Green Wave Opens Season Against Mississippi State
Aug 31, 2004 | Football
Aug. 31, 2004
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2004 TULANE FOOTBALL WEEKLY RELEASE
Game 1 -- Tulane (0-0) at Mississippi State (0-0) -- Sept. 4, 2004
Davis Wade Stadium (55,082) -- 5 p.m. (CDT) -- ESPN2
TULANE HEAD COACH CHRIS SCELFO
Entering his sixth season as the head coach of the Tulane Green Wave, Louisiana native Chris Scelfo owns a career record of 26-34 to rank seventh all-time at Tulane in coaching victories. The only coach in Tulane history with two bowl victories, Scelfo began his head coaching career at the 1998 Liberty Bowl. He has sent eight of his Green Wave players to the NFL, including a pair of first-round draft choices at quarterback in Patrick Ramsey (Redskins) and J.P. Losman (Bills). Scelfo's last three teams have posted graduation rates of 89, 82 and 79 percent, respectively and more than 60 Green Wave football players have earned their degrees in the last four years. A 1986 graduate of Northeast Louisiana (now University of Louisiana-Monroe), Scelfo spent the 1996-98 seasons as the assistant head coach and offensive line coach at Georgia and won a Division I-AA national championship as an assistant coach at Marshall, where he worked for six years (1990-95). The Thundering Herd also claimed three I-AA runner-up finishes during his time at Marshall. Scelfo was a three-year letterwinner at center at ULM where he served as team captain in 1985.
ON THE AIR
Tulane-Mississippi State on TV The Tulane-MSU game will be broadcast to a national audience on ESPN2. Play-by-play man Eric Collins, color analyst Andre Ware and sideline reporter Jimmy Dykes form the broadcast team.
Tulane Coaches' Call-In Show
Head Coach Chris Scelfo joins host Sean Kelley and other members of the Green Wave head coaching staff each Monday night during the season at Superior Grill (3636 St. Charles Ave.) from 7-8 p.m. The show can be heard on several stations of the Tulane ISP Radio Network, including Tulane flagship WTIX-AM 690.
"Tulane Football with Head Coach Chris Scelfo"
Catch highlights of the Green Wave's previous game, comments from Scelfo on the upcoming opponent, and player features, each week on the Tulane football coaches' television show. The show airs on Cox Sports Television across the state each Thursday night at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday morning at 8 a.m.
Tulane Football Replays on Cox Sports TV
Every Green Wave home game will be broadcast on a tape-delay basis on Cox Sports Television. The statewide network will air the replays at 11 p.m. Saturday nights. In New Orleans, the game will also be seen Mondays at 4 p.m. on Cox 10. Bob DelGiorno Jr., Rich Mauti and sideline reporter Buford Jordan will call the action.
NEWS & NOTES
Ready for Action
Tulane opens its 111th season of intercollegiate football competition Saturday in a historic game at Mississippi State's Davis Wade Stadium. Green Wave Head Coach Chris Scelfo opens his sixth season at the helm of the Tulane program to become the longest-tenured coach at Tulane (in seasons) since Andy Pilney, who spent eight seasons in New Orleans from 1954-61. Tulane has had 10 coaches in the interim, none of whom spent more than five seasons with the Wave.
Return Engagement
The Green Wave and Bulldogs meet for the second consecutive season and for the 55th time ever. Tulane won the 2004 game, 31-28, in the Louisiana Superdome when Green Wave freshman Barrett Pepper kicked a 32-yard field goal with six seconds left to cap a 17-point comeback victory.
Season Openers
Tulane is 60-48-2 all-time in season openers after falling in last year's initial game, 38-35, to Conference USA foe TCU. Tulane's last season-opening win was a 37-19 decision over Southern in 2002. The Green Wave is looking to win its first season-opening road game since the magical 12-0 season in 1998 when Tulane defeated home-standing Cincinnati 52-34. The Green Wave lost season-opening road games in 1999, 2000 and 2001.
TV Time
Saturday's national television broadcast on ESPN2 marks the third time in the last four years that Tulane's first game of the year will be aired nationally. The Green Wave's 2001 lid-lifter versus BYU in the BCA Classic was seen on ESPN2 while last year's Labor Day night opener against TCU was aired on ESPN. Three Tulane games were nationally-televised last year (TCU, Texas, Louisville) while the Army and Southern Miss games were seen by an ESPN Regional audience.
