Clash of the Citronauts

photo credits to Nola Dave of wavefootball.com. And a Citronaut, in case you didn't know, is the original mascot of UCF when it was known as FTU. Citronauts! lulz!

Just in time for the NEXT gameday, I am finally writing about the last game! Think of this as a Wave Chat newsletter. Better late than never, amirite?

So yes! Holy shitballs, we won last week. Even Baby Warren was shocked.

I know, I know. Mrs. Hullabaloo was the worst! Didn't think we had it in us. I owe Fear the Wave a gallon of daiquiries, which I am happy to pay. I hadn't seen that defense since circa 2013. Even Jeff Duncan noticed.

Even wrote an article and everything. Why thank you!

Anyways, aren't wins so much more fun than losses? Especially when we got to lay the wood on UCF. 10 years of karma payback was deeeeelicious!

George O'Leary has run up the score on us with his first team year after year after year. He would go for 2 when he was up by 40 points just because he could. And so now the UCFers all be like "Fire GOL!" all over the interwebbs. I laugh in your general direction!

Coach Hullabaloo and I have rewatched the game now thrice at home. Partly because we missed so much of it trying to get settled at Yulfogelmevlin the day of the game. We just don't appreciate how good we have it, we are terrible. We've decided that when we win the powerball our first order of business is donating The Lewis Family Elevator, because one elevator just does not cut it.

And then we are going to start packing flasks of Hot Chocolate because since whenever it gets cold either at Turchin or in Yulfogelmevlin that is the exact moment in time that Tulane decides it's optimal to hide and banish all of the warm beverages to the most remote and nether recesses of the stadium. So Coach Hullabaloo had to go over the river and through the woods and completely around the stadium to locate me a tiny cup of hot chocolate and then wait in the Elevator line. It took him a whole quarter to locate me some hot chocolate, so he missed Marshall Wadleigh's (who?! lol) fake punt and almost missed the Nickerson-Allen combo strip/return.

At halftime we went back to slum it in our old digs in Section 102 to get out of the wind. Except that with all my complaining about just having a WOW wing stand down there last season, now they punished poor 102 even further and took that Wings stand away entirely. Teach me from complaining. Now in order to get wings or any other sustenance you have to take a slow boat to China for that too. Why God, why?!

Anyways, at the very beginning of the game when the pace and play calling was getting yawn-worthy, Tyronne Power and I were texting each other and he made me laugh, laugh like a clown. The Wave was not showing us anything sexy as far as our offense and UCF was doing even worse. We were stuck at 7-7 and then special teams gaffes started coming, the penalties started happening, we were at 3rd and 26 and Coach Price be calling in UptheMiddleTM and little bitty screen pass small ball into traffic. I was like Oh, Green Pelicans, Here We Geaux Again. At that moment Tyronne texted me "Apparently Maine was horrendous"

LOL. Lawd, I laughed and laughed. I even showed the text to a former letterman I'll call Mickey Mantle that I was sitting with. Mickey Mantle lol'd too.

And then low and behold The Hair (what I'm calling Marshall Wadleigh) faked the punt for a first down.

Pixie Dust got thrown on the field. Where'd this team come from? There was even a 700% improvement in sacks from our last game. Can this team stay a while please?

Later When Nickerson stripped the ball, Tyronne texted me to share that he was sitting next to the UCF section. One of their obnoxious fans was recording their Citronaut running towards the endzone with what UCF fans thought was going to be a score. And when it turned out not to be, another Tulane fan nearby asked obnoxious UCF guy if he could have a copy of the video. ha ha! Obnoxious UCF fan told Tulane fan to F himself. Yes! Those Citronaut fans are like that, very crude and can't take a joke.

I screen captured the strip in slow motion for posterity. I just need Graff's audio to make the memory complete.

Anyways, despite that we still had yet another Picarelli punt blocked in the 4th quarter, I very much enjoyed the following moments of the game:

Corey Redwine recovered a fumble, way to go big guy!

