Jeff Duncan: Crowd-surfing, victory raps, another big win — Tulane football keeps riding the wave

Before rap artists Choppa and Hot Boy Ronald took the floor in Tulane’s raucous postgame locker room Saturday, coach Willie Fritz had a word of warning for his players as they prepared to celebrate their 38-28 victory over Memphis.

“Be smart, now,” Fritz said in his best fatherly tone. “I don’t want to see you at The Boot tonight — because I’m going over there!”

Frtiz’s players roared their approval as their 62-year-old leader dove into the mob for his trademark postgame crowd-surfing celebration. The party was on.

“Big win, baby!” Fritz said amid the hugs, high fives and back slaps. “Great team win!”

Tulane has waited a long time for this kind of day. Decades, actually.

The last time the Green Wave enjoyed a season this successful was 1998, when Tommy Bowden, Shaun King and company put together the best campaign in program history.

Since then, there have been a lot of ups and downs since then. More downs than ups.

But Tulane football is back. In a very big way.

The Green Wave is nationally ranked and certifiably legit. A wire-to-wire victory over American Athletic Conference rival Memphis did more than just punctuate homecoming festivities on the school’s Uptown campus. It validated the program’s first Top 25 ranking in 24 years.

Memphis is not a vintage Memphis team, but the Tigers are still a respectable FCS opponent. They’ve had eight consecutive non-losing seasons and entered the game at 4-3 overall 2-2 in AAC play. Two of their losses had come in the final minute or overtime.

But they were no match for an inspired Tulane team clearly motivated by its No. 25 ranking and a record crowd of 30,100 fans at Yulman Stadium.

If there was any doubt that Tulane’s ranking was justified, it was eliminated during a dominant first half in which Tulane blitzed the Tigers with a five-touchdown onslaught. For all intents and purposes, the game was over in the first 12 minutes.

Michael Pratt marched the Green Wave 90 yards for a touchdown on its opening drive. Then, after Tulane forced a quick punt, Jha’Quan Jackson returned the ball 90 yards for a touchdown. Tyjae Spears waltzed into the end zone untouched a few minutes later for another touchdown, and the Green Wave was on its way to a 35-0 halftime lead.

Memphis made things respectable, scoring four touchdowns in the second half, but it was largely window dressing. Down the stretch, the Green Wave simply put the ball in the hands of the two best players on the field, Pratt and Spears, their splendid running back from Ponchatoula, to put away the Tigers once and for all.

“I certainly felt like this (kind of season) was possible all along,” Fritz said. “I think it’s fun. It beats the alternative.”

Things got so fun that three Tulane students briefly interrupted the game by running on the field to celebrate a Green Wave score. It was that kind of day at Tulane.

“We knew (the game) was sold out, and the stage was set,” said Dorian Williams, the Green Wave’s gifted junior linebacker, who finished with 12 tackles, a sack and a tackle for loss. “We knew we had to go out there and prove it.”

Prove it, they did. Tulane is now 7-1, the program’s best start since — you guessed it — 1998. A win at Tulsa next week would give the program its first eight-win season since 2002.

“I always felt like the Oklahoma game last year is who we were,” said an exuberant Tulane athletic director Troy Dannen afterward, referencing a heartbreaking 40-35 loss to the Sooners in the 2021 season opener. “And that’s how we’re playing this year. The talent and coaching were always there.”

It was exactly the kind of day Dannen envisioned when he hired Fritz to rebuild the program seven years ago. An overflow crowd in the tailgate quad. A packed student section. Cheers from the sold-out stadium echoing through the nearby oak trees on campus. And an ESPN2 platform to showcase it all.

“Everything was there for us,” Dannen said. “And then for us to come out and play the way we did in the first half, I almost had tears in my eyes. This was everything you aspired to get to. And now the challenge is staying there.”

The Wave will have challenges ahead, to be sure. Conference showdowns with Central Florida and Cincinnati await. Until then, though, life is good for Tulane football.

Better than it’s been in decades.