Refuse To Lose!

Turn that frown upside down Greenies! And go light candles at a statue for Saint Sebastian.

If our prayers stay strong: we'll get to celebrate Kwanzaa or Hanukkah in sunny Orlanshreve Bocaport!

Woot!

Sweet baby Jesus on a Kingcake, how sad was our mid season skid? Here we were 3-3 and all full of ourselves that losing is for losers and then WHAM-O! October hit and FIU decides to recruit Juco's we can't recruit, Middlewest Coast Florida Commuter College had its way with us, Memphis takes Sean Wilson's brother away from us, and ChickfilA University gets their only conference win and ruins yet another fabulous annual Tulane Homecoming tailgate.

Like sand thru our fingertips, bowl eligibility was becoming a distant and faint figment of our imagination. I mean, cmon my homecoming dress was so cute (from Red Bubble, link)! Me snagging a picture with Griff at Homecoming.

But Tulane being Tulane will manage to come up with new and fascinating ways to lose homecoming. Ay-yay-yay!

This year we false started ourselves (!!!) at the 14 yard line and then added a cherry on top by missing a routine field goal. Ahhhhhhh!

Vegas even had us favored in the Cincy game! And we STILL couldn't get it together. We legit missed the field goal by more than the actual distance of the field goal. The goal post was like 30 yards, and the kick sailed like 40 yards left almost whirling around and landing over in the Press Box.

I exaggerate, but Quelle disappointment!

Coach Hullabaloo and I went and drown our sorrows at the new shake place in Riverbend called Shake Therapy. We both put on 20 lbs with our shakes.

These shakes are out the box, no?

Anyways, the following week for ECU game Coach Hullabaloo went on a bromance honeymoon weekend with his Marine Corps buddies, and so I listened to the game on the radio app. I swear I turned the game off like 3 times in complete aggravation. Pushing the off/stop button forcefully and shoving my phone away, like I AM SO SO SO DONE WITH YOU TULANE!!!!

But then Our Divine Lady of Goal Line Stands totally came thru in Overtime! What!! I was never more relieved to get this text.

So my "drown my sorrows" drive thru Atomic Burger and milkshake turned into a celebratory feast listening to the post game interviews and lol-ing at the meltdown on the pirates twitters and online fan forums.

Glorious!

So last week being our final tailgating of the season with my favorite Greenie Gals, I decided that whatever will be, will be. I secretly hoped for a miracle win to extend our season, but resigned myself to our season ending early and just enjoying our final invitation to party in the suite.

But it turned out to be the best football weekend ever!

We got to share the suite experience with some of our favorite Greenies, including Mr Campus Connection. Everyone go shop there for black friday! The whole store is 25% off. Shop at Campus Connection

I was nervous about wearing this lucky gameday dress and giving it loss juju. I wore this one for the game where we got bowl eligible our Bowl Wave season. But lucky dress totally came thru! Hallelu!

Twerk!

Did you know Coach Scelfo is Houston's O-line coach? lol. omg Coach Scelfo can't even beat Tulane, what. Also, Major Applewhite is from Bataan Rouge which made this win extra delicious!

And how about Terren Encalade?! Westbank, holla!

Anyways, when we held Houston with minutes left, forced them to punt and then made the first down to where we could kneel it out, I am TELLING YOU I was STILL a nervous wreck and prayed prayed prayed during the kneeling. Please lord, don't fumble the kneel. Please lord, not a penalty. Please lord, let this be true!

In hindsight, I should have known things would be alright when I ran into Coach Pierce in Glazer Club. Coach Winner McWinnerville himself, yes!!! I was so excited to see him and chat. I neglected to have my phone on me to capture the moment for posterity, but at halftime his wonderful wife came to find me and we had us a gab fest!

I just LOVED catching up with her and wishing them a fun vacay weekend in Nola. I told them how much we miss them and his staff and their families. Oh but if only we could find a pot of gold to pay Texas-sized salaries. Sigh.

