Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I mean, Trace Johnson's a winner.

We haven't seen him enough to know exactly how well he's going to process things as a true freshman, but he's a leader.

He commands respect right off the bat, and we're talking about a guy He's a son of Doug Johnson, a former Florida quarterback who still lives in Gainesville, Florida.

Before his senior year of high school, he went to Santa Margarita in California to be coached by Carson Palmer.

It was Carson Palmer's first year as a coach.

And Doug Johnson helped him win the California All-Division Championship.

I'm hoping he's not coming off the bus with the same game against Tulane, but I'm glad it's at Yeoman and not in San Antonio.

Uh, but just give me your thoughts on, on, on the, on the loss.

It, it was exactly the game I thought it was going to be.

It was the way I wrote it up, that it would come down to the end, and I thought Tulane would win because they've been better.

Even though they haven't played well this year, they've been better in close games than Army.

And they didn't win, and that's why we're gonna see a new quarterback tonight because it was right there for the taking.

In a tie game, [laughs] Destin Hill runs an absolute perfect double move route.

Um, the ball has to hit him in the hands in the end zone.

Go ahead, please.

When McClure looks like he's coming back, how do you think they split these carries up between Turner, Daniels, Lucas, and McClure?

I got no idea because Lucas is a little dinged up, too.

I mean, you could see him clearly pull up on his 74-yard touchdown run at the end.

He didn't practice at all last week during the open week.

He practiced this week.

But, you know, it looks like a hamstring or a calf type thing for a running back like him.

That could really affect him.

Definitely looked like Turner had the burst a couple weeks ago going for 200.

What do you think?

I'm not, yeah, I'm not, I'm not sure Trace is ready.

I'm not.

I think he might be.

I-- it's so hard for me to judge.

He, he definitely has the best arm on the team or the most accurate arm on the team in terms of getting the ball downfield, but does he truly know the offense? They did have to bring in [chuckles] um, they, they, like, like, they're not comfortable with him in the option portion of the offense, which they've been running three or four times a, a, a game.

They don't, they didn't really feel like he was ready for that i-i-in, in, in that situation.

Right

Give me your thoughts on the game.

Yeah, well, you know, Kansas State's just a better team than Tulane, but I'll say this.

Tulane played much better in that game than they did against Duke.

Tulane was awful against Duke.

There's no other way to put it.

I mean, it was a close game going into the fourth quarter, but that was only because Duke's quarterback was terrible in that game.

That would have been a blowout if Duke's quarterback had been able to execute at any type of a reasonable pace.

I mean, those are your playmakers.

Talk about the defense and how they perform so far.

Not well, but...

I would rather the defense be struggling after two games than the offense because that was the bigger concern going into the year.

And they played better at times against Alabama, but that wasn't good enough.

Still too many missed tackles.

And then they lost Chris Rogers, who's probably the best NFL prospect on the defense.

If he's back, it'll be late in the year is my guess right now.

And look, he's had a pretty good first two games of the season.

Was there noticed growth for Tulane from game one to game two?

Yeah, well, there had to be because that was a pathetic performance against Duke.

The final score was 17-3, and Tulane was actually only down seven with eight minutes left in the game.

But don't let that fool you.

It was just putrid.

Dillian committed 15 penalties, which is the most they've had since at least 2004.

It's hard to find records past that in terms of when they did more.

What's right now the storyline about the Tulane defense?

What did you see in that first half out of Grameon, Chris Grameon?

Yeah, he just, you know, to the naked eye, he didn't play well, but he wasn't the number one problem in the game.

But then when I re-watched the tape, when I got back to New Orleans, there were certainly some mistakes he made that cost him his job.

One, on their opening drive trying to respond to Duke Seshdown, he had Maurice Turner on a pitch on an option to the right where there was nobody on that side of the field other than a blocker.

And he elected to keep it and got like six yards when if he had pitched it, it might have been 60 yards.

Maurice Turner, who's a very calm guy, reacted immediately with his hands over his head.

And then later he ran the wrong way on third down.

Your

Did you see that?

No. [laughs] Let's just start there.

Look, again, I don't...

It's not like the guy was terrible.

It's not like I didn't see good moments in the passing game.

Um, but neither he, and for that matter Kaden Samenza, were consistent throwers.

Kaden Samenza was more accurate.

Any surprises to you on the two deep dep- depth chart as of today?

Before we get started, and I started hitting you with some questions here, tell us about how folks can find you on social media, but also what you've got coming up for us online and in the paper.

Sure.

On social media at X, it's at Gersmith, G-U-E-R Smith.

And then, obviously, NOAA.com.

If people haven't checked it out yet, you really need to read my feature on Josh Lewis doing – defensive end who's almost certainly going to start the opener against Duke because his father passed away unexpectedly last November a couple days before the Temple game and he's using that as fuel for his fire really smart young man probably going to have a terrific year for the Green Wave and it's worth your time just go to NOLA.com click on the Tulane page on that and it'll be right there right now and today I'm actually working on another interesting story just Tulane's got two defense at the other end spot, their outside linebacker spot.

We know for sure that the starter is going to be a St. Aug alum from a local St. Aug alum, which is not sure who yet because it's two guys from St. Aug. They're competing for that spot.

Jari Garner, a fourth-year player who tore his ACL a couple years ago, so he hadn't played a whole lot, but coaches have raved about his potential for years.

