How Tulane football rebooted its offense in turnaround from 2-10 to Cotton Bowl

Publish date: 2024-05-02

The dramatic one-year turnaround of the Tulane football program is best explained by the personality of its head coach, Willie Fritz. Anyone who knows Fritz is not surprised by what’s taken shape in New Orleans.

Fritz is a proven winner, and Monday’s Cotton Bowl against USC is the culmination of his 29-year climb up the college head coaching ladder. Before he led the Green Wave to their first major bowl bid since the 1939 season, he was perhaps the most accomplished coach many had never heard of.

His head coaching journey started at Blinn College in Texas, where he won consecutive junior college national championships in 1995 and 1996. He compiled a 103-47 record at Division II Central Missouri from 1997 to 2009, then led Sam Houston to back-to-back FCS national championship game appearances in 2011 and 2012, then went 17-7 in two years guiding Georgia Southern’s FBS transition.

But a year ago, his Tulane program was reeling. After three consecutive bowl bids, Tulane plummeted to 2-10. Many felt the offense was a big reason why. The Green Wave ranked seventh out of 11 AAC teams in scoring (27.6 points per game) and eighth in yards (386.5). An eight-game losing streak was capped by three consecutive games with 13 points or fewer. Some who remained on staff pointed to a difference in philosophy under former offensive coordinator Chip Long, who replaced current Southern Miss head coach Will Hall and then bolted for Georgia Tech one year later.

It wasn’t solely on the shoulders of Long, either. Before the 2021 campaign began, the program was displaced due to Hurricane Ida’s impact on the Gulf Coast. And that was just the start. The Green Wave didn’t play a home game until Week 4, when they suffered a heartbreaking 28-21 loss to UAB.

“Can’t pretend that didn’t affect us,” said former receivers coach Jeff Conway, who stepped down after the 2021 season. “One loss bled into another. It became a huge problem for other games.”

Tulane never regained momentum and had its worst season since 2012.

The setback made Fritz’s hiring of his third offensive coordinator in as many years crucial. Fritz has built his brand on special teams and defense. His offensive system is tied to the coordinators he’s hired. He’s had quite a few good systems through the years, from Bob DeBesse’s triple-option at Sam Houston to Chris Ault’s pistol operation at Central Missouri to Hall’s multiple-personnel scheme. And he’s known for giving coordinators full autonomy to run the show, provided they followed the No. 1 rule in his plan to win: Run the football.

When he jumped out of character last winter to hire former Central Missouri head coach Jim Svoboda, it confused many from the outside. Svoboda’s offenses have been successful at the Division II level, but he’s a West Coast disciple whose run game never cracked the top 25 nationally. At the time of his hiring, Svoboda had one stipulation: He was allowed to bring in receivers coach John McMenamin, who was the offensive coordinator with him at Central Missouri for five years.

For those inside the Tulane program, the move made sense. Although Svoboda was coming from lower ranks, Fritz was so adamant about hiring the right guy this time around that he didn’t care about which level he was coming from.

“Jim and Johnny Mac were good people and treat kids the right way,” said Conway, who sat in on the interview process. “He needed a centered individual. That was very important with Fritz’s next hire.”

Turns out Svoboda’s impact was more mental than tactical. He provided some stability for quarterback Michael Pratt, who struggled with the transition from Hall to Long.

“When Will (Hall) left, we had to resuscitate him,” Conway said. “A year ago, he was beaten up and pressure-packed. He became a completely different person this spring when Svoboda arrived.”

But on the field in spring ball, Fritz wasn’t seeing what he needed from Pratt and the offense. He split up squads for the spring game — Svoboda led one grouping and tight ends coach Slade Nagle led the other. By this time, Nagle was the only holdover from Long’s contingent and had been with Fritz for seven seasons. And Fritz saw enough on one side to warrant a drastic change in the operating system of the offense. Conversations with Nagle began to emerge regarding a shift to him controlling the offense.

In July, Fritz turned the keys to his offense over to Nagle, a tight ends coach with no prior coordinator experience, multiple sources with knowledge of the operation confirmed.

Some may say an offensive shift three weeks before camp is inconceivable, particularly in the high-stakes world of college football. But here’s what you need to know about Fritz: For 29 years as a head coach, he’s become the consummate adjuster, able to regroup and regain momentum when the entire program gets flipped on its ear.

“Historically, he knows how to take the resources he has and find out ways to make things work,” Hall said.