Rae Jean Marbley getting in a takeaway

Royce LaFrance with a huge game!

And of course, the aforementioned highway robbery by Nickerson and Allen captured above which was the highlight of the game.

But not to be missed in mentioning, was our early morning tailgate which I enjoyed for a nice change of pace.

Our theme was Carnival/Disney which we had to adjust for it being a breakfast thing, but I did make these cute donut hole/oreo cookie Mickey Mouse ears and put these cute cut outs in our centerpiece.

Tequila and Perry Mason brought homemade bloody mary fixings and quiche which were delish. Peggy brought Mimosa fixings. We had a potluck breakfast feast of bagels, lox, yogurt, asparagus, hashbrown casserole, and conecuh sausage. I made a pretty tasty Spiked Coffee. Recipes are below.

Perry Mason would like it noted that Zing Zang simply has ruined, just ruined, the state of Bloody Marys in New Orleans. He is outraged about this and preaches about it to anybody who will listen. So despite the fact that he is completely offended that I love Zing Zang, I managed to talk him into sharing with us his personal Bloody Mary recipe, which I actually enjoy very much.

Perry's Proper Bloody Mary Mix
1/2 Clamato Tomato Juice (clam broth+tomato)
1/2 V8 juice
Your choice of garnishes and vodka

And this was the star of the show - Gailicious' Hashbrowns
2 Lb. freezer bag of "Southern Style" hash brown taters or tater tots
½ C Butter
smidge salt n peppa
dash of nutmeg
1 can cream o' chicken soup
2 C. Grated cheese (2/3 pepper jack, 1 1/3 plain colby jack)
½ C. chopped onion
2 c sour cream
1 cup crushed pork rinds (!)

Pour out hash browns in a 9 x 13 pan to thaw. Preheat your oven to 350. Separately sautee onions in butter in a pot with salt n pepper. Then add sour cream, soup, and cheeses all together in the pot until melted and mixed together. Spread on top of potatoes, which have been thawing and sprinkle a dusting of nutmeg over the potatoes. Toss the crushed pork rinds on top and bake for 45 mins. Garnish with parsley flakes or chopped green onions. Or keep mixture in the fridge overnight and bake before taking to tailgating. And then serve yourself the yummy crispy edges in the pan first before everyone else gets to them. and OMG the pork rinds! Who knew? delicious.

Spiked Coffee
6 shots of Butterscotch Schnaaps
12 cups of Brewed Coffee
1/2 cup of Creamer
Can of ReadiWhip

Ok, this is really hard. Brew your coffee (I just used regular ole folgers) and pour into a thermos to keep warm. You could be fancy and use good coffee. Add half a cup of plain creamer. Add the shots. When you serve a cup, top with ReadiWhip. If you want to be way fancy you could put some chocolate shavings on top. I added one of my cute pompom stirrers.

Stay Hungry for Wins Greenwave Nation! Let's go out and get more of these!

Bragging Rights

> > > > WE BEAT AN FCS OPPONENT!! < < < <

photo by Nola Dave of wavefootball.com)

-> Cut to Rick Dickson doing a Tebow in the Glazer Club (and Imagining the possibilities if we play an entire FCS schedule, or at least maybe reconsider to go get back in CUSA where we are most "similar".) TPTB SO be all Oprah on us if they figure out how to get us in the FCS: Wins for you! and you! Wins for errbody!

Ha Ha, I know. I know. I'm the fan of the worst kind. The kind with high expectations.

I'll tell you things I liked. I did really like this intro that ESPN did for the televised game. They showed Mr. and Mrs. Greenwave Mobile's wheels too!



I loved the little Boy Scouts with the big ole flag for The Anthem. Especially the little ones that got caught up in the undertow during the unfurling and were later seen crawling out underneath. So Cute!

Coach Hullabaloo was mightily perturbed about the student behavior during The Anthem at the first home game and went over to stand in the student section yesterday to monitor the signing of The Anthem as his civic duty. Once a Marine, Always a Marine.

