Tulane QB not impressed with C-USA teams

[Harry]

Grant said he is undaunted by the selection.

"I've done some research on the teams and they haven't really impressed me. I'll go with the coaches say, we have an easy schedule so we definitely are going to win more than six games," Grant said.

Read more: http://www.nola.com/tulane/index.ssf/2013/07/tulane_picked_to_finish_sixth.html#incart_river

[Harry]

Tulane Fans not pleased with #6 pick either...

[NT03]

I think Tulane will surprise people this season. Wouldn't shock me if they win 6 + games

[cdizzle86]

All I want for Christmas is a Hilbert-esq hit on this guy.

[GrayEagle]

One small correction to this post...Grant is not a quarterback; he is a wide receiver. That's going to make it a little harder to make him pay for his bulletin board quote. But...maybe he just painted a bulls-eye on the new Green Wave quarterback.

Tulane did improve their recruiting. Their first time college head coach now has one year, at least, under his belt. But, Tulane lost it's main offensive weapon (quarterback) from last year and Montana hasn't yet proved that he's a chip off of the old block. They'll get better but it's asking an awful lot for an immediate turnaround.

[emmitt01]

One small correction to this post...Grant is not a quarterback; he is a wide receiver. That's going to make it a little harder to make him pay for his bulletin board quote. But...maybe he just painted a bulls-eye on the new Green Wave quarterback.

Tulane did improve their recruiting. Their first time college head coach now has one year, at least, under his belt. But, Tulane lost it's main offensive weapon (quarterback) from last year and Montana hasn't yet proved that he's a chip off of the old block. They'll get better but it's asking an awful lot for an immediate turnaround.

Oh you can still make him pay. Someone will get a chance to greet him across the middle of the field.

[Christopher Walker]

Oh you can still make him pay. Someone will get a chance to greet him across the middle of the field.

And by someone, I hope we mean our Lombardi nominee.

[GrandGreen]

Tulane's new coach has recruited much better than McCarney on paper and they will be tough. They got off to a horrible start last year partially I think to the awful injury to one of their players in Tulsa,but by year end were a much improved club.

The better bulletin board material is their coaches telling the players they have an easy schedule.

Edited July 18, 2013 by GrandGreen

[DallasGreen]

Tulane beat the much vaunted mighty Mustangs of SMU in 2012. According to DMN this is the equivalent of A$Ms victory over AL. Never question one who has reached the heights of conquering the 'Stangs. That being said I' have made my reservations to be in N.O. when we kick their butts in our C-USA opener!

[Mean Green 93-98]

Tulane's new coach has recruited much better than McCarney on paper and they will be tough. They got off to a horrible start last year partially I think to the awful injury to one of their players in Tulsa,but by year end were a much improved club.

I suppose--they finished the season with four straight losses, losing to a pretty bad Memphis team, and getting absolutely throttled by a subpar Houston team (as did we).

They do have 3 very winnable OOC games, though, 2 of which they should be favored in. If they win those 3, I could see them winning another 2 or 3 in C-USA. I have a hard time seeing them winning more than that, though.

[The Fake Lonnie Finch]

Tulane is breaking in a new quarterback under a head coach who didn't even have coordinator duties at any level of play at any time during his coaching career. It was a bad hire and Tulane will continue to lose with him.

In short, they are worse off than we are.

[The Fake Lonnie Finch]

Tulane - 2013

Jackson State - Coin Toss, JSU 7-5 last year, played for SWAC Championship, returning most starters, 1-0 or 0-1
South Alabama - Coin Toss, same record as Tulane last year, 9 returning defensive starters, skill position starters on offense return, 2-0, 1-1, or 0-2