Familiar Foes
Mississippi State is one of the Green Wave's oldest foes as the two teams first met on November 9, 1901 in New Orleans with Tulane claiming a 24-6 win. All-time Tulane, has met only LSU (94) and Ole Miss (69) more times than MSU. Nineteen meetings came when the two schools were members of the Southeastern Conference (1933-65). Mississippi State owns a 27-25-2 lead in the series and has won five of the last six games. Prior to last year's game, the two teams had not met since 1994.
Vs. the SEC
Tulane is 157-231-24 all-time versus teams from the Southeastern Conference, including the 33 seasons it was a member of the league. The Wave's win over Mississippi State a year ago broke a 24-game losing streak to SEC schools (not including a forfeit win over Alabama in 1993) that dated back to a 37-13 win over Vanderbilt in 1989. Chris Scelfo, who coached at Georgia before becoming the Tulane head coach, is 1-3 versus the SEC.
Tuning In
This game with Mississippi State is the only Green Wave game scheduled for national telecast, but Tulane's contests with East Carolina and UAB will be aired throughout the Southeast by ESPN Regional, while every Tulane home game will be replayed on a tape-delay basis on Cox Sports Television in Louisiana.
Longevity
Chris Scelfo, the 36th head coach in Tulane football history, already ranks third all-time in games coached with 60 and needs just three wins this season to move into the school's top five in coaching victories. Scelfo is only the fifth Tulane mentor to coach six seasons at the school. Only two coaches, Hall-of-Famer Clark Shaughnessy (1915-20, 1922-26) with 11 and Pilney (1954-61) with eight, have coached more than six years at Tulane.
Leading the Way
Following preseason practices, Tulane players elected four of their teammates to serve as captains throughout the 2004 season. Three of the four -- FS Joey Dawson, OT Jimmy Kosienski and WR Roydell Williams -- are seniors. They were joined by junior linebacker Anthony Cannon. After the graduation of Tulane's four senior captains a year ago, none of the players had served in the captain's role previously.
`Bama Connection
MSU's Sylvester Croom is the best-known, but not the only, Alabama product coaching in Saturday's game. In fact, Tulane defensive coordinator Eric Schumann and Croom were teammates in Tuscaloosa in 1973 and 1974, before Croom began his coaching career at the school in 1976, while Schumann completed his playing career after the 1977 season. Schumann was a defensive back for legendary coach Paul "Bear" Bryant for four seasons.
Out of the Frying Pan
After a quarterback competition that began last spring, redshirt sophomore Lester Ricard was moved into the top spot on the Tulane depth chart on August 23rd and is expected to make his first career start versus Mississippi State. A Parade and SuperPrep All-American out of Amite High School in 2001, Ricard joined the Green Wave during preseason practices in 2003 after transferring from LSU. He spent last season sitting out as a transfer and learning the offense.
Inexperienced
Tulane's quarterbacking corps -- sophomores Ricard and Nick Cannon, redshirt freshman Richard Irvin and true freshman Scott Elliott -- enter the season with fewer career passing attempts (2) than all but two teams in the nation. Cannon, who spent the 2003 season as the back-up to J.P. Losman, saw action in four games and was 2-for-2 on pass attempts with a touchdown toss versus Navy. None of the other three Wave QBs have seen any game action.
A Quarterbacking Legacy
The next Green Wave quarterback has some large shoes to fill and will have some great expectations heaped upon him. Each of Tulane's last three starting quarterbacks is currently in the NFL -- Shaun King (Tulane starter 1996-98) with the Arizona Cardinals, Patrick Ramsey (1999-2001) of the Washington Redskins and J.P. Losman (2002-03) with the Buffalo Bills. Ramsey and Losman were both first-round draft choices with the Redskins picking Ramsey 32nd in 2002 and Losman going 22nd to the Bills this past year. In fact, having sent three straight starters to the NFL, Tulane ranks fifth among all Division I-A schools, behind only Michigan, Florida, Washington and Oregon (see chart p. 3).
Receiving Accolades
Senior Roydell Williams is one of the top returnees in Conference USA and one of the top receivers in the country after catching a career-high 66 passes for 1,006 yards a year ago. Williams, one of only five players in Tulane history to record a 1,000-yard season, has caught passes in 27 straight games in which he has played, dating back to the 2000 season. With 163 catches for 2,381 career yards and 23 touchdowns, Williams ranks seventh, fifth and fourth on the Tulane career lists. The LaPlace, La. product has a chance to move into the TU top three, joining All-American Marc Zeno (1984-87) and JaJuan Dawson (1996-99). Williams was named to the 2004 Preseason All-Conference USA team after earning first team all-league recognition a year ago.
