Tulane Green Wave Head Coach Jon Sumrall Being Pursued by Multiple Power 4 Teams
The Tulane Green Wave had a major void to fill when head coach Willie Fritz announced that he would be leaving his position to take the same spot with the Houston Cougars.
That is life as a Group of 5 program, as the power conference schools will always look to poach coaches, enticing them with big money offers that are tough to compete with. After winning 12 games in 2022 and 11 in 2023, someone would be tasked with filling some big shoes.
That someone was Jon Sumrall.
After two seasons with the Troy Trojans, where he recorded back-to-back double-digit win campaigns of his own, he has kept the momentum going that Fritz built.
The Green Wave is in the American Athletic Championship Game for the third consecutive year. In 2022, they defeated the UFC Knights and went on to play in the Cotton Bowl, where they beat the USC Trojans.
Last year, in what ended up being Fritz’s last game with the program, they were defeated by the SMU Mustangs. Tulane was then blown out by the Virginia Tech Hokies in the Military Bowl.
Given how much success Sumrall has had in his first season as the head man in New Orleans, it was only a matter of time until he started getting attention similarly to how Fritz did. But, he was with the Green Wave for eight years; his replacement is already the hottest head coaching name circulating around.
According to sources at the Times-Picayune via Guerry Smith of NOLA.com, there are already three Power Four programs that have expressed an interest in Sumrall becoming their next head coach; the Purdue Boilermakers, UCF and the North Carolina Tar Heels.
It isn’t speculation that Sumrall is worrying about, as he is focused on the current task at hand; defeating the Army West Point Black Knights and becoming AAC champions.
“People speculate whatever they want to speculate,” Sumrall said Tuesday when asked about the outside interest in him. “I’m very focused right here. When your team is good, everybody thinks you should be the next best thing. When your team sucks, they try to fire you.
"You are going to deal with a distraction one way or the other. I’d much rather deal with the distraction of us being a really good team and people putting my name out or something. None of that stuff is relevant to me. I’m so locked in on this game.”
That is certainly the right mindset for the head coach to have. But, it will be interesting to see what happens as things move along into the offseason.
Pressure is now on Tulane officials. They need to do something to entice Sumrall to remain in New Orleans or risk losing their incredible head coach to one of the bigger schools pursuing him.
Purdue went 1-11 and was among the worst teams in college football this year and could use a spark. The Knights went 4-8 in their second season in the Big 12 and head coach Gus Malzahn resigned to take the offensive coordinator job with the Florida State Seminoles.
North Carolina is moving on from Mack Brown after a 6-6 campaign. In his second go-round wit the program, he went 44-33 across six seasons.
Kenneth Teape is an alumnus of SUNY Old Westbury and graduated in 2013 with an Honors Degree in Media Communications with a focus on print journalism. During his time at Old Westbury, he worked for the school newspaper and several online publications, such as Knicks Now, the official website of the New York Knicks, and a self-made website with fellow students, Gotham City Sports News. Kenneth has also been a site expert at Empire Writes Back, Musket Fire, and Lake Show Life within the FanSided Network. He was a contributor to HoopsHabit, with work featured on Bleacher Report and Yardbarker. In addition to his work here, he is a reporter for both NBA Analysis Network and NFL Analysis Network, as well as a writer and editor for Packers Coverage. You can follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @teapester725, or reach him via email at teapester725@gmail.com.