Anyways, it was awesome that they still hold us fondly in their hearts. And that they came to support Coach Fritz even tho Coach Pierce is himself a UH cougar.

We were so lucky to have them while we could. I mean he knows first hand the crap UH likes to pull to try and win games out from under us.

This past game UH brought their whole band, and they proceeded to play loudly over our offense! lol Parker Waters capturing this moment:

The Cooters always gonna try to cheat, like call for a late hit on our quarterback Joe Kemp to break his collarbone and never apologize, but yet lie and claim to have apologized.

Par example - during Coach Pierce's last season when we needed to beat them to move to the #1 seed in conference, they stopped the baseball game for inclement weather, shoved all of the Tulane team and Greenwave fans into a gym, making us ask for permission to use the bathrooms, and meanwhile the UH baseball team did batting practice between rain squalls.

Chutzpah.

Well, this time we got to take one for the good guys!

And I just loved this lady whoever she is.

I'm a big fan!

And then to cap off the weekend - as if it couldn't get any better - Coach Hullabaloo and I went to the Saints vs Redskins game at the dome with our favorite Shockwave and her mom who are Redskins fans.

What. a. game that was! I was equally happy that Ryan Grant had that monster touchdown for the Redskins. I had not had that much fun watching a comeback win since our Superbowl season.

When we started the drive that tied the game I actually had to go to the little girls room! Coach Hullabaloo wanted to kill me! And when Alvin Kamara bobbled the catch into the endzone the entire dome actually SHOOK and I almost got knocked off the pot by the reverberation. I am serious!

Anyways the NFL Boycott has been such a blessing for us. I hope the idiots who burned their tickets and what not continue to stay away and keep their juju away from our team. We haven't lost since! Hurray for the boycott!!

And meanwhile in Greenwave Nation everyone is trying to plan to sneak away to Dallas to cheer our Greenies on to our 6th W that we desperately need to get a bowl. Coach Hullabaloo are already in Dallas with our Tulane gameday boots packed and ready to go. We are currently enjoying getting pampered by my parents and sleeping soundly with bowl dreams, resting up for the final stretch.

If you can't come, please: rally your rally cap at home, do not wear charcoal colored clothes, light a candle to Saint Sebastian, and do not wear purple drawers or something equally bad.

We can't wait for Saturday and to report back on how things go either way. Cross your fingers Greenies!

La Pesadilla En La Souwesera

Coach Hullabaloo and I had fitful sleep last night processing how much this game sucked and how awful it is as a Tulane fan to be here in this space again. There are not enough chicken empanadas or shrimp mofongo in the world to mitigate our disappointment.

This is us smiling and excited before the game, completely naive about the slaughterhouse we were being led to.

Coach Hullabaloo said he was screaming at players all night in his sleep. A veritable "Pesadilla" of a night in Southwest Miami (i.e. La Souwesera).

After the game, we drove out to Dolphin's stadium up to a drive-in Sonic, and had us some milkshakes chock full of everything bad for us and cried in our milkshakes.

That game! Completely wretched. Unacceptable. Unforgiveable. Unseemly. Unfortunate. Unworthy. Unbefitting.......Just all of the opposites of "Magnificent".

We just can't win at a directional school in Florida. Or on the Road. Or when favored by Vegas. or after two wins in a row. College Gameday complimented us on our white travel unis on national television, and then just look at what we did with that honor!

Giving credit where credit is due: FIU took UNC's really dumb decision to discard a truly great coach in Butch Davis and is letting Coach Davis rehabilitate his career at their expense. And it makes them look great in the meantime. Kudos to FIU. More on them in a bit.

By the way, about Coach Hullabaloo: We had to explain this weekend that he is not, in fact, an actual Coach. And this time to actual players families lol! So a PSA reminder: Us calling him "Coach" was a joke among our tailgating friends from when Toledo was denied budget to hire a real Special Teams coach, and surprise (!) our Special Teams sucked. So we proclaimed my husband our special teams "coach" at Toledo's last UCF game in Orlando (which we lost. See, a game in Florida). Coach Hullabaloo just happened to be excited to have sideline passes that game so he bought one of the same golf shirts and visors that the other coaches wore, and that's how Coach Hullabaloo was "born".