As it turns out, Fritz didn’t get the hire wrong, he just read the room right, again showing a willingness to quickly adapt.

It marked an end to Svoboda’s full control over the offense. And in stepped Nagle.

Tulane rose from 73rd to 22nd in scoring this season. (Dylan Buell / Getty Images)

Nagle’s relationship with Fritz began in 2010 when he was an assistant at Texas State and Fritz was still coaching Sam Houston.

A son of local prep coaching legend Johnny Nagle, Slade spent most of his early coaching days tailing Fritz at every clinic he attended to grill him on special teams questions. So Slade Nagle was working as the special teams coordinator at nearby McNeese State when Fritz decided to bring him aboard.

“It became a no-brainer,” said Conway, who was also one of Fritz’s first hires. “Slade was already there and had ties to the area. We knew it would help with recruiting.”

Nagle also had close ties to Hall (who recruited Pratt), close enough that Hall thought Nagle might be next in line for the job when he departed for Hattiesburg. Nagle’s offensive roots were grounded in a two-tight-end pro system, a stark contrast to the 11-personnel, West Coast system Svoboda was accustomed to. It didn’t take long for Nagle to plant his flag. Tulane went back to its core of being a run-driven, heavy play-action outfit. The Green Wave shifted to using more multiple tight end groupings to take advantage of the skill sets of Tyrick James and Will Wallace, lining up in 12 personnel on 40 percent of snaps — 11th most in the country, according to Pro Football Focus.

Nagle also decided to move to more gap and inside zone schemes, which was a drastic shift from Svoboda’s philosophy of using the one-back wide zone principles that he utilized at Central Missouri.

“You can see Slade Nagle’s influence throughout their run game and play-action schemes,” Hall said. “Slade had a major influence on the run game when I was there, and you can see the carry over to that now. You can see and feel the influence he’s had on the year they’ve had.”

Svoboda admitted the misstep in evaluating the run game.

“Our thought early on was the outside zone would be our calling card because we don’t have the biggest offensive lineman, but they are athletic,” Svoboda said. “But as the season progressed, inside zone and gap runs was more of what we were going to be.”

Svoboda is the first to credit Nagle and offensive line coach Eman Naghavi for the advancement of Tulane’s run game, which is averaging 197 yards per game this season. Naghavi worked with Nagle at McNeese, where Naghavi played from 2005-08. He was a refreshing hire for a unit that cycled through three new line coaches in a short time span. Rounding out the offensive staff was running backs coach Derrick Sherman, who worked with Fritz in a run-option system at Georgia Southern.

“(Nagle’s) knowledge of the personnel we had was extremely important,” Svoboda said. “You have to use the talents in the room and he’s been phenomenal at that.”

Fritz talks about a “collaborative working environment,” where all opinions are valued. Despite the late changeover, people around the program have said things in the offensive room stayed copasetic. That’s been a credit to Svoboda, who has been a successful head coach for 12 years and understood what Tulane needed to do to win.

The result is an offensive system centered around four foundational principles.

Gap scheme runs

Once he was given the reins, Nagle nixed the outside zone for more gap-oriented runs, which better suited the skill set of running back Tyjae Spears. At 5 feet 11, 170 pounds, Spears can get behind pullers on these schemes.

“It allowed him to be square-shouldered where he can stick a foot in the ground and get vertical,” Nagle said.

And after a slow start to the season, Spears has generated seven consecutive 100-yard rushing games, which Nagle credits for tightening the system and getting him more touches earlier in the game. Over the past seven weeks, Spears has amassed more than 40 percent of his rushing output in the first quarter alone.

“We just started to run inside zone and gap schemes and got him more reps on them in practice,” Nagle said. “Eventually, he started to get comfortable in what we were doing.”

Pratt also became a viable run threat in the power read game. He has tallied 148 rushing yards in the last three games, which is 37 percent of his entire rushing output. While Svoboda had a background in the concept, he wanted it to be a priority run, whereas Nagle felt it was better suited as a changeup.

“We liked Mike to run the ball, but we had to protect him,” he said. “He can’t run the ball 15 times. If we made that an A-list run, defenses can predicate what you do and now your QB is running the ball every play.”

Tulane will run the concept on any down and distance but has been especially effective with it in the red zone, using some sort of flash motion to get defenders to expand, opening up interior cavities in the run box. And both Nagle and Svoboda have gotten Pratt to take some hits off his frame.

