Is this the week?
Is this the week Tulane football gets off the schnide and picks up a win?
It’ll be a calendar year Saturday that the Wave last won a game. The last time the team led a football game was in early October of last season. Yes, it’s been a very long time since Tulane tasted anything other than defeat.
The 2009 campaign has started out with losses to Tulsa and nationally ranked BYU, the Cougars were ranked 9th at the time. Saturday, Tulane battles McNeese St in the Superdome. It’s the first time the schools will play one another.
The Green Wave are coming off of a bye week and who’s in the midst of a ten-game losing streak still is trying to keep his spirits high.
“Obviously we softened up BYU for Florida State, there’s no question. We probably did the same thing with Tulsa because Oklahoma beat them to,” joked Toledo as he opened up his weekly chat with the media on Tuesday. “I’m tired of softening up people for other opponents. We’re going to have to take care of our own business.”
Toledo may still have his sense of humor but the losing streak is wearing his patience thin. During the bye week, Toledo pulled the team off the practice field due to what he deemed as a lack of effort. “The fellas really didn’t want to practice on Wednesday, so I decided to give them the last half of practice off. I didn’t want to wear them out, didn’t want them to get hurt, wanted to save their legs a little bit for the game,” said a sarcastic Toledo of his decision.
In fact, the losing streak, coupled with the lack of success this season has Toledo making changes. A pair of freshman guards will replace upperclassmen and make their first collegiate starts. Quarterback Joe Kemp has been put on notice, and told freshman Ryan Griffin will be ready to go if the Wave offense doesn’t produce.
“What we’ve told Kemp is hey you’re the quarterback, but now you need to start winning some football games for us. The sign of a successful quarterback is to get across the white strip, and score points, and win. And we haven’t been scoring points and we haven’t been winning,” said Toledo. “It’s not all on him obviously, but he needs to start performing better and he knows that. If he doesn’t, then Ryan Griffin will be given a chance.”
COWBOYS NO JOKE
McNeese St maybe a division below Tulane, but by no means are they a weak opponent. “We need to respect our opponent because they got a lot of good football players. And you know, what have we done? We haven’t beaten anybody yet. They’re 3-0, we’re 0-2,” Toledo said.
The Cowboys are 3-0 and coming off a 56-0 win over Savannah State, a game in which McNeese scored 28 first quarter points. “I think we could score that many points in a month,” Toledo said of the Cowboys win last week.
A pair of solid seniors leads the Cowboys from Lake Charles on offense. Quarterback Derrick Fourroux and running back Toddrick Pendland. Fouroux has passed for 678 yards already, tossed for seven touchdowns to go with only two picks. Toledo compared him to Tulsa’s quarterback from the start of the season.
Pendland is the Cowboys leading rusher and receiver. In fact, he leads the nation in scoring with a 15-point average per game. He’s also the nation’s third leading rusher, averaging 127 yards per game. “He’s a guy you got to take away,” Toledo says of Pendland. “We’ve got to contain him, try not to let him catch a lot of balls and make a lot of long runs on us.”
