Tulane Green Wave Coach Keeps Starting Quarterback For Opener Under Wraps
The Tulane Green Wave have not named a starting quarterback for their season-opener with Southeastern Louisiana on Thursday.
New head coach Jon Sumrall is perfectly content with that. But he does have a timetable in mind to name one. It’s just not a timeline conducive to planning ahead.
“I’ll probably show up Thursday, Aug. 29, and let everybody find out who takes the first snap,” Sumrall said earlier this week.
Who starts the game may matter more to whoever is printing the two-deep roster flip card or the general public than it seems to matter to Sumrall — at least for this game.
Between last year’s backup Kai Horton, transfer Ty Thompson and redshirt freshman Darian Mensah, Sumrall believes he has a trio of players he can win with.
“I’ve told all three I believe in them, I believe that they will have their role in helping us win games,” Sumrall said.
Kickoff on Thursday at Yulman Stadium is at 7 p.m. While the Green Wave hasn’t played SE Louisiana in a decade, Tulane has won every previous meeting.
Horton has waited his turn. He sat behind Michael Pratt for three years, even starting for him in the Ole Miss game last season when Pratt was hurt. But Horton has only thrown for 824 career yards in college.
That still make him the most productive quarterback of the three. Thompson threw for 456 yards in three seasons at Oregon, where he was stuck behind future first-round NFL pick Bo Nix. Then, after Oklahoma’s Dillon Gabriel transferred in, Thompson transferred out.
Mensah redshirted last year and hasn’t thrown an official pass.
Intriguingly, Mensah has seen a majority of the reps with the first team offense the past few days in practice. But this could be Sumrall trying to get the youngster caught up. He made the point earlier this week that Horton and Thompson took the majority of the reps with the first-team in the spring.
Because all three are relatively unproven, Sumrall said there’s a good chance that all three quarterbacks could see time in the opener. But he wouldn’t provide any projections on how that time might be shared.
Tulane did work in a “mock game” situation on Thursday and Sumrall said they not only worked through special game situations but started tailoring the game plan in ways that would fit all three players.
The intrigue isn’t intentional. Sumrall sounds like a coach who has three quarterbacks with good characteristics and he wants to see them in a true game. But a three-headed monster behind center isn’t the future.
“Moving forward I’m not looking to figure out how can we play three quarterbacks in every game all year,” Sumrall.
In other words, these three quarterbacks will start making their cases for the full-time job next week.
MATTHEW POSTINS