“It took an act of Congress for him to hit the turf last season,” Conway said. “Now they are being more selective in how they run him.”

Nagle advanced the concept by building in unbalanced formations to overload defenses.

In the clip below, Tulane overloads the field with five skill defenders, and the addition of flash motion with speedy receiver Lawrence Keys forces defenders to pursue laterally, allowing for Pratt to square his shoulders and get downhill.

Speed sweeps

The addition of Keys, a 5-foot-11, 170-pound graduate transfer from Notre Dame, helped jump-start the run game in the latter half of the season, particularly when defenses start to pack the box. Keys’ role is to run the jet sweep element, taking eyes off Pratt. It was additionally a role for Central Missouri transfer Shae Wyatt, who previously played the Z position. The staff discovered in practice that Keys was a better fit as the X, so they built in slot formation looks to line up Keys off the ball.

“He’s been the evolution of this offense,” Svoboda said. “He’s really got good ball skills and he’s good at reading blocks. Not everyone can do that.”

He’s so fast that Tulane chooses not to block any C-gap defenders to the play side, allowing the tight end and wing to block the support defenders.

In the clip below, Keys outruns the defensive end and gets chunk yardage on the concept.

Horizontal constraint RPOs

Once Keys got rolling on the jet sweep, Nagle and the staff advanced to using those same fast-flow elements to get the ball to Wyatt or Jha’Quan Jackson in space. They are termed “flat constraints,” where the backside C gap defender is being read on the run action, but rather than Pratt being the second element on the run, it’s Wyatt in the flat. The play-side receiver blocks the most dangerous threat.

This one results in a touchdown:

The addition of a tight end in the formation, James, now allows Pratt to read a second-level defender on the same concept.

If the overhang defender plays the flat threat as he does below, it allows Pratt to tuck and run.

These same horizontal constraints are being utilized with pre-snap RPO tags, where Spears is getting the ball in space with receivers able to block in front of him. It’s a numbers advantage for the offense, as the nearest unblocked defender is standing 12 yards deep at the third level.

In the clip below, nobody moves with the running back motion, so the quarterback is throwing the bubble to Spears. It’s another way to get a “fast five” yards with an athletic player in space.

Nagle started packaging RPOs with the quarterback run game and Tulane leaned on them heavily to beat eventual Big 12 champion Kansas State 17-10 in Week 3. With their three-down front, the Wildcats couldn’t match hats in the box against the QB run. Pratt carried 13 times for 87 yards, mainly pairing QB draws with the quick game. In the clip below, Pratt runs the draw off a fade/out concept from a 2×2 open set, forcing overhang defenders to create width, generating space in the box.

And once those gap schemes started creasing, it was Nagle who added single receiver glance RPOs to affect high safeties who can be run-fitters. In the clip below, it’s Wyatt who makes a terrific sight adjustment on a 73-yard house call.

Play-action concepts

The last element of Nagle’s system has been heavy play-action with max protections. He calls them “levels” concepts, which are three-level routes where Pratt has the option to read high to low on his progression. Nagle may have dumped the outside zone run game, but he kept the play-action off it. These concepts produced 19 yards per completion so far this season and have been the Green Wave’s most explosive concept.

The clip below is a scissors concept off of outside zone action. Pratt completes for 33 yards to Wyatt against Cincinnati. It’s become a great man-cover beater for the Green Wave.

Against Kansas State, both receivers align to the same side. Jackson fakes like he’s working across the field and then snaps back for a 39-yard completion.

While they are mainly two-man routes, Nagle will mix in a third element to occupy the high safety. In the clip below against South Florida, Jackson runs the vertical route on top of the scissor combination for a 32-yard completion.

Conclusion

Monday’s game will be the biggest stage for Nagle, who hasn’t called a game in this type of atmosphere in his career. But since he gotten the nod, he’s continually found ways to get the ball in his playmakers’ hands at the right time. He says his game plan will “be aggressive,” and while he’ll be devising one against a USC defense that is in the bottom half of the FBS in both scoring defense and total defense, the Trojans still present one of the stiffest tests Tulane has seen in terms of raw talent and athleticism defensively.

Tulane may have the weapons on offense to complete with USC. But for the Green Wave to bring home their first New Year’s six victory, they’ll need to follow the game plan that got them here: Get Spears the ball early and capitalize in the red zone.

(Top photo of Tyjae Spears: Dylan Buell / Getty Images)