NEW ORLEANS, La. – As the Tulane Green Wave wrapped up Day 12 of fall practice, there is still no answer as to whether they will have an opponent to replace Southeastern Week 1.
“It doesn’t look good,” says Tulane Head Football Coach Willie Fritz.
Fritz added, “We’re holding on trying to get them over here but I have not talked to Troy (Dannen) today. We kind of put today and tomorrow as a deadline, so regardless of whether we play the first game or not, we are going to take these first two days off because we have been going pretty hard for quite some time”
One issue that the football program is having is trying to schedule games with universities that want a pot of money for traveling to New Orleans and open their season at Yulman Stadium.
Luckily, Tulane was able to schedule alternate opponents to replace games lost by prior conference postponement.
“Obviously finances entered into all decisions you make unless it’s a conference game. I’m sure that has something to do with it. Troy jumped all over South Alabama and Southern Miss when all that occurred so we were fortunate to get those two games. Southeastern really wanted to play but when they made the decision not to, it got a little late in the game and there weren’t too many choices for us at that point in time.”
For now, Tulane will be adjusting its practice schedule, giving players the first two days of classes off.
Fritz feels that they have already put in a ton of work these past 2 weeks, saying “I think we are way ahead right now we’ve just got to keep fine-tuning things. We’ve got a laundry list of different scenarios and situations we want to go through and a lot of those situations we have already been through two or three times when normally in camp, you’re fighting to get it in once.”
If Tulane is unable to schedule a Week 1 opponent, their regular-season opener will be Saturday, September 12th at South Alabama.
Tulane’s regular-season home opener would be scheduled for Saturday, September 19th against the Navy Midshipmen.