And then I was also very impressed with Sherman Badie. Photo by Nola Dave of wavefootball.com)

Anyways, despite the score we still needed to remind everyone that this is still Tulane here we are talking about, ha ha! and so we had some signature touches in effect at the game.

First off, some pretty horrid officials (what is up with that?! are we like a magnet for sketchy officials?!) That was NOT a touchdown on the opening possession, and that Maine returner DID have contact with the ball! The officials were wretched! And then as a last minute finale, we also had us a botched play fumble something or another in the 4th quarter.

Ta Da!

Am I over the start to the season? Um, hell to the no. Never. I plan to annoy everyone with my opinions til the end. or until my team gets its act together.

So.......lemme tell you: in addition to getting a bunch of compliments about my super cah-ute top by Lo+Jo Bands (see, how cute!)

I also got an EARFUL from all across the spectrum of Greenwave Nation. Some were "Thank you for that letter you sent to President Fitts, I hope they hear you" (yeah right after this glorious win over Maine, all is considered right according to plan by TPTB). But THEN I also got the skinny from some flies on the wall with big ole ears in the locker room. Let me just say this: I worked in Washington DC and I am not naive to how the backroom deals work. The backroom is in full effect at the Tulane University Greenwave. Oh yes.

Sigh.....

Anyways, another annoyance was that apparently our University's public relations image would be lagging if Rick Dickson did not do yet another Katrina segment during his halftime interview on ESPN. Yes during a game about Military Appreciation wherein he did not say a word about thanking the military or even Tulane ROTC. Major Eyeroll. I'm presuming he's getting in some practice time to polish off his stump speech for the 11th Anniversary of Katrina.

During the interview he quoted his statistics he's spinning to the Board at this moment to show our marked improvement. We've tripled the number of televised games under his tenure! Isn't that Fantastique? Well, how about these statistics: since joining the AAC and being blamed for the implosion of the Big East, Tulane’s record against FBS opponents is 2 wins, 11 losses. That's after our miracle final season in CUSA when a corner turning had been declared.

So today I am sure that TPTB had them some celebratory oysters at Clancy's.

Listen, I am positively thrilled that Fitts got to savor a victory hullabaloo in a Tulane locker room. He looks happy and the team looks happy. And that makes me happy.



But I won't stop hoping, praying, and prodding that Fitts gets to like post-game wins enough, being as that there have been exactly 3 during his two year tenure, that he up and starts asking questions about how this college football thing works. Let's get us some more victory locker room moments worthy of Vince Gibson or Bennie Ellender's memory. Against real opponents.

I'll even take some ponderings on how Tulane can make ourselves more "similar" to average FBS opponents. So when the "similar to us" excuse comes up again we are talking about what our team and fans deserve.

So speaking of celebratory food, Coach and Mrs. Hullabaloo got to go to Glazer Club. Yes! they actually let us in and we didn't get bounced!

After the start of the season went the way it went, comp tickets were available in droves. So we scored some and I got to see what all the fuss was about.

I'm not so much into the Glazer Club, no. It's totally not conducive to actually paying attention to a football game and what is happening beyond the sound proof windows. It's all about the socializing. No wonder those Board people don't give a flip if we play like crud.

There are a bunch of buffets and bars set up everywhere and big screens. But no desserts! Since I don't eat a lot of junk so I can save room for the important stuff, the only thing I was able to nibble on were the wings. And they were cold and not as good as my favorites from Five Happiness.

Coach Hullabaloo said the cochon de lait sandwiches were comme ci comme ca, but that the hot dogs looked scary (and he loves him some hot dogs). He did enjoy the free beer, and I enjoyed the A/C AND using a little girls room that had proper lighting - which is unlike the ground level powder rooms that have like one naked light bulb so that you are in the stall tinkling in the dark.

