Tulane football coaching job pluses, minuses and candidates after Willie Fritz

Publish date: 2024-06-04

Tulane needs a new head coach, after Willie Fritz accepted the head coaching job at Houston.

Fritz went 54-47 in eight seasons, including a remarkable 23-4 run over the last two years with a 2022 American Athletic Conference championship and a Cotton Bowl win over USC. Fritz turned down Georgia Tech a year ago and indicated Tulane may be his last job. But the chance to coach at the Power 5 level and return to Texas was too much to pass up this time around.

“Since he arrived in 2016, Coach Fritz has transformed the experience and expectations of Tulane football, leading the Green Wave to more bowl appearances than any Tulane coach, including a historic Goodyear Cotton Bowl victory last season,” school president Michael A. Fitts said in a statement. “This season was equally impressive as the Green Wave hosted the American Athletic Conference Championship for the second year in a row. We wish Coach Fritz every success in the future and will always be grateful for the legacy he built at Tulane and his contributions to our student-athletes’ lives.”

The school has hired a search firm, and Fitts said they plan to hire a new head coach “within the week,” so this will move fast. New athletic director David Harris doesn’t officially start until Jan. 3, so expect Fitts to play a big role in the search.

So how good is the Tulane job? What names could get in the mix? Here are the factors to keep in mind.

Tulane has become a winning program and one of the better Group of 5 jobs

It’s been a long road back for a school that infamously quit the SEC in the 1960s for a variety of reasons. That decision had come years after de-emphasizing athletics. The program eventually worked its way back to a 12-0 season in 1998 under Tommy Bowden, but the Green Wave weren’t invited to a major bowl game as a non-BCS school.

It was back to the lean years after that. In the following 19 years, Tulane had just three winning seasons and two bowl appearances. That trajectory finally changed under Fritz, as the program reached three consecutive bowl games from 2018 to ’20. The 2021 season was marred by a hurricane that displaced the team to start the season, and the Green Wave finished 2-10. Back in a normal year, Tulane went 12-2 in 2022, the largest turnaround in FBS history. The Cotton Bowl appearance was the program’s first major bowl in 83 years.

With UCF, Houston and Cincinnati out and SMU leaving next year, Tulane will likely be the best job in the AAC moving forward, and winning the AAC always puts a team in contention for the New Year’s Six spot — soon to be a College Football Playoff spot.

The facilities are improving, but will it continue?

Building off the momentum of the 2022 season, more has been done to improve the infrastructure of the program. A new football locker room opened this year. Former athletic director Troy Dannen once said there were plans for a bubble to create an indoor practice environment in 2024, but it’s not clear where those plans stand. There is not yet a performance center either, but it has been talked about.

Dannen and Fritz had created an unprecedented amount of support and momentum. But now they’re gone. Can Harris and whoever the next coach is keep that going?

The NIL support is strong

Tulane has one of the best NIL situations in the Group of 5, with the Fear The Wave collective and other ventures. When quarterback Michael Pratt announced last year that he would return to the Green Wave despite receiving Power 5 interest, he did it through the collective. The Green Wave have a wealthy donor base, and it’s making its way to athletics.

Dannen said in a statement after the Cotton Bowl win that the collective had been “instrumental in providing our student-athletes with the opportunity to benefit from the brands they build as students on our campus. The Fear the Wave Collective is setting the standard among our peers, as national media have recognized it as one of the top collectives in the nation.”

The roster that brought the last two years of success is filtering out

The players that Fritz leaned heavily on for those 23 wins in two seasons are leaving. Running back Tyjae Spears, the 2022 AAC offensive player of the year, is now with the Tennessee Titans. It is a widely held belief among many industry sources that star quarterback Michael Pratt is likely to leave, either for the NFL or as a transfer. This group also lost some defensive stalwarts off last year’s team.

There is still talent here. Tulane is fourth in the AAC in 247Sports’ Team Talent rankings this season. But we’ve seen exoduses with coaching changes before, and the new coach will have work to do to rebuild the roster.

So what names could get in the mix?

Based on conversations with industry sources, here are some potential candidates to keep in mind.

Offensive coordinator Slade Nagle has been at Tulane for eight years and called plays for the last two years of that high-level success. He’s a Louisiana native who has coached almost exclusively in the state, with previous stops at McNeese State, LSU and Northwestern State, among others.

Florida State offensive coordinator Alex Atkins was Tulane’s offensive line coach from 2016 to ’18. He continues to rise and has played an integral role in FSU’s turnaround and 13-0 record this season. At FSU, he inherited one of the worst offensive lines in the Power 5 and turned it into a very good group, and he added coordinator duties in 2022. Before FSU, he was Charlotte’s offensive coordinator in 2019, the only bowl season in program history. It’s possible Atkins could hold out for Power 5 jobs.

LSU quarterbacks coach Joe Sloan has turned Jayden Daniels into a surefire Heisman Trophy finalist, and the Tigers have had one of the best offenses in the SEC for each of the last two years. Before LSU, Sloan was a Louisiana Tech assistant from 2013 to ’21.

Missouri defensive coordinator Blake Baker is a former Tulane linebacker (2000-04) and has improved the Tigers’ defense from one of the worst in the SEC in 2021 to the middle of the pack, shaving off 10 points per game over that time. He also coached at LSU in 2021 and at Louisiana Tech from 2004 to ’18.

Ole Miss defensive coordinator Pete Golding is a Louisiana native with deep ties to the state. He spent 2018 to ’22 as Alabama’s defensive coordinator. In his first season at Ole Miss, Golding’s defense improved in points allowed, and the 10-win Rebels will play Penn State in the Peach Bowl.

Jacksonville State head coach Rich Rodriguez has done a really good job at Jacksonville State, going 17-6 in two years, including an 8-4 record in the program’s first FBS season this year. Rodriguez also knows Tulane, having served as offensive coordinator during that undefeated 1998 season — Bowden had recommended Rodriguez to succeed him, but the school went elsewhere. He nearly took West Virginia to the national championship game, flamed out at Michigan and was successful at Arizona (including a Fiesta Bowl) before getting fired over personal conduct issues. Could the 60-year-old come back to New Orleans?

Would Troy head coach Jon Sumrall be interested? He spent 2012 to ’14 as a Green Wave assistant, and Tulane hired away his defensive coordinator Shiel Wood last offseason. Tulane can likely pay more money and provide more resources. Sumrall is 23-4 in two seasons with consecutive Sun Belt championships. He would’ve been a natural replacement at Kentucky if Texas A&M had hired Mark Stoops, and Sumrall seems like he’ll be an SEC head coach soon. Would he consider Tulane a step up worth considering or keep things rolling at Troy?

Florida State running backs coach David Johnson was a Tulane assistant from 2012 to ’15 and previously spent 11 seasons as a Louisiana high school coach. He has since coached at Memphis and Tennessee and has been at FSU since 2020, playing a key role in the 13-0 start this season.

(Photo: Stephen Lew / USA Today)