@ La Tech - Certain Loss, 2-1, 1-2, or 0-3
@ Syracuse - Certain Loss, 2-2, 1-3, or 0-4
@ ULM - Certain Loss, ULM won this game 63-10 last year...on the road, 2-3, 1-4, or 0-5
UNT - Probable Loss, UNT returns much more than Tulane, 2-4, 1-5, or 0-6
ECU - Certain Loss, Pirates a 2012 bowl team with 8 starters returning on each side of the ball, 2-5, 1-6, or 0-7
Tulsa - Certain Loss, don't be ridiculous, 2-6, 1-7, 0-8
@ FAU - Coin Toss, Pelini's Owl won more last year, won 2 of last 5, 3-6, 2-7, or 0-9
@ UTSA - Probable Win, you'd think, 4-6, 3-7, or 0-10
UTEP - Probably Loss, beat Tulane last year with a bad team will have a better QB this year, 4-7, 3-8, or 0-11
@ Rice - Certain Loss, 4-8, 3-9, 0-12

The Green Wave will be really, really lucky to not be 0-12 in 2013. Road games at La Tech and Syracuse; Tulsa and ULM again, both of which pummelled the snot out of them in 2012. A crappy coach in over his head breaking in a new QB. It all adds up to Tulane sucks again in 2013...and, sucks hard.

Edited July 18, 2013 by The Fake Lonnie Finch

[Harry]

Tulane - 2013

Jackson State - Coin Toss, JSU 7-5 last year, played for SWAC Championship, returning most starters, 1-0 or 0-1

South Alabama - Coin Toss, same record as Tulane last year, 9 returning defensive starters, skill position starters on offense return, 2-0, 1-1, or 0-2

@ La Tech - Certain Loss, 2-1, 1-2, or 0-3

@ Syracuse - Certain Loss, 2-2, 1-3, or 0-4

@ ULM - Certain Loss, ULM won this game 63-10 last year...on the road, 2-3, 1-4, or 0-5

UNT - Probable Loss, UNT returns much more than Tulane, 2-4, 1-5, or 0-6

ECU - Certain Loss, Pirates a 2012 bowl team with 8 starters returning on each side of the ball, 2-5, 1-6, or 0-7

Tulsa - Certain Loss, don't be ridiculous, 2-6, 1-7, 0-8

@ FAU - Coin Toss, Pelini's Owl won more last year, won 2 of last 5, 3-6, 2-7, or 0-9

@ UTSA - Probable Win, you'd think, 4-6, 3-7, or 0-10

UTEP - Probably Loss, beat Tulane last year with a bad team will have a better QB this year, 4-7, 3-8, or 0-11

@ Rice - Certain Loss, 4-8, 3-9, 0-12

The Green Wave will be really, really lucky to not be 0-12 in 2013. Road games at La Tech and Syracuse; Tulsa and ULM again, both of which pummelled the snot out of them in 2012. A crappy coach in over his head breaking in a new QB. It all adds up to Tulane sucks again in 2013...and, sucks hard.

That's so interesting because they REALLY have improved their recruiting, they are investing in facilities (new stadium) and its a great education...that said I think if Curtis Johnson lays another egg he may be a football version of Trilli.

[untjim1995]

That's so interesting because they REALLY have improved their recruiting, they are investing in facilities (new stadium) and its a great education...that said I think if Curtis Johnson lays another egg he may be a football version of Trilli.

Basically, he'd be the their version of Todd Dodge...

Edited July 18, 2013 by untjim1995

[Harry]

Basically, he'd be the their version of Todd Dodge...

Ha yes ... one thing you made me think of in terms of Dodge -- he could recruit some decent talent as our roster now would indicate but he was a terrible manager of keeping the talent on the field. I think his jump the shark moment was when Giovanni Vizza walked away. Dodge seemed clueless to this happening. How in goodness sakes could you not be communicating with your top QB on these issues? Maybe because he was busy commuting to Southlake?

[untjim1995]

Ha yes ... one thing you made me think of in terms of Dodge -- he could recruit some decent talent as our roster now would indicate but he was a terrible manager of keeping the talent on the field. I think his jump the shark moment was when Giovanni Vizza walked away. Dodge seemed clueless to this happening. How in goodness sakes could you not be communicating with your top QB on these issues? Maybe because he was busy commuting to Southlake?

