Tulane is the New Orleans private university whose 1925 Sugar Bowl founding + Willie Fritz 2022 12-2 Cotton Bowl championship + Yulman Stadium urban-campus identity define what historic-southern-football looks like.
Riptide the Pelican is patient.
Tulane helped found the Sugar Bowl and the SEC, then nearly drowned — a hurricane-battered, win-starved program that came back from the dead to make the first 12-team Playoff, becoming the first Louisiana team ever to crash the field.
Tulane went 11-3 in 2025, won its second straight AAC title with a 34-21 win over North Texas, and became the first Louisiana program to reach the College Football Playoff, entering as the No. 11 seed before losing 41-10 at Ole Mi…
Tulane helped found the SEC and the Sugar Bowl, then left the conference in 1966 and spent fifty years outside the big time. In 2025, the Green Wave won the AAC title and became the first Louisiana program ever to reach the College Football Playoff. Jon Sumrall coached the Playoff game on his way out the door to Florida.
The founding credential is real: Tulane was a charter member of the Southeastern Conference, hosted the first Sugar Bowls, and won conference championships in the 1920s and 1930s. Then the program de-emphasized, walked away from the SEC, and spent the next half-century as a hard-luck New Orleans program playing in the Superdome while LSU owned the state's football oxygen. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 scattered the team across the country and nearly ended what remained. That history — the founding, the fall, the near-death — is the context for everything Willie Fritz and then Jon Sumrall rebuilt.
Sumrall's 2025 was the loudest chapter yet: an 11-3 season, a 34-21 win over North Texas in the AAC title game, and a Playoff berth as the No. 11 seed — the first Louisiana program ever in the field. QB Jake Retzlaff, a BYU transfer, ran for 16 touchdowns and threw for 14. Ole Miss eliminated Tulane 41-10 in the first round, and Sumrall departed for Florida the day after the season ended, having coached the Playoff game with a new job already signed. Will Hall, promoted from within, now runs the program.
The 2026 question is the one that has haunted this revival: can Tulane keep the coach who wins? Fritz left for Houston after building the 2022 Cotton Bowl team. Sumrall left for Florida after building the Playoff team. Hall is the program's third head coach in three years of sustained success — a New Orleans institution that has proven it can reach the Playoff and has not yet proven it can hold the men who took it there.
New Orleans resilience — physical, opportunistic, defense-and-run football built on a chip earned from coming back from the brink. Retzlaff's dual-threat skill set gave the 2025 offense a floor when the passing game stalled; Hall inherits a system built around that versatility and a roster that has experienced back-to-back conference title runs. Yulman Stadium, the on-campus home Tulane returned to in 2014 after decades in the Superdome, puts football back at the heart of uptown New Orleans — and makes the program feel like a destination again.
Tulane fields a strong offense behind a solid, bend-don't-break defense.
Identity computed from opponent-adjusted EPA, success rate, explosiveness, and run/pass volume — percentiles vs all FBS.
Offseason
69 days
until kickoff · Sun Aug 30 · 17:00 UTC
The team's recruiting rank of #74 and significant transfer losses suggest a challenging path, though incoming talent may provide opportunities for improvement.
Recruiting Class
#74 nationally
2025 cycle · 247 composite rating 175.3
Outside the recruiting top 60. Roster gaps must close via portal.
Returning Production
15%
2025 cycle · CFBD weighted
Heavy roster turnover. QB position open.
Talent Composite
#68 nationally
2025 cycle · 247 composite 650.9
Outside the talent top 60. The wins must be earned in development.
Portal Movement
20 in / 27 out
2026 cycle · in 20 / out 27
Portal losses outpace additions; position detail lives in Roster Reload.
the open questionwhere does it go from here?
Tulane enters 2025 rated No. 45 in SP+ (+6.3).
What moved it — offseason · last 30 days
Five Lenses
What people are saying right now
Brief Part III §33.4 · Tulane
Above the program's recent baseline.
Statement win that reshapes recruiting.
Plausible breakthrough.
Beyond modern reach without a transformative year.
Tulane · Next-Season Outcome Band
Final-season-aware projection: floor / base / ceiling include conference title and CFP games where the model supports them, so a ceiling can exceed a 12-game regular season.
Market outlook
Sportsbook consensus · best odds across multiple books · 2026-06-22
Recruiting Reload - Top 3 commits
2026 classRecruiting Footprint · 2026
11AL leads the 2026 class with 2 commits. National footprint reaching 7 states.
