Tulane Green Wave Star, Head Coach Not Making Excuses for Slow Start in Oklahoma

The Tulane Green Wave are not making any excuses for how they started against the Oklahoma Sooners.

Oklahoma Sooners running back Taylor Tatum (8) runs past Tulane Green Wave safety Kevin Adams III (23) fro a touchdown during a college football game between the University of Oklahoma Sooners (OU) and the Tulane Green Wave at Gaylord Family - Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in Norman, Okla., Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. / BRYAN TERRY/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

This was not the first time, and likely won’t be the last, that the Tulane Green Wave has preparations for a game impacted by bad weather.

Hurricane Francine’s presence in the southeast led to the football team having to adjust their preparation for their matchup against the No. 15 ranked Oklahoma Sooners. Tuesday and Wednesday the team spent at their hotel downtown.

The practice on Wednesday was cut short at the New Orleans Saints indoor facility by nearly half. Thursday, their walk-through was held inside the Sheraton Hotel they were lodging at.

It would be easy for people to blame the team’s sluggish start on the tough conditions. Tulane trailed 21-0 at one point, but that isn’t an excuse that head coach Jon Sumrall is going to use.

“It would be real easy to say we didn’t have our normal week,” Sumrall said, via Guerry Smith of NOLA.com. “Well, who cares? I’m not going to allow that to be an excuse. Was it abnormal? Sure. Was it really goofy and funky for everybody in our program? Yeah. Does the scoreboard care? No.”

The massive deficit was created because the Green Wave didn’t even record a first down on three out of their first drives in the game. Meanwhile, Oklahoma scored touchdowns on three out of their first five drives.

That created a massive hole to climb out of. Sumrall took responsibility for the team’s sluggish start.

“We clearly started slow, and I don’t know if it was the first road trip or the movement of the week that was not normal, but I’ll look at all of it to see if there’s stuff I could do better to help us address that,” Sumrall said. “Against a team like that, it’s almost impossible to dig yourselves a 21-0 hole and think you have any chance to come back and win.

“That falls on me. I didn’t get us ready to play the game early the right way. … I told everyone in the locker room we have to own what happened, and it starts with me.”

Some teams would have packed it in and called it an afternoon when trailing by three touchdowns, but not Tulane. They battled their way back, cutting the lead to five points in the fourth quarter.

A few opportunities existed to put even more pressure on the Sooners, but their defense rose to the occassion. After linebacker Tyler Grubbs had a 22-yard pick-six to make the score 24-19 with 14:20 remaining in the game, the Green Wave wouldn’t score another point.

Oklahoma would finish the game on a 10-0 run, with the final score being 34-19. That slow start ultimately did them in, but the circumstances surrounding their preparation aren’t something Grubbs was going to use as an excuse either.

“I don’t think it affected us at all,” he said. “We had a lot of people come in late (joining the team after spring practice), and being at the hotel brought us closer as a team. We try to look at the positives, so we were excited to be together at the time of a natural disaster and spend time with each other.

“We hurt ourselves more than we should have the whole game. It’s self-inflicted mistakes we can easily fix at practice, and it will help us get these tough wins.”

The Green Wave will look to get back on track next week when they travel to take on the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns of the Sun Belt who are 2-0 on the season.