To say that the future is uncertain around the Tulane football program is somewhat of an understatement. The roster turnover that’s hit the Green Wave this offseason has been rehashed over and over again. To gain any sort of clarity about what influx of new personnel actually means for Tulane, though, one must look at the entire organization and start from the top. What exactly is it that new head coach Willie Fritz will be bringing to the table in 2016?
To take a stab at this question, a look at Fritz’s coaching past is needed. Before he sported the Green and White in New Orleans, Fritz made his way everywhere from Texas to Georgia making his longest tenure in Missouri.
A quick glance of his coaching history should give Tulane fans a sense of optimism as Fritz has a history of turning poor teams around. When he was hired as the head man at Blinn College in 1993, he inherited a team who gone 5-21-1 in its last three seasons. Fritz proceeded to take Blinn on a complete 180 leading them to two junior college national championships.
When he stepped up into the bigger leagues, his success didn’t stop. Fritz took the reins at Sam Houston State in 2010, and led the Bearkats to the FCS’s only undefeated season. In his four years at Sam Houston State, the team reached back-to-back national championships and made three consecutive trips to the FCS playoffs.
However, perhaps the most telling part of Fritz’s ability comes from his time at Central Missouri. While there, he compiled a 72-44 record over the span of 13 seasons. Fritz led the Mules to a bowl game win and a berth in the NCAA’s division II national championship.
So what does all that mean for Tulane? If anything, at this juncture Fritz has provided something that Green Wave fans have so desperately needed: hope. His history of taking mediocre teams (using the term generously in some cases) and making them contenders bodes well for Tulane, which last year scratched the bottom of the American Athletic Conference finishing 3-9 overall.
This isn’t to say that 2016 will be “the year” for Tulane. Having a relatively young roster, growing pains will undoubtedly thwart the Wave, at least to some extent. However, it does appear that Tulane made a smart hire when it invited Fritz aboard back in December. On paper, it seems to be the dream acquisition of a guy who knows how to win and get teams to the postseason.
Of course, right now it is pure speculation and until Tulane hits the gridiron this fall, it will be. That being said, fans in the Big Easy are holding out hope that someday, years down the road, Tulane will be on that list of teams that Fritz has turned around.
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