Tulane's Helmke Works through Injuries, Sets School FG Record
Tulane 2026 Football Schedule
Opponent | Time/Date | Result | Score | Record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
at Duke | 2:30PM, 9/5 | L | 17-3 | 0-1 |
Sou Alabama | 6PM, 9/12 | W | 28-24 | 1-1 |
@ K-State | 11AM, 9/19 | L | 31-20 | 1-2 |
Sou Miss | 6PM, 9/26 | |||
OPEN | 10/3 | -- | -- | -- |
@ Army | 11AM, 10/10 | |||
Memphis | 6:30PM, 10/16 | |||
UTSA | TBD, 10/24 | |||
@ Charlotte | 6PM, 10/30 | |||
Tulsa | TBD, 11/7 | |||
@ Rice | TBD, 11/14 | |||
Nor Texas | TBD, 11/21 | |||
@ Sou Fla | TBD, 11/27 |
The Tulane football team fell to Kansas State Saturday afternoon, 31-20, but a school record was set by a young kicker who was wondering if he would ever play football again at this time last season.
Give "Leg" Some Time
Kicking afficienados knew it would just be a matter of time: time to get well again, time to get back into the rhythm. St. Martin product Cooper Helmke knew it, too. He was just patient, biding his time until he was physically recovered.
So, on a September afternoon in the Little Apple, the redshirt freshman was sent out to kick a field goal that had never been made by a Tulane kicker: a 58-yarder. Gone was the artificial turf he was used to kicking off of the last year now replaced with the natural turf of the Kansas State field, and now with a little bit of a breeze that was sometimes at his back and sometimes a bit of a swirl, Helmke lined up for his first-ever kick as a college football player.
"I was ready. I was ready to roll. When I realized we were kicking it, I got out there. I took a deep breath, and I told (William) Hudlow (holder), I said, you know how we do it here.
"Just step back, took a breath, and let it rip."
Tulane’s Cooper Helmke from 58! That thing would’ve been good from 65+! 🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/duLQA3Id84
— Cam Mellor (@CamMellor) September 19, 2026
That kick put the former Christian Brothers student, from where we hear he initially received the nickname "Leg," in the record books, breaking the record held by Cairos Santos. The Brazilian-born kicker's school record 57-yarder in 2012 has stood for almost a decade and a half. That year, Santos was named consensus All-American and received the Lou Groza Award for the nation's most outstanding placekicker.
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Helmke also was true on a 53-yarder, garnering the only points Tulane would get in the third quarter.
Gives Credit Where Credit is Due
He was happy to get the record, but quick to give credit elsewhere.
"It's really exciting to have, but I have to give credit to (long snapper) Jason Arredondo and (holder) William Hudlow because without them, my job can't be done," Helmke said. "From the snap to the hold on both kicks, no matter the situation, everything relies on them, so I have to give a lot of credit to them, too, but it feels good considering last year the situation was (that) football might not be the same for me."
It Was a Long Road to the 2026 Seasons
The redshirt freshman went through a plethora of injuries before the 2025 season ever started.
"When I first got here in the summer, a month in, I had a sports hernia in my kicking hip, my right hip. I was out all fall camp, came back in time for Northwestern, then was still kind of recovering from it through week three, and then week three on Sunday, we were lifting.
"I was back squatting, just a little deconditioning the body from the first injury, and as soon as I went down for back squat, I felt a pop in my back. The rest of the day was fine, (but) the next morning, I woke up and realized something was real wrong. We kept playing for a month and a half, and didn't get a whole lot better, so we got an MRI, and it turned out to be a — I think it was called a pars (stress) fracture in my L5 spine bone, which is the bottom bone in your spine, so part of that was fractured. That was a long seven months, eight months until maybe a week left of spring ball."
In fact, Helmke didn't really feel right until almost the beginning of the 2026 season.
"At the end of fall camp," he explained, "because we took a cautionary few weeks off because my hip flexor started to bother me a little bit. We had a little strain in the muscles, so we took a cautionary two, two-and-a-half, three weeks. Missed a little over half of fall camp, and then got back right at the end, right in time for the two weeks we had leading into Duke, into season practice. That was really when I started to feel healthy."
Helmke began the season kicking off for the Green Wave. Now, he says he's in the right place.
"It feels really good. It feels really good to be in this position now. Again, considering last year when I was, it feels really good, I got to say."
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Doug has covered a gamut of sporting events in his fifty-plus years in the field. He started doing sideline reporting for Louisiana Tech football games for the student radio station. Doug was Sports Director for KNOE-AM/FM in Monroe in the mid-80s, winning numerous awards from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association for Best Sportscast and Best Play-by-Play. High school play-by-play for teams in Monroe, Natchitoches, New Orleans, and Thibodaux, LA dot his resume. He did college play-by-play for Northwestern State University in Natchitoches for nine years. Then, moving to the Crescent City, Doug did television PBP of Tulane games and even filled in for legendary Tulane broadcaster, Ken Berthelot in the only game Kenny ever missed while doing the Green Wave games. His father was an alumnus of Tulane in the 1940s, so Doug has attended Tulane football games in old Tulane Stadium, the Superdome, and Yulman. He was one of the 86,000 plus on December 1, 1973, sitting in the North End Zone to seeTulane shutout the LSU Tigers, 14-0. He was there when the Posse ruled Fogelman and in Turchin when the Wave made it to the World Series. He currently is the public address voice of the Tulane baseball team.