I think Todd Dodge truly believed that Riley could run his offense just as well, if not better, than Vizza. Problem was that Vizza was bigger than Riley and he could handle the beating that a sieve OL caused each QB to take. Vizza was a really bad fit from the start at UNT. He played at Alamo Heights in a stadium that was nicer than Fouts and they had more support financially for their rich suburban HS program than UNT had.

Dodge was just in over his head. The AD should have told him that the idea of having a high school coach to come in as a defensive coordinator was not going to happen. If you wanted Mendoza to be your LBs coach or DBs coach, then fine. But since he was his own OC, having two non-experienced FBS coaches as your coordinators was a disaster waiting to happen. By the time that got straightened out, it was too late for the success of the program.

Dodge could recruit because of his name recognition and his HS success, but it was clear after Year 2 that this was not going to end well and he went hard after JCs. You had to give him a thrid year if money is/was as tight as it apparently is/was at UNT after Dickey's buyout, but the true mistake--one we may not be able to ever dig up from--was letting him get a 4th year after he went 2-10 in Year 3. You knew what you had, but went for the most cost-effective choice by giving Dodge one more year so that the buyout to the university would only be one year. What it would've cost the program for a buyout , in my opinion, has been dwarfed by the continued hole we dug in 2010. I truly believe Coach Mac when he says that we were the smallest Division 1 school he had ever been around when he got here. He has just begun to get this thing up to a standard of just being bad--that is how truly awful we got. Remember, in 2007, we lost at FIU, which was their first win in two years, and in 2008, we got a late interception in the end zone to keep us from losing to Western Kentucky, which was our only win that year and kept WKU winless again. If Mac cannot rebuild it all here, I'm not sure anyone could have done any better from where we were at. The academics have improved, the size has improved, and the college coaching experience has improved greatly--that it has improved us to 9 wins in two years over the previous total of 8 wins in 4 years is proof that Mac is improving us and, more importantly, that Todd Dodge was truly the worst head football coach this university has ever employed.

Edited July 18, 2013 by untjim1995

[Green Dozer]

I think Todd Dodge truly believed that Riley could run his offense just as well, if not better, than Vizza. Problem was that Vizza was bigger than Riley and he could handle the beating that a sieve OL caused each QB to take. Vizza was a really bad fit from the start at UNT. He played at Alamo Heights in a stadium that was nicer than Fouts and they had more support financially for their rich suburban HS program than UNT had.

Dodge was just in over his head. The AD should have told him that the idea of having a high school coach to come in as a defensive coordinator was not going to happen. If you wanted Mendoza to be your LBs coach or DBs coach, then fine. But since he was his own OC, having two non-experienced FBS coaches as your coordinators was a disaster waiting to happen. By the time that got straightened out, it was too late for the success of the program.

Dodge could recruit because of his name recognition and his HS success, but it was clear after Year 2 that this was not going to end well and he went hard after JCs. You had to give him a thrid year if money is/was as tight as it apparently is/was at UNT after Dickey's buyout, but the true mistake--one we may not be able to ever dig up from--was letting him get a 4th year after he went 2-10 in Year 3. You knew what you had, but went for the most cost-effective choice by giving Dodge one more year so that the buyout to the university would only be one year. What it would've cost the program for a buyout , in my opinion, has been dwarfed by the continued hole we dug in 2010. I truly believe Coach Mac when he says that we were the smallest Division 1 school he had ever been around when he got here. He has just begun to get this thing up to a standard of just being bad--that is how truly awful we got. Remember, in 2007, we lost at FIU, which was their first win in two years, and in 2008, we got a late interception in the end zone to keep us from losing to Western Kentucky, which was our only win that year and kept WKU winless again. If Mac cannot rebuild it all here, I'm not sure anyone could have done any better from where we were at. The academics have improved, the size has improved, and the college coaching experience has improved greatly--that it has improved us to 9 wins in two years over the previous total of 8 wins in 4 years is proof that Mac is improving us and, more importantly, that Todd Dodge was truly the worst head football coach this university has ever employed.

