and most of the line is intact and a year older/better shape/experienced in this offense. It cannot be worse. That's not saying they didn't look horrible Saturday, I'll take everyone's word for it that was there, they looked bad. Secondly, I think we're going to be stronger up front on D than most here feel. Again, we're experienced there and if we stay healthy, should improve on the number of sacks and tackles for losses despite losing Smart. Smart was a beast, I want to be on record with that. But we aren't crippled by his loss; hopefully we'll enjoy watching him play on Sundays. I also think our secondary will be better. We played a lot of true and RS freshman last year, and the best thing about that is "freshman become sophomores."

If Banks is as bad as he looked this past Saturday, we're doomed. But if he had a bad practice, and grows as much from now until the start of the season as he did in his first 3.5 months on campus, he'll be ready to lead this team. He HAS to be a significant step up from our QB play a year ago. If he can limit turnovers while running this offense, we might open some eyes. If he plays like all reports from this final practice, we're in trouble.

I'm betting the O-line, S/T and QB play are improved from last year. Like you, I've been a Fritz supporter all along. Our biggest battles were over the fact that I couldn't see last year's team winning more than 4 games. They almost did, but the games they could have won they didn't for some of the reasons that went into my logic. I think the team takes a step up, beats the few teams the "experts" think we should beat, and pulls off a couple of upsets. I think we find a way to win 6 in Fritz's second year. And I'm NOT betting the house on it.

Again, maybe this year I'm the one wearing the Green shades!

[Aberzombie1892]

The issue is that the offense does not appear to be operating at a level that football fans would consider to be average or above for an FBS program and it's frustrating given that the same issues related to offense that were present a year ago are still present today even though transfers have been added and players have more experience.

Considering the projected difficulty of the 2017 schedule, a below average offense likely won't lead Tulane to 6 regular season wins even though those 6 wins are what the target should be. In theory, the 6 wins would likely come from some combination of Grambling, FIU, SMU, Houston, Tulsa, Cincinnati, and ECU. The question is - regardless of how good Tulane's defense may or may not be, can Tulane's offense score the 25+ points that will be necessary to be competitive with some of those teams? It's certainly possible - anything is - but the spring game didn't really build confidence in that area.

[winwave]

D- You're welcome. Yes it was frustrating. What I said about rollouts was the few times we tried it it usually hit for good gains. As for Banks I know his stats looked bad and he did have the two turnovers but as I noted he is athletic and can throw especially on the run. Thus the suggestion to forget the option aspect and focus on the spread option with more emphasis on the pass. Banks could be a playmaker but he can't be left to be a sitting duck behind this line. I know people want to think the line just has to be better but it hasn't showed up.

I haven't seen the sky is falling attitude here. People have just vented their frustration over seeing the same issues over and over. I don't recall anyone saying forget next season. As for the D I think we''ll be ok but we have some key guys out and we have to hope Fritz is shooting straight when he says they'll be back. We will miss Smart. I like Eldrick Washington. We need Edwards to keep losing weight and Williams to come on. LB is a question mark too.

I never wore green colored glasses. Like others I saw reasons for hope to scratch out 6 but never disputed there were reasons to think otherwise. As you noted we almost did. So they were legitimate thoughts that myself and others had. I don't think you have green colored glasses for thinking 6 is possible this year.

[GreenPuddleSplash]

D- You're welcome. Yes it was frustrating. What I said about rollouts was the few times we tried it it usually hit for good gains. As for Banks I know his stats looked bad and he did have the two turnovers but as I noted he is athletic and can throw especially on the run. Thus the suggestion to forget the option aspect and focus on the spread option with more emphasis on the pass. Banks could be a playmaker but he can't be left to be a sitting duck behind this line. I know people want to think the line just has to be better but it hasn't showed up.

I haven't seen the sky is falling attitude here. People have just vented their frustration over seeing the same issues over and over. I don't recall anyone saying forget next season. As for the D I think we''ll be ok but we have some key guys out and we have to hope Fritz is shooting straight when he says they'll be back. We will miss Smart. I like Eldrick Washington. We need Edwards to keep losing weight and Williams to come on. LB is a question mark too.

I never wore green colored glasses. Like others I saw reasons for hope to scratch out 6 but never disputed there were reasons to think otherwise. As you noted we almost did. So they were legitimate thoughts that myself and others had. I don't think you have green colored glasses for thinking 6 is possible this year.

I have a very good feeling that Ade Aruna is going to have a break-out year. He was simply a monster at times last year and I expect he's only improved. When I think of Ade, I think of that time when he ate the UMass qb and only expect more and more of exactly that!

[winwave]

Most definitely agree.

[golfnut69]

http://sportsnola.com/video-tulane-will ... onference/

http://www.nola.com/tulane/index.ssf/20 ... river_home