Tulane Football: Can Green Wave take next step in 2021?

After a string of solid seasons under head coach Willie Fritz, can Tulane Football take the next step and emerge as a conference title contender?

Tulane was once one of the harder jobs in the country and seen as a bit of a dead-end job. When head coach Willie Fritz arrived at Tulane football in 2016, he had a bit of a rough go at first. After going 4-8 in 2016 and 5-7 in 2017, Fritz has a pretty impressive run as the coach of the Green Wave, making three straight bowl games and winning two of them.

Now, it is time to see if Fritz can guide Tulane to that next step and become contenders in the AAC instead of the underdog team that nobody wants to play.

Fritz is known as a program builder and has won at some tough jobs before. After leaving Sam Houston State for Georgia Southern, Fritz guided the Eagles on their move from the FCS to the FBS level and won the Sun Belt in his first season in Statesboro. After winning the program’s first bowl game, Fritz left Georgia Southern for Tulane and has done a very solid job of building this program up. Now they just need to take the step and challenge for the conference title.

One of the things that the Green Wave needs to work on is winning the close games. Tulane lost three games on the final play and that kept their record from being better than it was. Tulane is a good enough team where they do not get blown out often, but they are having a hard time winning some of the close games.

One of the marks of an emerging team is being able to win close games and that is what this season is all about. Watch out for the Green Wave in 2021.