You must have some writers working for you.

[UNT90]

I think Todd Dodge truly believed that Riley could run his offense just as well, if not better, than Vizza. Problem was that Vizza was bigger than Riley and he could handle the beating that a sieve OL caused each QB to take. Vizza was a really bad fit from the start at UNT. He played at Alamo Heights in a stadium that was nicer than Fouts and they had more support financially for their rich suburban HS program than UNT had.

Dodge was just in over his head. The AD should have told him that the idea of having a high school coach to come in as a defensive coordinator was not going to happen. If you wanted Mendoza to be your LBs coach or DBs coach, then fine. But since he was his own OC, having two non-experienced FBS coaches as your coordinators was a disaster waiting to happen. By the time that got straightened out, it was too late for the success of the program.

Dodge could recruit because of his name recognition and his HS success, but it was clear after Year 2 that this was not going to end well and he went hard after JCs. You had to give him a thrid year if money is/was as tight as it apparently is/was at UNT after Dickey's buyout, but the true mistake--one we may not be able to ever dig up from--was letting him get a 4th year after he went 2-10 in Year 3. You knew what you had, but went for the most cost-effective choice by giving Dodge one more year so that the buyout to the university would only be one year. What it would've cost the program for a buyout , in my opinion, has been dwarfed by the continued hole we dug in 2010. I truly believe Coach Mac when he says that we were the smallest Division 1 school he had ever been around when he got here. He has just begun to get this thing up to a standard of just being bad--that is how truly awful we got. Remember, in 2007, we lost at FIU, which was their first win in two years, and in 2008, we got a late interception in the end zone to keep us from losing to Western Kentucky, which was our only win that year and kept WKU winless again. If Mac cannot rebuild it all here, I'm not sure anyone could have done any better from where we were at. The academics have improved, the size has improved, and the college coaching experience has improved greatly--that it has improved us to 9 wins in two years over the previous total of 8 wins in 4 years is proof that Mac is improving us and, more importantly, that Todd Dodge was truly the worst head football coach this university has ever employed.

I agree, except for the "Whoa is me" speeches Mac gave when coming here. Many of those same players are starting for this year's team. That was smart coach speak to lower expectations.

We played in the Sun Belt, which was comparable to the MAC. Ball St. went either ofer or 1-11 the year we beat them (2009?) to start the season. Last year, they went to a bowl. Rebuilding shouldn;t take forever, and MAc should be gone if we aren't bowl eligible at the end of 2013.

But, only at North Texas will we extend a 5 win coach after his 3rd year with no bowl appearances. I fully expect that to happen. IF we win 5 games.

Hell, I expect it to happen anyway.

[PlummMeanGreen]

Tulane beat the much vaunted mighty Mustangs of SMU in 2012. According to DMN this is the equivalent of A$Ms victory over AL. Never question one who has reached the heights of conquering the 'Stangs. That being said I' have made my reservations to be in N.O. when we kick their butts in our C-USA opener!

And my always reliable sources told me that that one game before 500 fans in the SuperDome was the thing that clinched a Big East/AAC membership for both schools. Of course that and what they were also doing post-Custer's last stand era of the NCAA, too.

Wonder just which schools actually do impress this Green Wave receiver?

GMG!

PS: I think whoever we have as our starting QB for the Tulane game will be leading the way to light up the SuperDome scoreboard. With a good offensive line (2 of whom that made Phil Steele's All CUSA conference teams), a good running back crew and receivers some think will step forward (especially the UT-Austin transfer) I think those 3 things will be the reasons why.

