Tulane Green Wave Head Coach Shares Philosophy That Has Inspired Hot Streak
Three weeks into the season, the Tulane Green Wave were sitting at 1-2 and coming off back-to-back close losses against two teams, Kansas State and Oklahoma, who were perceived to be contenders in their respective conferences.
At the time, the Wildcats were ranked No. 17 and the Wave lost a heartbreaker at home, 34-27, before running out of gas the following week on the road against the then-15th-ranked Sooners, 34-19.
Two months later, Tulane has won eight consecutive games and have largely dominated everyone in their path as the defense has given up a combined nine points over the last three weeks.
Despite the incredible run the team has been on, and the fact they have already locked up a trip to the AAC Championship game with an outside chance to push for a spot in the College Football Playoff, their head coach is not letting them take their eye off the goal.
Jon Sumrall joined Barstool Sports' "Wake Up Mintzy" and spoke about the "rat poison' philosophy which has his team playing some incredible football and keeping their focus each week despite the attention.
"We talk a lot about don't take the cheese don't eat the rat poison," Sumrall said. "There's always cheese at the end of a rat trap and that's the people patting you on the back telling you how good you are, being ranked whatever that is. The same people telling us how good we are are the same people that will dog cuss us as soon as we lose ... so you can't buy into all that, you just gotta keep focused on doing your job and being the best you can be every day and enjoy who you're doing it with."
This philosophy was made famous by legendary former Alabama head coach Nick Saban, who often faced the challenge of having to block out noise regarding how good his teams were.
While nobody is begging to line up against the Crimson Tide, Sumrall has the Green Wave playing the kind of ball he expected they would when he took the job after leaving a Troy Trojans program he just won back-to-back Sun Belt titles with in his first two seasons as a head coach.
Tulane must continue to take things week by week, block out the rat poison, and continue to stay focused on the ultimate goal: the opponent currently in front of them.
With Sumrall at the helm, they have a pretty great chance of doing just that.