Anyways, so back we went up to Westfeldt Terrace where my favorite Cookie Monster ice cream purvyed by Creole Creamery can be purchased. Access to the Creole Creamery stand is worth the $500 TAF donation IMO we made to get tickets in Westfeldt.

I did enjoy shopping the souvenir shop inside Glazer and picked up this new cap that my manpie Marine Coach Hullabaloo needed for his collection of Tulane baseball caps.

And then earlier in the day we had a blast at tailgating with our krewe of peeps. Our theme was Maine food, and we had "Poutine" which is a tradition from Maine. It's basically potato chip nachos with roast beef n gravy with cheese. Except we also offered shredded duck, in addition to roast beef and with assorted toppings.

And to round things out (you know me, all about the themes) I ordered these "whoopie pies" from Wicked Whoopies of Maine. They were absolutely delicious.

Whoopie Pies are basically moon pies, but better. I will knock over children to grab moon pies at Mardi Gras.

Also in the photo was this blueberry beer from a Maine brewery called Sea Dog that was at Fresh Market. Coach Hullabaloo loves Tin Roof Brewery and so we decided to give this Gameday IPA a try since it was in a green can. And it is delicious and perfect for for our Skip&GoNaked recipe which is always a hit.

I also made a lobster dip, brussel sprout slaw, and a maple onion jelly using products by Stonewall Kitchens which is from Maine (ah! Themes!). Preparations are below (I can't call it recipes, because total cheating and shortcuts happened here).

LOBSTER DIP
Can of Lobster Bisque from Fauchon (a fancy schmancy store in Paris)
Stick of room temperature cream cheese
handful of ground parmesan cheese
Finely chopped half a red bell pepper
Finely chopped white part of Green onions (to taste)
a smidge of finely chopped red onion
a few dunks of Worcestershire sauce
Salt

Mush everything together and serve with Ritz Crackers, or another type of butter cracker. Also good with fresh red bell pepper strips.

BRUSSEL SPROUT SLAW
half of a bag of brussel sprouts finely chopped
couple green onion spears chopped
quarter red onion chopped
handful chopped pecans (roasted or not, no matter)
quarter chopped green apple (chopped)
salt and peper to taste
half a dunk of Stonewall Kitchens Maple Balsamic vinaigrette
tablespoon whomp of Stonewall Kitchens Maple Bacon aioli

chop up the veg, whomp the wet ingredients, sprinkle seasonings. lovingly toss together. and voila!

MAPLE ONION JELLY DIP
Half a portion of Stonewall Kitchens Onion Garlic jam
Equal half a portion of Stonewall Kitchens Maple Bacon aioli

Swirl it all together, serve with pretzel sticks in a cute bowl.

Now, my Greenwave friends. One word of wisdom. Don't go dropping your corndogs like Lil'General did. Coach Hullabaloo caught Lil'General taking corndogs out of Glazer Club and warned her about me finding out. He made her laugh so hard, that plop the corndog went on the floor.

WTH is Glazer serving Corndogs for anyways? I had no idea the money peeps ate Corndogs.

Oh Well, see y'all after the Bye!

The Stinger Express

Oh my goodness!!! That was the FUNNEST ass kicking in the history of Coach and Mrs. Hullabaloo chronicling our following of Greenwave Football!

Seriously, we had the best time.

Coach and Mrs. Hullabaloo hit the road from New Orleans with a group of friends and fellow Greenwave fans on an RV to Hotlanta.

I am ever thankful that following Tulane Football has brought us so many great friends into our life.

This is a photeaux of our group in front of the Georgia Tech Wrambling Wreck. On the trip we laughed, we kareoke'd, we tore. it. up. So fun!

And to add to the merriment, I also met a bunch of former lettermen, see....This is me with Avery Johnson.

And this is Mrs. Hullabaloo with Gary Brown. He's showing off his Liberty Bowl ring.

