Tulane Green Wave Head Coach Stresses Playing With Urgency Ahead of Homecoming
After back-to-back road trips against American Athletic Conference foes, the Tulane Green Wave returns to Yulman Stadium for homecoming against Temple.
The football program has experienced a plethora of early success under head coach Jon Sumerall in his first season at the helm in New Orleans, Louisiana. Sumrall's team has racked up six consecutive wins since suffering a 34-19 loss to Oklahoma, as the Green Wave have outscored opponents 260-113 in those matchups.
But for Sumrall and the Green Wave, the last thing they want to do is get complacent in their quest to compete in the program's 24th American Athletic Conference Championship. Heading into homecoming against the Owls, Sumrall is urging his team to play with a purpose and prepare to put on a show for the home crowd.
"We're coming back to our home stadium, to our home crowd. We need to be ready to put on a show again. We need to be ready to perform," Sumrall said. "Our guys need to be ready to play and great, great attendance expected, sold out stadium for Saturday and our guys need to take pride in being able to play at home."
With 24 players on their roster in their senior or graduate years, Sumrall hopes that the players enjoy, their last homecoming game in the Green and White. The Green Wave head coach also wants his tenured players to step up and take pride in their craft as they play in one of their last home games at Tulane this Saturday.
"These guys that are in their last year of eligibility, they got two home football games left," Sumrall said. "If that doesn't give you a little extra incentive, then we got a problem. Their clock's ticking. The sand in the hourglass is going fast, so these guys need to be really urgent in how they approach everything we do so that we can go out and play the way we want to play on Saturday."
Needless to say, there would be no better way for Tulane to reciprocate Sumrall's message than firing on all cylinders against Temple this Saturday at home. For the Green Wave to have a successful outing, the team will have to key in on scoring fast and playing with a purpose against the Owls, who have given up 283 total points through eight games this season.
Temple is a conference opponent that Tulane can not take lightly, however. It is extremely important for the Green Wave to stay focused on the task at hand and play one snap at a time, which was one of Sumrall's many messages to the team heading into the contest.
"I don't even think about anything else other than this week," Sumrall said. "Anybody in our building that thinks about anything other than this game when it's right in front of us, they're an idiot. I'm so focused on this game and I think our building has to be. I got no control over Saturday yet. I just want to have great Tuesday meetings as a staff the rest of the day. I want our players to go downstairs and lift after practice and continue to maintain strength and I want our guys to show up on Wednesday with a good mindset for our Wednesday practice. I can't even think about Saturday yet, to be quite honest. I'm so narrow-focused right now."
