Tulane Green Wave Receive Praise in College Football Writer’s G5 Rankings
The Tulane Green Wave gave everything they had in Week 2 when they hosted Kansas State at Yulman Stadium.
The No. 17 ranked Wildcats received a tough battle from the Green Wave, who held a double-digit lead at halftime. Unfortunately, they were unable to hold onto that lead as a few plays didn’t go their way.
A broken play on fourth down late in the third quarter when Kansas State quarterback Avery Johnson found running back DJ Giddens for a 45-yard touchdown was deflating.
Minutes later, Darian Mensah was hit and fumbled, leading to a scoop and score by Jack Fabris to give the Wildcats a 34-27 lead.
That would be the final score of the game, as Mensah threw an interception two plays after his touchdown pass to Yulkeith Brown was wiped off the board by offensive pass interference called on Dontae Fleming.
Moral victories don’t mean too much for teams, but this was an encouraging performance by Tulane. It showed they can hang with power conference schools and their performance grabbed the attention of people in college football.
One of the people who came away impressed by their play was Stewart Mandel of The Athletic. In his weekly mailbag, Mandel was asked how he would rank the G5 teams two weeks into the season.
Would a team that has a close loss to a power conference be viewed more highly than a program that played a cupcake schedule? Mandel leans toward the former, which is why he has the Green Wave No. 3 in his G5 rankings.
The only teams ahead of them in Mandel's rankings are the Memphis Tigers and South Florida Bulls.
“I could not have been more impressed with redshirt freshman quarterback Darian Mensah in Tulane’s heartbreaker against Kansas State. The Green Wave could win the AAC,” he wrote.
Mensah came out of nowhere to win the starting quarterback job this offseason. He was behind former five-star Oregon recruit Ty Thompson, who transferred in earlier this year, and veteran Kai Horton.
His high level of play from the spring and summer has carried right over into the regular season as Mensah has looked good running the offense.
He and Tulane have another huge opportunity to cement their status as a top G5 team this weekend. They will be traveling to Norman to take on the Oklahoma Sooners.
Oklahoma is coming off a game against former Green Wave head coach Willie Fritz and the Houston Cougars, which they escaped with a 16-12 win.
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.