Where they recruit · 2023-2026
47 signees across 9 states, 2023-2026. LA leads the pull.
Most Similar Programs · Tulane
Static-attribute similarity across tier, archetype, conference, and voice. Not a prediction — a calibration.
Coaching Era · Tulane
Jon Sumrall in year 2 of the rebuild. The methodology is taking shape.
Three gameday rituals — the ones outsiders never quite catch.
since 1925
Tulane co-founded the Sugar Bowl game in 1925 — the first-ever Sugar Bowl was a Tulane vs Temple matchup. The Sugar Bowl became one of CFB's premier postseason fixtures, partially due to Tulane's institutional role + New Orleans geographic identity. The Sugar Bowl's roots are uniquely Tulane's.
since 2022
Willie Fritz's 2022 12-2 + American Athletic championship + Cotton Bowl championship (beating USC 46-45 in the Cotton Bowl) + #9 final AP rank was the program's modern peak. The 2022 win + the 17-point fourth-quarter comeback + Michael Pratt at QB cemented Tulane as G5 contender.
since 2014
Yulman Stadium (built 2014) — Tulane's first on-campus stadium since 1974 — anchors the modern era. The 30,000 capacity + Uptown New Orleans setting + the Mardi Gras / Bourbon Street game-day proximity make the venue uniquely New Orleans + uniquely Tulane.
Fanbase Health Index · Tulane · medium confidence
Home-Field Advantage · Tulane · 2018-present
70% home win rate vs 61% on the road. margin runs +11.4 better at home.
Statement Wins · 2025
2 wins over AP top-25 opponents. Headlined by #20 North Texas.
Tulane reads strongest in explosive plays allowed (top 17%) and passing epa (top 20%); the crux lives in success rate allowed, where Tulane sits at the 20th percentile.
offense · strengths lead
defense · higher bar = harder to play against
hidden math · special situations
Tulane enters 2025 rated No. 45 in SP+ (+6.3). It is bottom-quintile returning production — heavy turnover entering the season. SP+ is a tempo-free efficiency model — it describes what the program HAS done. The season is the test of whether it's still true. The preview consensus leans in — but preseason ratings reward the recent past, not the season ahead.
Every line is a door. Evidence opens in place — verbatim outlet headlines for news sources, verbatim fan text attributed to the community not the individual (never a username). Works with JavaScript off.
The optimistic read: recruiting wins, momentum, and the 'this is real' takes.
The analytical counter: rankings, results and 'the hype is ahead of the tape' takes.
Nothing in our corpus yet — this door stays open for when there is.
Only 1 of 1 board posts mention it — below our floor to call a community stance. Shown as texture, not a verdict.
The boards ≠ the fanbase: a vocal, self-selected slice. Per-event for/against lands when event-level sentiment coverage is wired.
Recent Form · last 10 games
Four of five. The board favors this trend.
Season Standing · 2025 · 11-3 · CFP #20 / AP #17
Tulane: Ranked in the AP/Coaches polls, 16-25. National relevance achieved.
American Athletic Standing · 2025
Tulane is 3rd in the American Athletic at 11-3. 2 teams above — that's the direct path to the title game.
| # | Program | Record |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | North Texas | 12-2 |
| 2 | Navy | 11-2 |
| 3 | Tulane | 11-3 |
| 4 | East Carolina | 9-4 |
| 5 | South Florida | 9-4 |
| 6 | Memphis | 8-5 |
| 7 | Army | 7-6 |
| 8 | UTSA | 7-6 |
| 9 | Temple | 5-7 |
| 10 | Rice | 5-8 |
| 11 | Florida Atlantic | 4-8 |
| 12 | Tulsa | 4-8 |
| 13 | UAB | 4-8 |
| 14 | Charlotte | 1-11 |
Schedule Strength · Tulane · 2025
Average opponent win rate 52% across 13 finalized games. 3 AP top-25 opponents played (North Texas, Ole Miss, Memphis).
Top Players · 2025
2025NFL Draft Pipeline
2023–20256 picks last 5 cycles. Pipeline emerging.
Moment of the Year · Tulane · 2025
Week 17 of 2025. A reckoning loss — the data point the next season must answer.
Bowl / Postseason Ledger
Most recent: 2025 — loss 41-10 (away). Last 5 postseason: 1-3.
From the Archive — Tulane
In 2024, the program lost 14-35 at Army — a stinging road result, 21 points either way.
Roll Wave. New Orleans cheers.