Yes, it's hard to think forward when it seems most all we do is think backwards because of where we've been, but I think beginning this Fall we will be re-introduced to an old statistical friend of Mean Green football; that is, when the " Mr. W's" outnumbers the "Mr. L's" and won't that be so nice?

GMG ! !

Edited July 18, 2013 by PlummMeanGreen

[ragpicker]

We can beat Tulane.

[emmitt01]

I agree, except for the "Whoa is me" speeches Mac gave when coming here. Many of those same players are starting for this year's team. That was smart coach speak to lower expectations.

We played in the Sun Belt, which was comparable to the MAC. Ball St. went either ofer or 1-11 the year we beat them (2009?) to start the season. Last year, they went to a bowl. Rebuilding shouldn;t take forever, and MAc should be gone if we aren't bowl eligible at the end of 2013.

But, only at North Texas will we extend a 5 win coach after his 3rd year with no bowl appearances. I fully expect that to happen. IF we win 5 games.

Hell, I expect it to happen anyway.

You have to understand though that he inherited a mess from the Dodge era. We have an administration in place that is trying to dig us out of that mess.

Shhhh...don't mention that the same guy who allowed that mess to fester and ooze for FOUR years is still sitting on the throne.

Edited July 19, 2013 by emmitt01

[The Fake Lonnie Finch]

Just about every coach hired anywhere is "inheriting a mess." Otherwise, why would most of the jobs be open.

(Yes, I realize some coaches jump from good program to good program. But, most jobs open because of failure/firing or the previous coaching staff.)

You cannot get any crappier than the 2001 and 2002 seasons for Tulsa:
2001: 1-10 with the only win coming versus Division I-AA Indiana State to open the season
2002: 1-11 with the only win coming versus a UTEO squad that finished the year at 2-10...with one of those two wins being versus Division I-AA competition

At the time, I was in law school up there and was taking the the two Sports Law classes from Ray Yasser (one of the two people who write the caselaw textbooks for law schools. If you love to read lawsuits about collective bargaining agreements, scholarship disputes, injury settlements, etc. in sports, pro and amatuer, you would love this book. Pick up a used copy here: http://www.addall.com/New/submitNew.cgi?query=Yasser+Ray&type=Author&location=&state=AK&dispCurr=USD)

Yasser was the legal advisor to the TU athletic department at the time as well, and several former TU football players were in law school as well. The serious talk after the 2002 season was whether or not Tulsa would stay I-A in football or drop the pretense and go I-AA. The 2002 season was their 11th consecutive losing season, a streak during which they won more than four games only once. Going back 15 years, at that point, they'd only had one winning season.

Keith Burns had just failed, and many were stunned. Burns had been the defensive coordinator at Southern Cal and Arkansas the six years prior to his hiring at TU. He'd coached under John Robinson at USC and won a Rose Bowl with him. He went to Arkansas with Houston Nutt and his Hog defense shut Texas down in a 27-6 win in the Cotton Bowl following the 1999 season.

Burns' calling card was tough defenses, and Tulsa improved from a 2-9 season in 1999 to 5-7 in 2000. The defense surrendered less than 300 points all season, so things appeared to be on the up. Burns seems to have all the right things Tulsa needed. Having played, coached, and recruited at Arkansas, he was familiar with Tulsa area high schools as well as the Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma area that serves the Razorbacks well.

In 2001 and 2002, the bottom dropped out severely. Poor offense and bad defense. Skelly Stadium was in horrible shape. My mom had cheered there back in the late 50s/early 60s when she was in junior high and high school. If you thought Fouts was bad, you hadn't seen Skelly.

Add on to that the fact that TU donors had scored a huge donation from Donald Reynolds to revamp the basketball arena, but he gave Arkansas money to upgrade their football stadium, and it looked like no one cared what happened to TU football. It was so bad following the 2002 season that their starting quarterback, a local hero, transferred to OU...to play baseball!

