Tulane Green Wave Head Coach Jon Sumrall 'Not Impressed' with Rankings
For the third time in as many years, the Tulane Green Wave has spent at least one week in the top 25 of at least one poll. For now, it is just the AP Poll, as the team fell just eight votes shy of being top 25 in the Coaches Poll, but that could change should they continue to win.
In 2022, the Green Wave spent nine weeks in the top 25 and finished the year as the ninth-ranked team in the country. Last year, they spent ten weeks as a ranked team, climbing as high as 17th. That was under a different head coach, however, and first-year head coach Jon Sumrall said earlier this week that he is "not impressed" by being ranked.
His comments on Tuesday were prior to the latest College Football Playoff rankings where the Green Wave slid in at No. 25, but his overall message doesn't change to his team.
"I told our guys it's rat poison and who cares? We're ranked in one poll," said Sumrall. "About half the people that vote in that poll didn't rank us. So it's like we're not really that respected yet."
The coach continued, "I think we're like 25th by probably the skin of our teeth. So I'm not that impressed, and if our team's very impressed, I am not impressed."
In the AP Poll, Tulane received 98 votes, the only team in the top 25 with less than 100, and there are three teams ranked ahead of them with three losses each.
In the Coaches Poll, the Iowa State Cyclones are ranked 25th, only seven votes ahead of the Green Wave, and their two losses have come over the last two weeks against the 6-4 Texas Tech Red Raiders and the 3-6 Kansas Jayhawks.
Tulane's two losses came at the beginning of the season against the now 7-2 Kansas State Wildcats and the 5-5 Oklahoma Sooners.
Sumrall had this to say when asked about "rat poison," a phrase he posts often on social media.
"Well, I talk about don't eat the cheese and rat poison and all that stuff. Just don't buy into the hype. The same people I tell guys all the time, the same people are patting you on the back and telling you how great you're the same people that'll dog cuss you when you lose."
That mindset rings true with the way that the Green Wave has joined the top 25. They have fewer losses than some of the teams ahead of them, and their losses are against better competition than the team that was kept in the Coaches Poll ahead of them.
CFB committee chair Warde Manuel focused less on their quality losses and more on how well they've played the last seven games in a row in his assessment of their addition to the second week of rankings.
All of that is outside noise for coach Sumrall. His approach is simple: winning is the key to success.
"If we’re worried about where we're ranked Nov.12, we're not going to be real pleased with how we're ranked Dec. 12. We haven't been ranked in the CFP yet. And so all that stuff's just win, just win."
The Green Wave now sit ranked in the poll that matters, but as Sumrall correctly points out, the only thing that matters to his team is a crucial win over the Navy Midshipmen.