I can't begin to tell you how many people I've had to correct. Even actual Tulane University personnel.

Anyways, Coach Davis - as top notch coaches will do - had his staff break down our film and prepared his team for us as their next opponent: which was to throw the ball on us, and also to just jump over through our tackles.

I was mildly frustrated with these issues for our loss against Navy, and couldn't understand fans who were upset that we lost against Navy - saying that was a game we should have won. I can say I never thought that, I thought we played poorly. But then we caught OU asleep that first quarter, and we had just demolished an FCS team, and then we miraculously got past Army, and Tulsa laid an egg. And of course everyone got swept up in the wonderfulness that was now Greenwave Nation, and we forgot that we have these nagging issues that someone was waiting to pounce on, and well, congrats FIU and Coach Butch Davis for pouncing on them.

During our high, I was able to convince Coach Hullabaloo that it was safe to start traveling to away games again and so we threw caution to the wind and booked this trip to Miami. I had even started buttering him up for a trip to Memphis, which is now most definitely off the schedule for us.

Granted I am most probably the most worthless play by play analyst ever, so take my thoughts on this however you please. Coach Hullabaloo bought me the book "Take Your Eye Off The Ball" for Christmas one year and I got through about two chapters before I fell asleep, or gave up, or decided that twittering my opinions about football and politics was more fun.

Bottom line, we played like crap. We had a tiny sliver of glimmer when we noticed this hurry up placard on the sideline.

Coach Hullabaloo didn't bring his glasses and he said, look: a witch riding a banana. I fell out laughing. Our Lady of Witch Riding A Banana.

During those few plays we were actually doing something, and then Banks fumbled the ball and that was pretty much that. Stick a fork in us.

Coach Hullabaloo was screaming when we started running out of innings, everything from that our QB and probably the team must have violated curfew and gone out last night, and a few other things. I don't think it was that nefarious, I'm giving the team the benefit of the doubt. But what I do want answers on is: Why did we come out after the half without any adjustments? Will we ever have a passing game that doesn't result in a sack, a fumble, or an interception? Why did we need to stick with Banks until the bitter bitter end? Did we tell the guys to keep tackling low? Will we get to see Witch Riding The Banana again?

One play that is forever ingrained in my PTSD Tulane memory that was just outright embarrassing was at Southern Miss in Hattiesburg one year during the Toledo era. That game was so awful that Andre Anderson beat his head against the lockers so loud that you could hear him screaming during the post game show. It was traumatizing. So the play that stuck with me there was a pass to the endzone, our wide receiver was in front of the corner covering him. As our WR jumped up for the ball, the corner stood behind him and just pulled his arms right down. And then caught the pass for an interception. It was just so completely ridiculous, and stupid easy, and something that looked like it could have happened on a playground. We were so in over our heads.

Well, now the same sort of stupid naive thing happened to us last night on one of Bank's interception plays. Our wideout ran a sideline route, Banks was signaling to him, even I could see that's where the throw was going, so the corner just pushed our wideout out of bounds. Just like that. No respect given.

After showing up at OU, I thought we were stepping forward. But last night we just wilted. Even with the return of the twister mat.

Anyways, I'm done talking x's and o's on that. May we never ever see that again. I want a jazz funeral for shitty embarrassing losses.

(I asked Coach Hullabaloo if he thought it was ok for me to say shitty loss on the internet, and he said he characterized it as such. So there. It's out there).

So saving the best for last - the things that made me glad I went to this heaven forsaken game in La Souwesera of Miami. Souwesera is the Cubanification of the words Southwest Area by the way.

Visiting FIU's campus. I actually enjoy scouting out opponent campuses. I love college life, and I love seeing how it is done across our great country. Even though the Sweetwater area of Miami where FIU is located has all of the charm of Airline Highway, they are actively pouring a ton of capital into the campus and the new buildings coming up are actually quite impressive.