Burns proved not to be able make it rain recruits at Tulsa. To be fair, Tulsa is a small, small private school, known mainly for petroleum engineering. It is not easy to get into Tulsa anyway. They were on the cusp of being a Top 100 U.S. New & World Report School (as on 2013, they have now been Top 100 for 10 consecutive years). Their acceptance rate for applicants hoevered in the high 30s/low 40s %.

Like Rice, you had to be able to really be a good academic student to play football at TU. At the time, TU didn't have any P.E./Coaching/Recreation Management-type degrees than most big schools hustle their football players into.

Enter Steve Kragthorpe. A complete gamble. The former NORTH TEXAS and Texas A&M offensive coordinator had just finished two years in the NFL as the QB coach at Buffalo. Kragthorpe came into the fold with the same crappy facilities Dave Radar and Keith Burns had to deal with and the same recruiting challenges of recruiting excellent football players to a small, private school which was academic heavy,

In 2003, Kragthorpe did the seemingly impossible. He took a bunch of "inhereted" players from Radar and Burns, combined them with one very average recruiting class, and led the Golden Hurricane to an 8-4 regular season. They lost the Humanitarian Bowl to Georgia Tech.

But, the TU donors lit up. Plans to drop to I-AA were put on the backburner. They were replaced with plans to revamp old Skelly.

Skelly and the whole area were revamped. Old apartments nearby were knocked down and replaced by new ones. A nice wall and gate were added around the exrerior to give a feel of enclosure for pre-game activities. And, although in my opinion, Skelly is still pretty bush league in size, they did clean it up and give it a nice refacing all around.

Anyway, I've taken the long way around just to say this - at a smaller place, with longer odds, "inherited players" were somehow coached into winning and becoming the building blocks to a program that has become a consistently competitive mid-major.

"Inherited players"...some coaches make it work with them. Others do not.

[untjim1995]

I loved Steve Kragthorpe. That guy was a fun guy to be around and he was very good at offensive gameplans and making QBs believe in themselves. His success at Tulsa never surprised me. His failure at Louisville did. He took over bad leftovers and made them believe that they could accomplish big things at Tulsa. HE also knew that winning games against DFW teams would help turn on a pipeline to Tulsa from the Metroplex. He knew that DFW kids would like to go to a school that was a good academic institution but was farther away from home than TCU, SMU, or UNT. He took much glee in that 54-2 ass-whipping because he knew that it effectively killed UNT's progress, meaning he had one less program to beat out for recruits. He did the same thing with victories over SMU, too. What surprised me at Louisville was how Petrino's leftovers from a BCS Bowl team never jelled under Kragthorpe--probably because both coaches were opposites in personalities, I suspect. I was very much on record as wanting Kragthorpe as our head coach when Dodge got fired, but his health situation obviously would have kept that from ever happening.

Fast forward to Dan McCarney. I was on board with his hiring and still am. I think the similarities are there bwtween the two programs, but as TFLF mentioned, Burns was a successful college coordinator before he became head coach at Tulsa. He knew what a college football player should look like, both in size and in spirit. Kragthorpe took over a team full of college football players. Coach Mac took over a team from a high school coach that left him with the smallest lines in the country, and no defensive playmakers on the entire roster. He basically got Lance Dunbar and full roster of FCS or lower level players. I think he has tried to turn this thing around the best he can and I still believe in Coach Mac's ability to do that. This year will tell us a lot, but I suspect that Coach Mac will do enough to get us to 5+ wins this year and get an extension. If we get to 5 wins this year, that means he will have won 14 games in the last 3 years under McCarney--or the equal of the previous 6 years under Dickey, Dodge, and Chico. It will just add an element of stability that we desperately need here under a legitimate college coach that is fan friendly, both of which we haven't seen here at UNT since Fry roamed the sidelines. I want him to succeed badly and his failure at UNT will surprise me, in part, because I truly believe that he if cannot fix this here with his experience as a rebuilder, then it probably can't get fixed by anybody.