Touchdown Maker
Williams' fellow receiver Chris Bush earned that title in the last three games of the year, when the senior from LaPlace scored five TDs, including one on each of his last three catches of the season. In the win over East Carolina in the season finale, Bush scored on a career-long 87-yard catch to record the second-longest pass play in Tulane history. Bush also caught a nine-yard TD in the ECU game while his lone grab versus Southern Miss was a 17-yard score. He scored eight receiving TDs on the year to rank second on the team behind Williams.
Home Again
The Green Wave have just one player, sophomore punter Chris Beckman, from Mississippi on the roster this season. Beckman, who is from Grenada, was Tulane's co-MVP on special teams last season after averaging 43.5 yards per punt on 65 kicks last year.
Bastrop's Best
For one town in Louisiana, special teams really will be the most important plays of the game. That's because a pair of Bastrop, Louisiana's native sons are the kickers in this match-up. Tulane's Barrett Pepper, a 2003 graduate of Bastrop High, started last year as a true freshman and made his biggest kick of the season against the Bulldogs, nailing a 32-yard field goal with six seconds left to win the game. On the opposite side of the field, Bastrop's Keith Andrews, a 2002 Ouachita Christian grad, is the number one kicker for MSU as a sophomore. Must be something in the water up in North Louisiana!
Apples to Apples
As a small private school operating under some pretty stringent academic requirements, Tulane's win total over the last five years (since the arrival of Head Coach Chris Scelfo) stands up pretty well in comparison with other "like institutions". All of the following schools are private with high academic requirements and, for the most part, do not admit junior college players. In the comparison, Tulane ranks third of the schools in wins. No schools on the list posted more than two winning seasons during the five-year span from 1999 to 2003.
Forever Young
Tulane's 2004 active roster, including walk-ons, features only 11 seniors and 17 juniors. The remainder of the 94-man roster is composed of freshmen (true and redshirt) and sophomores, for a total of 66 underclassmen, or more than two-thirds of the 2004 team. Of the seniors -- SS Tra Boger, FS Joey Dawson, RB Gerald Brobbey, LB Wesley Heath, LB Blake Baker, DS Lane Macaluso, OG Joe Mitchell, OT Jimmy Kosienski, WR Chris Bush, WR Roydell Williams and WR Carl Davis -- eight start on the offense or defense and all will contribute.
Line Time
With four juniors and a senior now playing their third season together as starters, the Green Wave offensive line is one of the most seasoned groups on the Tulane team. The five-man unit -- senior right tackle Jimmy Kosienski, junior right guard Donald Madlock, junior center Joe Traina, junior guard Matt Traina and junior left tackle Chris McGee -- have 95 starts between them. Matt Traina and McGee have each started every game they have played in the last two years. Each of the five except Madlock redshirted their initial season at Tulane so the five have 15 combined seasons under their belts.
On the Other Hand
While experience abounds on the offensive line, the Green Wave defensive line once again will be one of the "greenest" positions on the team. A year ago, Tulane lost eight key players off the defensive line, and had to resort to moving a wide receiver and a linebacker to defensive end. In February, Tulane signed eight freshmen defensive linemen to fill the gap. Five of those freshmen worked their way onto the Green Wave depth chart during the preseason and two -- defensive end Antonio Harris out of Shreveport, and defensive tackle Avery Williams of Houston -- are currently listed as starters. In fact, Tulane has just one junior and no senior defensive linemen currently on its active roster. Junior Michael Roberts, who played in 13 games as a freshman and started seven games as a sophomore before suffering a foot injury, has not been cleared to play.
A New Crew
In four years as Tulane's starting running back, Mewelde Moore broke nearly every school and C-USA rushing and all-purpose record before missing the last three games of his collegiate career due to injury. With #26 having moved on to the Minnesota Vikings, junior Jovon Jackson and freshmen Ray Boudreaux and Matt Forte' are expected to share the load in the Tulane backfield. Jackson is the only one of the three with experience, as he backed up Moore in each of the last two years. In his first career start at UAB in 2003, Jackson ran for 183 yards on 26 carries, including an 85-yard touchdown run, the longest at Tulane since the 1993 season, that sealed the Green Wave win. Jackson finished the year with 377 yards on 82 carries and has a 4.5-yards per rush average for his career. Boudreaux is a redshirt freshman from Abbeville, La., while Forte', a rookie from Slidell, impressed during preseason camp. The backfield picture also feature Adeboye "Ade'" Tuyo, a true freshman from Houston.
Next
Tulane begins a three-game September homestand by playing host to Florida A&M in the inaugural Emerald Coast Classic at the Louisiana Superdome. Kickoff for the regional match-up is at 6 p.m. The Green Wave opens Conference USA play Sept. 18 versus Louisville in the Superdome.