I just LOVED this new dorm row area that routes right into the stadium. They paved the streets with panther paw prints, look how cute!

The rest of campus reminds me of UNO. Suburban, a little barren and impersonal. But I give FIU a B for effort on uping the ante.

FIU's stadium was actually a soccer stadium and then they did some improvements to accommodate boosters with chairbacks and some suites up top. All of the metal was covered on the outside with full color printed tarp. It's not actually solid. Riccardo Silva Stadium totally reminded me very much of my days of yore growing up going to Friday Night Lights games at Plano Senior High in Texas.

Their hype video was off. the. chain. It was Miami vice-ish, with shots of the team on the beach, shots of yachts in Miami's harbor. Nevermind that FIU is in the middle of the ghetto, but it says "We aren't pushovers, We are rebuilding"

Of course, I love Tulane's Yulman hype video. It gives me chills and makes me want to cry, it captures the essence of our city, with the music and our sentimental love of our band. But I really liked the scrappy toughness of FIUs video also and that it ends with a heart over Miami on the outline of the state shape of Florida.

I also really loved the DJ in the stands at FIU - for some reason they had him by himself in the endzone and not directly in the student section. But he kept the students and young people jamming, got their small crowd of fans stomping on the metal bleachers for third downs and such. And his intro for the game was actually really cute showing a couple of co-eds bouncing.

It was very Miami. Coach Hullabaloo would be scandalized if we did that at Tulane, as would the neighbors on Audubon Street. They'd grasp their pearls, and probably draft another IZD to outlaw bouncing and twerking at Yulman Stadium if that got put on our jumbotron.

I introduced Coach Hullabaloo to Big Fredia last year at Jazz Fest last year and he was completely speechless.

Anyways, FIU had a traditional straightlaced college band too, and a sizable dance team, pom and flag corps that were talented and kept us entertained.

Miami has no shortage of attractive people who like to perform. Their dance team was like a flock of J Lo's. They are called the "FIU Dazzlers"

I loved that they spotlighted a "Dazzler" for each game, and introduced her and her accomplishments at the university. That was very cute. We have such dedicated students who cheer and perform on gamedays at Tulane and I would love for us to incorporate a similar tradition.

I was disappointed that Riptide did not make the away game, and that our cheerleaders who traveled didn't bring any signage or cheers to lead us in "Green!" "Wave!" cheers when going for first downs and help do our part as fans to generate momentum. In continuing the theme of things going sideways for us, the TU alumni representative stood up to lead half of our fans in the Hullabaloo before the extra point. Facepalm.

I did really love this family's shirts for their Greenie by the way.

There are two very very basic rules of Tulane fandom that you expect someone at the University to review and impress upon our Greenwave Nation. The Hullabaloo goes AFTER the extra point, and we cheer our team when the team needs some mo'. We did these things at Oklahoma, so somewhere along the way in the last three home games we forgot how to do this for away games.

The food available in the concessions areas at FIU were your traditional hot dogs and such, but then they also had some latin touches like Empanadas, and cheese stuffed Arepas (although these are more rubbery chewy than the firmer fancier ones you can find at Maïs on Carondelet).

Speaking of food - Coach Hullabaloo and I ate our way through Miami. So we made the decision to just make a cameo at the Tulane Alumni tailgating and save valuable stomach room and our pocketbook for other things.

The tents for the Alumni tailgate were put in the path of the sun and tromping around on the gravel wasn't ideal. But they brought our TU brass band which was nice, and the koozies they were giving out were cute.

We got to catch up with the owner of Bruno's and say hello to a few other friendly faces.

Then we made our way over to the most wonderful Tulane football family we have met so far....

This Greenwave football family we met are Miami locals and they had all of the cuban deliciousness that you would expect at a Miami tailgate. Lechon, sanduches cubanos, plantain chips, sangria. And a folding table for a game of dominoes. And raggaeton on the car speakers. It was off the chain.

