Tulane keeps it one week – and one snoball – at a time

NEW ORLEANS – For the fifth time in the last six Tuesdays, there in the underbelly of Yulman Stadium was a pop-up stand from Plum Street Snoballs, awaiting the Tulane football team after practice.

“Victory snoballs,” they call them.

VICTORY SNOBALLS!!! 🍧#RollWave | #NOLABuilt pic.twitter.com/SeLSlJCvKv

— Tulane Football (@GreenWaveFB) October 11, 2022

After only two visits from the popular Uptown snoball maker last year, the summertime New Orleans favorites have been back with regularity this year.

“We just want to win,” said Tulane coach Willie Fritz. “Our big deal is 1-0 every week. We’ve got to prepare each and every week in order to have an opportunity to win. Our guys understand that.”

The next chance to be 1-0 comes Saturday on the road against South Florida. Tulane is a 12-point favorite over the Bulls, who pushed Cincinnati to the limit last week before losing 28-24.

The difference from a 2-10 season in 2021 and the first half of 2022 has been defense. Tulane has allowed just 80 points in six games, an average of 13.3 per game. That’s good for seventh in the nation and the best in any league not named the Big Ten or SEC.

Additionally, in the second half of four of the Green Wave’s five victories this year, Tulane has pitched a shutout, including in Saturday’s 24-9 victory over East Carolina. Chris Hampton’s defense also ranks in the top 20 nationally in pass efficiency and total yards allowed.

“I thought we played great defensively,” Fritz said of the effort against an ECU team that had averaged 35 points per game in its first five games. “We’re just doing a good job of keeping things in front of us. I thought we had pretty good pressure last Saturday.”

Getting it done on defense is something exciting and new for Tulane fans. In recent history, Tulane’s best teams have had proficient offenses paired with just enough defense to get the job done.

When Tulane opened 2022 by holding its first three opponents to 10 points or less – including a 17-10 victory over a Kansas State team now in the top 25 – it was the first time a Green Wave team had done so since the final three games of the 1981 season, when the late Vince Gibson was walking the sidelines.

The week after the Kansas State game, Tulane had a second-half letdown and lost 27-24 to Southern Miss. Fritz’s team bounced back with a dramatic overtime victory on the road against preseason conference co-favorite Houston, and then delivered a second straight solid effort at home Saturday.

In other words, no letdown this time.

“I thought we had a really good approach to the game,” Fritz said. “There wasn’t a whole lot of screaming and yelling on the sideline. It’s the preparation throughout the week. It was a hard-fought game. (East Carolina is) a whisker away from being 5-0.”

The next snoball visit will mean that Tulane is bowl eligible, and if the Tuesday visits can continue on a regular basis, bigger things could be on the horizon – think national rankings, something Tulane hasn’t seen since 1998, and a trip to the American Athletic Conference championship game.

Tulane’s first half of the regular season already has started to open eyes around the country. It received 42 votes in this week’s Associated Press poll, appearing on the ballots of 18 different voters.

Three teams remain unbeaten in AAC play – Tulane and Cincinnati at 2-0, and UCF at 1-0. All three schools face each other in the final five weeks of the regular season.

But right next to the pop-up snoball stand, inside the Tulane locker room, the focus is strictly on Saturday.

“We shouldn’t be looking ahead,” Fritz said. “We’re just worried about this ballgame with South Florida.”

The Green Wave and Bulls kick off at 3 p.m. CDT Saturday. The game will be televised by ESPNU.