But if things were to go sideways

Do we know the severity of the injury? Again, look, they have a stable of running backs, but, again, he is one of the ones that was kind of being

counted on.

Right.

I mean, look, it's the one position where they can afford to lose a star.

And let's start.

I'm the charter member of the Jamari McClure Appreciation Club.

I was campaigning for him to start before last year started, and it took a long time before the coaches agreed with me.

On defense, maybe the position group that has stuck out to you the most and maybe the players that have stuck out to you the most.

Uh, just your overall feeling going into the, going into this, this season now because look, Gary, you and I talked about it, uh, nationally Tu- Tulane is being overlooked.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

No, no doubt.

I me- it, it, it, it's, I'll, I'll put it simply, it's a quietly confident bunch.

Um, they [chuckles], um, they're, they...

The, where we, where we do interviews, um, after practice every day is actually the offensive line meeting room, and they've got plastered on the door there all the low ratings of their u- unit in particular at, at, at Tulane, where Phil Steele has them like 113th out of 138 FBS teams, where Athlon's magazine has them the eighth best out of 14 in the American Conference, and some other negative comments about them.

What'd he have to say?

Again, I want you to take, first of all, on Taysom Hill's career, your thoughts on him, and then we'll get into the Alave signing.

Yeah, first, Jason Hill, obviously a tremendous career with the Saints.

This was the right, I mean, we saw he was damaged goods last year.

He had a ridiculously severe injury.

He simply wasn't even remotely the same player that he'd ever been before, which was, I mean, you could count on him to always get the top yards.

Such a versatile player.

I like your point.

What's your feeling going into the season? Is this a team that can challenge for the American championship?

How strong do you think the American will be this year?

Well, yeah, and you know, I, [chuckles] I don't think it's going to be particularly strong.

It's so hard to tell 'cause [chuckles] um, so many teams across the country are having to totally rebuild.

But, but let me throw this, this stat at you.

Um, four teams, um, had coaches leave for, for bigger jobs in the, in the conference after the season: North Texas, South Florida, Memphis, and Tulane.

Tulane returns, I believe, six of its top 10 tacklers from, from, from last year.

Um, North Texas returns zero.

Uh, does Samanza have the athleticism to maybe again, uh, to be able to play that position for him?

Is that concerning to you?

Yeah, one, no disrespect to Doug Joubert.

Um, he's very good at his job.

I don't, I, I, I would have to do some research on that to find out whether that was true or not in terms of the lightest offensive line in college football.

But in general teams that run and they're not running the option, but that's sort of some of the background.

Will Hall has a running background.

um those teams tend to have like they have lighter offensive linemen they can move um when they when they want to run that Tulane did show some of that in in in spring practice but no I'm actually to me I personally think offensive linemen have gotten too big in in college football that a lot of times when you have the big offensive linemen they can't move um and so no it it I'm

And, of course, that could get even better with, again, the Tigers still in the mix for Brewster and also Roy, right?

place

And but so I think it'll be Grameleon I I changed during the spring and But I really don't – my truthful answer is I don't think the coaches know at this point.

I think it's going to be – it truly is going to be determined by who plays better in fall practice.

And that won't determine it either.

What will really determine it is how whoever wins the job plays.

in the first couple of weeks.

And there is a dark horse, Johnson, the son of Doug Johnson, who I covered for four years at the University of Florida.

Check out all your fantastic work and what you've got coming up for us online and in the paper.

How does Ron Hunter feel about his transfers, about this class coming in?

You know, every coach feels good about his group, but he was sort of honest about it.

Look, First of all, coaches are always going to say they like their class.

My honest opinion is I have no idea, but I really have no idea how this class is going to pan out.

But I do like the approach that Tulane took.

They basically used the Tulsa model.

from, I believe, a 13-20 team in 2024-25 to a 30-18 this past year and finished second in the American.

Again, has he come full circle on that

Anything new with Tulane that you'd like to report? Football, basketball, baseball, anything going

on? I don't think we addressed it on the last – David Harris addressed the fans in a letter, which – where his kind of end-of-year report and two paragraphs that definitely caught the most attention from Greenway fans was the one where he said that he recognized that baseball needed help, but that they needed money.

The way to do that was to give money to Tulane.

That was not particularly encouraging in terms of the administration increasing scholarships by any significant amount on that front.

And that was certainly the way a lot of fans took it when they read it.

Despite Tulane's incredible history in baseball, it's the hardest sport for Tulane to win in right now.

Because if you're not increasing scholarships, the cost of enrollment is huge.

It is tone deaf on the part of the Tulane administration to not understand what baseball means to their fans.

And David Harris can't control that, again, when it comes to that.

Yeah, I mean, David Harris, he's going to be tied.

People can start judging him when we see how the football team does this year and next year.

Because, again, he hired John Sumrall.

Now, that was the easiest hire in the world.

He had just taken the job when he got to Tulane.

But he did hire John Sumrall.

Look, obviously, they will go as far as their quarterback takes them, but as you look at this roster, are there glaring weaknesses?

Gary, because Iseo had dual roles, again, in recruiting and also the pitching coach, do you think they separate that going forward and have two separate coaches that will deal with that?

Yeah.

It depends on who – there was no signed duties.

It's just that that was what Anthony is.

It was a people person.

He really relates to high school kids.

He's a really good motivator.

for so much.