I had such an amazing time getting to meet and chat the way that Latin families do. They shared with us a whole other list of "locals" eateries to try on future trips, yummo. I also got a lesson on how to cut T-shirt with a cute open back which I am planning for my next idea for a gameday dress.

Honestly, if I can say that one positive thing about yesterdays game was getting to meet this beautiful family. This reminded me why Coach and I do what we do. Friends think we are totally loco for being Tulane fans, but then we would have never met these lovely people.

Look how precious their little super fan....

And look how cute their face placards of their son were too.

They held them up in the stands during the game, I loved it.

I am so ready to put losing behind us, and get some answers. Get some rest y'all, the rest of the season is an uphill battle.

We Spanked Tulsa!

I lied! We wound up making it to the Tulsa game last week. Woot!

Coach Hullabaloo and I had gone to London for Tulane's Bye Week. We went to support the Saints in their game against the Dolphins. It was an aaaaamazing trip.

So much fun!

Anyways, so our plan was to continue on to Orlando for the USA vs Panama men's soccer game which was on Friday before the Tulsa game. Road Warriors!

We recently became American Outlaws boosters after the last World Cup. Listen, being an AO is SO funnnnn!

This was me LOLing at a guy getting tased at the USA Jamaica game in Chattanooga last February. Good Times. I do not recommend rushing the field for USA national team soccer games.

...... But back to the Greenwave. Our soccer plans got chucked with Hurricane Nate (and USA wound up not qualifying for World Cup. devastating).

I wound up getting tickets to Glazer Club for Tulsa game, which seems to be our sweet mojo spot this season. So off we went to watch our beat down of Tulsa.

We were up at the crack of daylight for a 10am game. It was so worth it though! Can every game be a morning game please?!

Everyone in the suite bailed, so Coach Hullabaloo and I got to sit in the A/C with a glass front view of the whole game, a suite Butler who fetched us drinks, and platters of lovely finger sandwiches at my beck and call.

What. a. glorious. win! Oh my goodness, I BELIEVE!

This catch by Terren Encalade was my favorite of the game. So so so boss!

Also very exciting was getting to catch up with Coach Rick Jones who was part of the honorees for the Hall of Fame induction for this year. He is so awesome and we were so thrilled to take photos with him.

So many Hullabaloos this game - 9 Hullabaloos! And the score: 62-28! How about that?! Payback, finally!!!

I was most impressed with Sean Wilson. He was a beast on the defense line.

Also exciting thing to witness was that Coach Hullabaloo and I got to watch Coach Fritz get his 200th career win. Live and in person, and what's more is that he had this honor at Tulane University. A proud moment indeed.

Another moment: This sheet sign at the Sig Ep house on Broadway. Ha.

Oy, our greeks and their rustic attempts at gameday banners ha! We'll get there Greenwave Nation! This weekend we are in Miami for the FIU game and can't wait to report back on the campus and their football traditions. If you're a long time reader you'll know my football crush on FIU's former head coach Mario Cristobal.

Their current coach is Butch Davis so I don't anticipate that FIU will just lay down for us. I'm looking forward to a fun game!

Roll Wave Roll y'all!

ComeBANKS Win!

My made up headline for the Times Picayune front page. You like?

Except the actual front page headline is probably about how the Corndogs almost lost to Syracuse lol, and not giving us our due about our very exciting victory this weekend in Uptown New Orleans USA.

But seriously tho. Yahweh, Yussell and Miriam, that game!!! If we haven't been in THIS circle of purgatory before. Leading Army only to let it slip through our grasp, giving it one final flicker of hope, biting our nails.

Except THIS time: we win! WOOT.

Also drawing my approval: Tulane didn't cede the territory on the discussion of whose alumni and fans have the more patriotic service to our country and therefore allowing of the lenient reffing by referees. Well noted by Mrs Hullabaloo. Because call the games fair already.