It was awesome to see, especially being that bowl rings are so scarce and rare these days amongst our teams. Even if we do try to schedule teams like University of Guadalajara to attempt to become bowl eligible. hmmmmm, Le Sigh....

And this snapshot here - this was kinda like meeting a letterman here.

This is me with my girl I'm calling Queenie who was on TLC's "Say Yes To the Dress". I've been knowing Queenie for a few years (she has some pretty excellent taste in wedding stationers) and it turns out that Queenie has the Greenwave ALL going on in her life. Her daddy and her uncle both played for the Greenwave. Her cousin is Matt Forté (get out of town, right?!). AND she married a Greenie who played under Buddy Teevens and Tommy Bowden. Talk about Tulane pedigree.

So in order to avoid having my heart ripped to shreds watching the unwatchable, I went in to this season with zero expectation. This gameday I made my cute drink decorations and napkins, pulled out my cute gameday dress from the opening game last season. I just had me some fun shimmying to the marching band music and enjoying what turned out to be a beautiful day. Being that Tulane clearly has no interest in fielding a gameplan to like win any time soon. So I've checked out. When Eric Price announced this summer that they were trimming down the playbook again because players weren't grasping an already trimmed back playbook that hasn't worked a single season yet - I knew that this season was going to be a complete fracas.

Seriously. I am tempted to ask the band director to teach the band the Benny Hill theme song so that they can score our game vs. Uconn. Because that is going to be some kinda something that weekend

We did have a few bright spots:
(game photeauxs by Hyosub Shin for the Atlanta Journal Constitution)

Nico Marley, we are not worthy enough to deserve you.

Devon Breaux with another touchdown. I couldn't believe it when he came down with that catch. Holy Shizzles, it wasn't a shut out.

Amazing.

And we just love shockwave, they are so cute.

Anyways, lemme summarize our gameplan for Georgia Tech: Botched snap sailing over the punter's head: check, Give up a safety: check, Throw an interception: check, Fumble the ball inside the 10: check check, Catch a kick off in the endzone and run it to the 14 instead of kneeing it to start at the 25: yup, check that one off the list too. Oh, and continue to have 10 players on the field for plays. Oh ten man special, how we love you so. Except that this week it was a 9 man special. Yes, we had to call a time out because we only had 9 players on the field. #facepalm

Dear Tulane Alumni: if you left at the half and did not shoot off an angry tweet, email to President Fitts or tell Rick Dickson that the jig is up: You are Not Doing Your Part. You are feeding the machine which is Tulane Athletics which has been allowed to continue unfettered in the direction of complete disarray. We are What We Are, Because We Don't Do Anything to Stop It From Being So.

Anyways, I completely approve of playing at Georgia Tech again if they will have us.

I had a an absolute ball.

Their fans were delightful! Here is Coach Hullabaloo with his brothers he introduced himself to at the Georgia tech Delta Chi house.

The Georgia Tech stadium is so fun!

and I loved their traditions. This is the crowds parting the way for the drive of the Wrambling Wreck to the stadium

And this is the Yellow Jacket mascot crowd surfing in the student section. Loved this.

And on top of all this fabulosity: their lady fans dressed SO cute! The gameday fashions at Georgia Tech were completely opposite of some of the utterly cray outfits on display on the LBC quad. Hopefully hanging around what we should aspire to will rub off a little more. So please, please TPTB, please schedule Georgia Tech again

Thank you sir, may I have another!

"Give Me Just One Night"

Give me just one game where we do not get at least 10 holding and/or offsides penalties.....

But seriously. How about that UConn Coach Bob Diaco? mmmmmmmm...MMM!

photos by John Wioke and Parker Waters

and here's one more for good measure....

Anyways, Coach Hullabaloo laughed at me and said he looks like Nick Lachey. Which I vehemently disagree with. But that's how come I chose my title for today's blog post. It's a 98 Degrees song.

Another cutie pie that stole my heart was this puppy!

be still my heart!

....but fer real enough about puppies and hot coaches, back to the topic of this blog: football.

