Tulane Green Wave Focus Team Building on Ironclad Trenches in Transfer Portal
The Tulane Green Wave is tasked with replacing several key departures between the transfer portal and exhausted eligibility, and they have smartly prioritized shoring up the trenches.
As the Tulane football team traverses this era of college football under head coach Jon Sumrall, which is akin to a revolving door, they are leading with the right approach.
Losing Darian Mensah and Makhi Hughes at starting quarterback and running back is a sting.
Plainly, their replacements only matter as much as their protection and blocking in front of them.
They've enjoyed rare continuity along the offensive line since 2021 and only had to replace their left tackle and center last offseason. The Green Wave brought in transfers Derrick Graham and Vincent Murphy to fill the slots, and the unit was nominated to the Joe Moore award watchlist midseason for their work.
Graham returns alongside guard Shadre Hurst as some of the first players signed back by the team's NIL collective, Fear the Wave.
Tulane needs a starting center, right guard, and right tackle, and their transfer portal signings account for the necessary slots: center Jack Hollifield from Appalachian State, guard/center John Bock from FIU, guard Robbie Pizzolato from Nicholls, and tackle Jude McCoskey from Indiana State.
Importantly, all the transfers are the requisite size for the Green Wave to compete with next year's slate.
Bock is 6-foot-3, 288 pounds, and was the first player in the portal to commit after visiting the team during their Gasparilla Bowl practices. His father played in the NFL for six seasons.
McCoskey hails from the same program that defensive back Johnathan Edwards came over from last year and stands at an astonishing 6-foot-8, 300 pounds.
Pizzolato, an in-state graduate transfer, went to John Curtis High School in New Orleans. Like his counterparts in the portal haul, the Metairie, La. native is 6-foot-4 and weighs 320 pounds. He was a Phil Steele FCS Freshman All-American.
Hollifield is an All-Sun Belt offensive lineman who is 6-foot-4 and 300 pounds, who started for the Mountaineers after graduating from Virginia Tech. Pro Football Focus graded him as a top 15 center in FBS. Accordingly, he presumably will replace Murphy, making Hollifield perhaps the most important transfer outside the team's next starting quarterback.
In that role, the team brought in transfers Donovan Leary from Illinois and TJ Finley from Western Kentucky to compete to replace Mensah. A key relationship for Mensah's ascension was his instant chemistry with Murphy that began back in spring workouts during film sessions.
It was as paramount to the team's success as the bond between their predecessors, Michael Pratt and Sincere Haynesworth. That trend stands to continue under Hollifield with the Green Wave's next starting quarterback.
Maddy Hudak is the deputy editor for Tulane on Sports Illustrated and the radio sideline reporter for their football team. Maddy is an alumnus of Tulane University, and graduated in 2016 with a degree in psychology. She went on to obtain a Master of Legal Studies while working as a research coordinator at the VA Hospital, and in jury consulting. During this time, Maddy began covering the New Orleans Saints with SB Nation, and USA Today. She moved to New Orleans in 2021 to pursue a career in sports and became Tulane's sideline reporter that season. She enters her fourth year with the team now covering the program on Sports Illustrated, and will use insights from features and interviews in the live radio broadcast. You can follow her on X at @MaddyHudak_94, or if you have any questions or comments, she can be reached via email at maddy.hudak1@gmail.com