We had the Anthem presented by Tulane ROTC (hello ROTC students where were you tho?! Do we really need a marketing giveaway for ROTC students to encourage your attendance?).

There was also a nice video about AD Dannen's daughter who serves. And a helmet presentation to Marine Captain Joe Kemp, he of the Wild Pelican fame.

The F15s flyover at the end of the anthem before the start of the game made me want to cry and then THE. BEST. INTRO. VIDEO (!) in the NCAA made my heart complete.

Tulane totally pulled out all the stops for this game. Bucktown Allstars at tailgating (at 7am lol and they didn't do that Corndog fight song they always do). There was even veal grillades and grits from Ralph's On The Park in Glazer Club. and Brandy Milk Punch, and a spectacular brunch spread at all the food stations. (I still miss Plum Street though. sad face.)

Did I mention we got invited to Glazer Club?

We so fancy. Me with the lovely First Lady of TU Athletics.

We happened to share the same suite as Governor John Bel Edwards. SWEET.

This is me taunting Governor with my Beat Army button from Campus Connection. It was killing him, but I told him I vote for him and support him so he graciously acquiesced to a photo op. And afterwards he dutifully reminded me that he runs again in 2019. Noted Governor, thank you for balancing the mess Bobby Jindal left behind.

Speaking of cleaning up a mess left behind.... The Wave of Yore that made a little bit of a cameo at Navy with the death by a thousand papercuts, has been hibernated. For the time being. We'll see for sure after our next most difficult games: USF, Memphis, Houston. We need to win at least two of those if we have any chance of Mrs Hullabaloo packing her cute travel bags for an exciting Bowl Game trip this Christmas. Yes please!

Take it to The Banks, Dontrell Give 'Em Hell, Badie To the Bone, and Parry Uptown Ruler played lights out this game. So proud of the players.

Especially Banks who is still not recovered from landing on the ball a few weeks back.

But y'all how awesome is it to have Excited Graff back. Much more fun than Despondent Graff. His legs in this video lol

We have the best radio announcer in the NCAA. It will be hard to beat his last call when we beat Army when they shanked it wide right, but this one is a keeper for posperity as well.

After the game we met up with friends at Bruno's for postgame where we sang the fight song, chatted with other alumni lettermen, toasted to the victory, and debated which wins would put us in the Bowl column. It was glorious. Like we are a for real college town.

Anyways, during his press conference Coach Fritz said he called the Fourth Down play because he didn't want to deal with Overtime. OMG ha! Love it.

Coach Fritz also wasn't sure of our last exciting win. A decade or so he thought. I need to set that straight. Since I've been chronicling on this here blog for almost a decade.

Well, aside from our Bowl Wave season of 2013, my estimation that our win against Rutgers in 2011 was quite the nail biter with Alex Wacha catching that interception to end the game, Brock Sanders coming up with the monster first down we needed, and Joe Kemp doing that Wild Pelican play with DJ Banks. And then our win vs Houston in 2014 when Parry Nickerson also caught the game ending interception to seal the game. That game was like OMG. Houston even fired their Coach after losing to us.

Coach Hullabaloo and I joined a group of fans that went to welcome the team arriving home from Houston that night at like midnight.

See, look at us!

The wins against UTEP during the Toledo era were also very thrilling games too.

So I guess the story isn't really how few times we've won, but how our "little school that could" has managed to win when it has with so many obstacles we have to contend with that other NCAA contenders do not. And how many of you sit around waiting for something exciting to happen and then miss the excitement.

These cute students did me proud. Look how cute their meanie greenie face tattoo and their cute gameday attire.

But, to the students who missed out or were seen wearing other opponents shirts on Tulane Gamedays, and to the alumni who find excuses before jumping into the deep end of the pool:

See you for USF. Why? Because they're ranked, and their amazing QB is being coached by a Tulane Hall of Famer. And I'm bringing Cuban sandwiches to tailgate.

Happy Bye Week, my chamudis! Catch you on the flip side!