If I were Nick Montana or Sherman Badie I would organize a blanket party for those same players who keep piling up penalties like they were prizes. Dang all that effort to get first downs and then bam! There strike the penalty twins.

But to be completely straight up honest, I can't just blame the serial penalty-makers all on their own. The fact is that they are just part of the machine that is Tulane. And that's the bottom line. It just would not be us if we didn't include a signature something something into the mix to remind the world who we are. It's what makes Tulane special.

I mean, remember when we had that monster 2nd and 3rd quarter against Houston in 2010. We started ramming it down their throat and we're knocking at their door again, we had a first down at their 30 and could just TASTE the lead. Except that 1st & 10 ended up a 4th & 43 because of our never-ending addiction to penalties. Oy! Tulane!

Well, I am happy for the team tho. Especially getting a safety - that's two seasons in a row with a safety, y'all. Photos by Glen Andrews and Parker Waters.

Although didn't we surrender a safety to Duke? Anyways whatever, just look at the players celebrating with the students after the game ♥ (photo by Parker Waters)

Also, I just loved seeing the band go out of the tunnel. First picture is the band members doing the Hullabaloo in a circle before going out.

lol Peggy, so cute

My favorite part of the team running out on to the field is the team going over to the student section. Look at the sunset, how pretty.

And Devon Walker was our lucky charm!

And y'all the most important news of all from the game: DiRocco actually made a field goal! If I wasn't there to witness it, I would have said: noooo...you lyin'!



You haven't seen a crowd as thrilled with a field goal since Garrett Hartley split the uprights to win the NFC championship game in 2010.

So now, you can all put your suspicions away that an imposter is writing this post, because there actually were LOTS of things I couldn't resist to nitpick on. Like the broken jumbotron - umm,hello! and the Cleveland Cavs exhibition game going overtime and bleeding over into our first quarter....and omg the toilet trailers all of a sudden parked in our tailgating spot...and LAWD, the UConn fan who got picked for the dance cam prize?!! And don't even go read the @tulanealumni gameday tweets about how gamedays are like cemetaries (like what?!).

If I didn't nitpick and complain then you wouldn't know it was me LOL.

Anyways, our tailgating was still fun and I love seeing my tailgating peeps. Our theme this week was "Mystic Pizza" in honor of the movie and the actual town in Connecticut that actually has an eponymous pizza joint.

My girl Chardonnay and her man brought us some Mo's Pizza which I simply just loooooove. All yous pretentious Eastbankers who feel so self-righteous and superior that you wouldn't ever do anything so lowly as to cross a bridge, would probably faint that Westwego is the home to some mighty fine pizza. It was Patrick Ramsey's favorite pizza here in New Orleans, so there.

After you pick yourself up off the ground about the pedigree of Westbank pizza, you'll need to grab a chair for this next piece of news: I baked a cake. AND I made icing. see.

in honor of the Nutmeg State, I made a nutmeg cake with grated fresh nutmeg, and apple butter filing. The icing was like a praline royal icing and topped with chopped roasted pecans. I didn't burn anything. Although I was shocked when it came out of the oven OK, because I messed up all of the mixing instructions and my lumpy batter looked nothing like the pretty creamy version from the photos on the recipe.

We also had stuffed peppadews, hoagies, clam chowder dip, Domenica-style roasted cauliflower, Johnny Appleseed bars, and due to a funny mix up we ended up with a platter of sushi instead of lobster rolls. I loved it though, an interpretation of lobster rolls!

I also found this beer and had my girl Julie ship it to me. Two Roads Brewery for a Tu-lane game, get it? Their logo is also a VW bus. It was a good omen

Ok, so next week we are off to Florida for the UCF game. I shall be taking copious notes to see if the UCFers learned themselves some manners since our last trip to Orlando and my run in with their "Town and Gowns." Because lawd, they are something else down there.

Take care my chamudis and this one belongs to the Wave!